grading

Less than the Best Can Be AMAZING

The third quarter of the school year just ended for me. Predictably, I spent much of last week staying very late after school with kids desperate to get their grade up at the last minute. If they’re willing to do the work, I’m willing to put in the extra time.

A few different groups of kids come in. There are the kids who’ve been failing since the beginning of the YEAR, and when they find out they’ve just gotten it up to a D, they break out in the Hallelujah Chorus. There’s a similar group who get it up to a B from a C, say, “That’s awesome!” and carry on with their lives. Both groups could’ve been a whole grade higher if they’d just applied themselves more earlier.

There are also kids I’ve been working with a little longer than the past week. They get it from a D up to a B, and want to know if they can get it any higher at the last minute. In those cases, I have to try to convince them that their B is awesome, because I’ve already bent as much as I could to help them.

Then … there are the A-minuses.

Some A-minuses are easy to deal with. They’re one percent from an A, and one of my usual culprits (i.e., retake a quiz) is easily enough to bump them over.

But others are tougher. These are students who may not get math easily, so they work their tails off to get that A-minus. They should be SO PROUD of that A-minus. A line I heard more than once last week:

“It’s not good enough for my dad/mom/both parents. I’ll be in so much trouble.”

Sure, some of these kids might just be using the “blame the parents” line to get me to feel bad for them and help them nudge it up to an A. But I’ve met some of the parents at Parent Teacher Conferences, and I suspect those kids are telling the truth.

I get that parents want their kids to reach their utmost potential. I get that some kids slack off (those Bs that could’ve easily been As) and need motivation/pressure from home to get it in gear. I get that there’s pressure for getting into a good college.

I also get that if a kid works really hard, and the result of that hard work is an A-minus, that A-minus should be celebrated. It’s not “less than perfect.” It’s an amazing accomplishment.

The whole idea of grading has issues. I try to be as fair as possible, but there’s still an almost arbitrary nature about it. Should grades reflect effort, actual mathematical understanding, or a combination of both? If a combination, in what proportion? What earns an A in one class may only be enough for a B in another.

It sucks.

I hope some parents will help it suck a little less by acknowledging when less than the “best” is more than good enough.

Speak up:

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Grades Aren’t Given—They’re Earned

“Ugh, Mr. Peabody gave me a D-plus.”

“Miss Lewis, you should just give me an A.”

These are among the more annoying statements I hear in my classroom, and it’s a particular word that sets me off.

GIVE.

A lot of students have this attitude of teachers giving grades. One student said a teacher ruined their sibling’s high school graduation because of the bad grade a teacher gave that sibling in ninth grade. (It meant not qualifying to wear the fancy gold cord with the graduation regalia.)

What? Really?

Okay, I’m sure there are teachers out there who are spiteful and mean and evil. I’m even more sure there are teachers who are really difficult to learn from.

But by and large (and certainly in my case, I hope), teachers don’t give grades. Students earn them. I just do the accounting, verifying what they’ve earned.

Part of me hates that I have to grade at all. I like looking over student work to see what they understand, but I hate assigning a numerical value to it, figuring out what all those numerical values together mean and assigning a letter to that.

The students who think I give grades are part of the reason we have to use them. They only care about that letter on the report card, and in their minds (much of the time), it’s arbitrary. If I could rely on every student to learn for the sake of learning, and to commit to doing the work necessary, there’d be no need for grades.

In a perfect world … maybe someday.

For now, I’ll keep with the response I’ve been using.

“Miss Lewis, you should just give me an A.”

“Okay, I will … as soon as you earn it.”

Speak up:

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One Term Down, Three to Go

First quarter ended last Friday at my school. Naturally, the past two weeks have been filled with kids desperate to get their F to a passing grade … or their A-minus to an A. And in order to keep on top of the late work, make-up work, and occasional piece of extra credit, I set aside the quizzes that won’t count until second quarter.

This means now I have large stacks of quizzes to grade. I knew this would happen. I was aware of the consequences for my decision.

Still … it kinda sucks.

It’s okay, though. I think at least a few kids figured out that desperately trying to raise their grade at the last minute is a lot more work than just keeping up through the term. As we start the new term, I’ll try to get the message through to a few more.

Now that I’ve got my feet under me, I’m also hoping to keep things a little more organized from here.

Here’s hoping.

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