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Grading is Killing CI
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12 thoughts on “Grading is Killing CI”
Research is the key. So how do we implement it? How do we implement any good thing, we have to wobble through it until it becomes natural. Just like this CI journey.
In my children’s elementary school the second grade team gives homework, nightly. This killed my daughter who would slowly, painfully read the pages and suffer through it for an hour each night. Through tears and frustration we would work on it. Until I told her she didn’t have to anymore. I wrote on the homework packet what we did that week that supported learning: chores, visiting a museum, cooking together, etc. I was never worried about her not learning these concepts that she brought home. She loves science, loves learning new things and is a natural explorer. This was the one variable I never wanted to snuff out. Homework was killing her love of learning.
One-hundred eighty (180) research papers say elementary homework is useless and even detrimental to learning. I understood the teachers’ position, she had to fit into the Danielson Evaluation which was created from Marzano…down the rabbit hole we go… THE TEACHER WAS BEING GRADED ON IDEALS THE RESEARCH DOESN’T SUPPORT! This I believe is the crux of it. Until policy lines up with research. Until we, in good faith, fight for love of learning and human growth, grading is going to be an easy out. We need to believe educators are professionals. It takes faith to believe that someday children will get it- that it will fall in place. In many ways we’ve lost faith in children and it has caused educators to even doubt themselves. I don’t know how many times I have graded something or done something in my classroom I knew had no value but went with it anyway because it’s easier to follow the flock, to play the school game, and to look good on paper.
Thank you for your heart, Ben. I wish these conversations were allowed and encouraged in our academic world. I wish we could slaughter these sacred cows that distract us from the divine faith that allows for real education.
One current comes to mind here. She has met with me twice about how to get an A+ in my class (she daily gets 95% on her jGR). She is really frustrated that she doesn’t know how to get the A+. We recently had Parent-Teacher Conferences, and her dad came. The whole time we talked about how it’s burdening her that she doesn’t have an A+ and that she’s confused about how to get one. The dad wasn’t demanding I give her an A+, but he was concerned because it was bothering her. I’ve challenged her to think beyond the grade, to let go, and just enjoy my class. This is very difficult for her. She likes my class, but her dad says she’s distracted sometimes about the grade. I get it because that’s all the kids know; however, to your point, there are bigger things at stake: the sharing of beauty and joy for its sake, not for a competitive edge. The competition, while catering to those who thrive on it like this student, kills joy, peace, and beauty turning them into something that can be transactional. This is a fruit of utilitarianism.
I’d say just find a way to give her an A+ at the end of semester and next semester she won’t even bring it up.
She’s confused about how to get an A+.
Oy! We all have had such students. The dad is complicit. Perfectionism in my view is a symptom of mental imbalance.
What I did in this situation myself was to give them extra credit for extra work done. I’d give her the old Bloom’s grammar workbook and have her do some work on certain grammar structures for the extra plus grade.
She’ll change, of course, but not for awhile, when she’s out of school, when the needle of approval seeking is finally removed – by life – from her injured heart.
I would certainly not bring up the idea of learning for the joy of it. She wouldn’t hear that argument. Bless her heart.
School sends some crazy messages to kids. Like something bad will happen if you don’t answer all the questions correctly, or don’t win the state meet in cross country. I know that one well. Bless my heart.
Hopefully, my class is planting a seed for her. As you say, she’ll probably learn it later on in her life. When we’ve talked about it, she tries every excuse in the book why she should get a perfect grade, and she’ll admit w/out batting an eye that she’s in competition with her older sister. I want her to look honestly at her desires and what’s driving them. I want to challenge her to think critically and to see the flaws in her thinking. This will be a journey for her as it was/is still for me.
…I want to challenge her to think critically and to see the flaws in her thinking….
I don’t think that is an area you can go into. You could 20 years ago, but that may not be allowed in this new time, in my opinion. Parents seem o.k. with letting social media teach their children.
Just keep delivering the CI, and wait, and maybe one day we’ll get back to teaching the whole child. Maybe one day.
Do you mean that I ought not go into it because I could get into trouble? I know people today don’t want to be challenged anymore. I found that out in my old job. Challenging people is a personal assault on who they are. Perhaps I dodged a bullet with challenging her, and there will be no negative ramifications.
I mean it in two ways. First, I don’t think she CAN change at this point. She’s stuck. Second, it seems that right now in our country things that are good and true and honorable aren’t as important as getting all the money. This child’s currency is grades.
I agree especially because all of her other classes and her entire academic life have reinforced the idea that grades are the goal. My one conversation with her and using the Invisibles is only a blip compared to all that learned experience.
What we are doing is such a radical paradigm shift. There is literally no such thing as an A+ in acquisition! I waffle all the time with the ramifications of this in terms of the old school judgement (oops I mean grading) mentality. Over time my “inflated grades” have become even more “inflated.” I used to connect “meeting the standard” with 85% grade (our school has competencies AND numerical grades…don’t get me going on the absurdity).
I always tried to “match” the competency (standard) grade with an adequate number for numerical grade. Since I only assess (rather than grade) I use a 1-4 scale to be consistent with school requirements. So previously I was like…ok 4=95, 3=85; 2=64 (because 75 would mean passing…but they are not meeting competency, so I picked 64 to keep that consistent since 65 is passing grade); 1=50.
BUT…more and more I go back to the reality that is acquisition. A student can only show me where they are at that moment. How can I justify giving a kid 85 vs 95 on an interpretive task? They listen and show me what they understand. They read and show me what they understand.
The 95 kids shows more details, etc. But that is likely individual variation that we expect. So now I pretty much give 95 for “meeting competency” and 100 for “exceeding.” It is still super subjective. I come to the same argument with myself: how am I deciding between 95 and 100? 100 student is “exceeding” how? By more details? By their emerging output? (but then this runs the risk of kids forcing themselves to say things beyond their level just to get a better grade). So again, I am like “ok, why should they not get 100 on any interpretive task?” They cannot control their processing speed or the internal mechanisms at work in the acquisition process. They only thing they can control to any degree is their “negotiation of meaning” aka interpersonal skills –letting the speaker know when meaning is breaking down.
I’d love help clarifying my “system.” ???
Your system, jen, and your jGR (new people search that acronym), have accurately reflected what the research reveals to us as best practices in terms of assessment, for over ten years now. We’ve had some big breakthroughs here over the years, and your jGR was not the least of them. The core ideas that you express above are exactly the message re: assessment that I want our group members to know. Your idea that there is NO WAY that we can accurately measure language gains is EXACTLY what Krashen says and so must be more respected. But even among CI teachers that fact is largely ignored. So you need not analyze your system. It’s not you, it’s the big fog of irresponsibility round you. If we are not going to work for responsible bosses (i.e they know the research and try to help us to implement it) then what can we do? We can’t serve two masters. My master is the research, so the bozos around me won’t receive anything from me.
……more and more I go back to the reality that is acquisition. A student can only show me where they are at that moment. How can I justify giving a kid 85 vs 95 on an interpretive task? They listen and show me what they understand. They read and show me what they understand….
This is poetry. How indeed can we measure acquisition? We can’t. End of story. The internal challenge for us who know the research is to rise above our tendency to lash out at such ignorance, bc if we really think about it, we are dealing with power being in the hands of insane people. That’s not good. That’a real bad.