When I think back to my first several years of teaching, I genuinely can say I'm mortified thinking of that teacher. I taught advanced math and there was a strict policy in place for students to stay in the course. I remember at first being extremely worried to reach out to parents to notify them if their child wasn't doing well. After a while, sometimes I had to have the difficult conversation of moving a student out of advanced math back into grade-level math. I remember watching their grades like a hawk thinking, if they fall below that grade, they will be moved out of my class. I felt like a guardian of advanced math; it was terrible. Honestly, if you asked me, grades removed, if a certain child belonged in advanced math or not, I could tell you. But in education, we always need data. It didn't matter what I thought.
This week, I had the opportunity to look back on the history of grading. I remember in our very first course for this program, our teacher asked us if grades mattered. We looked into the history of grading and learned about Farish and how he created a system for grading. Unfortunately, it was similar to that of what they used to determine if a shoe was up to grade to be sold or not. That moment forever changed my thoughts on grades. As the teacher, I know how well a student is performing and I could tell you all about it. This week's video on The Origin of Grades mentioned that grades show conformity not creativity. Narrative reports, conferences or standards-based grading are more effective to help students learn and grow from their mistakes. The people who are most successful in life were not successful in school. Two of my favorites were Ellen Degeneres and Steve Jobs!
This is not how education was supposed to be. From the earliest times of education, the teacher was meant to be a mentor to the student. "The teacher and the student got to know one another. They interacted constantly throughout the day. The teacher knew each child, had a clear vision of the child's understanding of the coursework and worked with each child (or encouraged them to work with each other) until the teacher was satisfied that each child understood the material." An excerpt from Thom Hartmann's "A Complete Guide to ADD."
So why did this change? Well, unfortunately, teachers started getting paid per student instead of a flat salary. Therefore, it became difficult for the teachers to get to know their students. Therefore, enter grades. Grades assess rote memorization and kill the self-esteem of students. I wish I could move away from grades! I can see this working in my classroom. I've mentioned this before at some point, but when students ask me "how many points is this worth?" I tell them honestly, I don't know. I won't know until I look them over. I look through them all before I grade anything and I determine what I expect out of my class. Once I've seen what my students got as a whole from our time in class, I judge that to see what would be an "A, B, C, D, etc." However, I would love the day that I could give students a pass/fail.
"Grades based on the ability to memorize and recite minutiae should be replaced by a simple pass/fail system in which the teacher determines if the student has mastered the topic, understands the material, and can carry that understanding forward into other areas of study and life," Thom Hartmann."
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