We live in interesting times when teachers write defensive letters to the editor about their decision to assign grades to students:
When I begin the school year, I ink my students' names into my grade book. There's nothing else on the pages yet –- no checkmarks, no alphabet letters, no percentages. But pretty soon we'll be filling things in.
It's a pretty straightforward arrangement. I teach, the student does his work, and I evaluate how much he's learned based on what his work shows me. I sum up my assessment of his work on his report card. For most of us, it's also an acceptable arrangement.
Unfortunately, many reformers aren't thrilled with the process. Of course, they feel the same way about other familiar features of public education like blackboards and Socrates.
One typical critic describes grades as a "club" and "a chance for teachers to give students a little payback." He condemns the work grades are based on as "random" events that only "occasionally" provide a "true reflection of what a student can do." He says he knows this from experience. The scary part is he's a college professor, and the experience he's talking about includes grading his own students.
Assigning grades is "payback"? I suppose actually teaching is "infringing upon students' rights" as well? Just what does this professor - who unfortunately is not named - think his students get from him if he doesn't believe in lowering himself to tell them how they're doing in his class?
I've given lots of tests and assigned lots of essays myself. Sometimes the questions I ask don't tell me what I need to know about what kids have learned. That's when I re-think and re-word them. Sometimes the answers warn me that my students haven't understood what I tried to teach them. That's when I go over the material again. Keeping track of their progress is why I listen to them in class and ask them if they think they've understood what we're discussing...
Letter grades are shorthand. An A is supposed to mean you've done outstanding work. A B means good work, and so on down the line. In addition, the effort grades which many schools provide give parents a reading of how hard their kid is working. No, the comments I add won't answer every parent's every question. That's why I keep a folder of their child's work. It's why I meet with parents and reply to their notes...
Critics propose a bouquet of enlightened alternatives, from student-teacher private chats to closing school for a week every quarter so teachers can write truly in depth comments. Some experts still cling to portfolios, a recent spectacular failure, while others recommend resurrecting pass/fail grading, the 1970s folly from which standards and student achievement have yet to recover.
Letter grades don't tell a student's whole story. And they don't hit the bull's-eye every time. But letter grades aren't why public education's in trouble. Besides, we've already got enough information about how well kids are learning. That's how we know we've got problems.
The letter writer is a teacher at Weathersfield Middle School in Vermont. What I find most interesting about all this is that you could replace "letter grade" with "test score" and the letter would still flow pretty nicely. I've made all these arguments myself before in defense of test scores, but I didn't realize that teachers felt the pressure to defend letter grades as much.
Posted by kswygert at October 4, 2004 01:24 PM