Don't Grow Up

My college roommate called me to the hospital when his first child was born. I brought sandwiches and supplies and placed them in the room as he dressed me in a protective gown. When he handed his newborn son to me, I balked, “No! I’ll break him!” He smiled and I held my first baby.

Later, after his son was back in the nursery and his wife was getting some needed sleep, we looked through at the tiny baby on the other side of the window and my friend whispered, “Grow up!”

Yesterday, I watched my eighteen-year-old son leave the house on the way to his summer job and, after the door closed and we’d said, “I love you, see you this evening,” I whispered, “Don’t grow up!”

Of course, I want my child to become an independent adult. Of course, I want him to go to college and experience those wonderful lessons that he needs to become the person all of us want him to become. I just don’t want him to leave. I don’t want to let go of our time as parent and child.

Part of this is probably because he is the last child leaving the nest. Part of this may be that I teach teenagers and I have to let go a lot. I let go every year, but my classroom fills again. My home will not fill again.

So we both stand on the brink of a different kind of adulthood. He is ready to step off that cliff and fly. I am getting ready to watch because I know I don’t need to push. I do need to hold on to something because I will not fly if I follow and I know that I shouldn’t.

I want to pour his ear full of advice and reminders before he gets behind the wheel of my old minivan and drives away. Those are my neuroses, not his. I say them to myself. In my weaker moments, I say them to him and earn the eye rolls and choruses of, “I know, Dad!”

This past week, we shared college orientation. Appropriately, for many of the sessions, parents and their students were separated. The university stressed setting boundaries, allowing students to struggle, and assisting them in assisting themselves. I could have given those speeches.

That doesn’t change the way I feel this morning. I take lots of pictures. I have become nostalgic about times that were harried, hurried, and hard. But my children were children then. I was in charge and felt a semblance of control.

I am not in control anymore and that is a scary thing. As a teacher, I like being in control. As a parent, it makes me feel safe. That is an illusion, my rational self tells me. My children are ready to have full control. I know this.

Control is the way I fend off the worry. If I am in charge, then my child stays in my arms or behind the glass. Yet he must leave the comfort of the nursery and make his way into the world, where anything can happen.

And anything will happen. He will have scrapes, big and small. I will, too. He must grow up and walk out of that door. I must remain and watch. I will get used it. It will take a while. My friends tell me that I will come to like it.

Not yet. 

The Grading Treadmill

At the end of each marking period, I obsess over grades. Teachers like to say that they don’t “give” grades, but that students “earn them the old-fashioned way,” as if John Housman was speaking. I don’t believe that.

The game of grades is rigged and teachers control it. Students must learn how to play the game anew each time they enter a classroom. And while grades are supposed to be a measure of success in a course, that is not the whole truth. They are a reflection of the personality, priorities, and preferences of the person grading. The teacher, team, or school decides what is valued and how much. The grader decides if we are averaging or using standards or a contract or some other “system.” The students simply have to do their best to get to the cheese – over and over again.

I get tension headaches staring at my computer screen perseverating over grades. How could the student be earning a B+ when she had an A only a few weeks ago? Sometimes, students’ grades appear to be going in the wrong direction – or don’t make sense. I look for my error or where the student changed or a reasonable rationalization for a simple truth: students’ growth is not a direct learning curve. They fall down and get back up. They have bad days after many good days. They fail at the tasks they could do well just a few days before. They are human beings and there are myriad factors that influence their work – and I am only one of those factors.

I have written about grading many times.  I continue to struggle with our reasons and methods of grading. I feel like George Jetson on the treadmill screaming for Jane to “Stop this crazy thing!”

I am a proud standard based grader. That means that, instead of assigning points to everything happening in class and then performing some magical formula to arrive at a grade, I base grades on students’ demonstration of proficiency on a set of measurable skills. This makes grading far more challenging than plugging numbers into a computer and arriving at an average.

I assess how well and how often students can write a complete thesis, analyze a quotation, or infer a theme. The problem is turning these assessments into a single grade. Is the ability to cite correctly as important as integrating evidence? Should all claims be treated the same? Are reading and writing equal? Are skills on which we spent more time more important?

My judgment is not perfect. I fully understand why teachers love the point averaging system. It gives the illusion that the grade is objective. It is not. I, the teacher, am creating that grade regardless of how many layers of arithmetic sit between me and letter – or the student. Sometimes, I am not sure. Sometimes, I can see multiple interpretations of students’ work.

A grade isn’t the best form of feedback to students. I give far more detailed and thorough feedback about their work and skills than a single letter. The grade, no matter what form it takes, is such an amalgam of so many factors that it certainly doesn’t communicate the journey we’ve taken in class and often obscures important information.

I just turned in my grades for second semester. There were several on which I spent more than a few hours. I reviewed old work. I read final exams multiple times. I changed my mind and then changed it again.

I have been doing this for a long time and it hasn’t become easier. Grades have value. They are symbols of self-esteem and college currency. They add up to awards, scholarships, and auto insurance. I can’t take them lightly.

Arriving at students’ grades is not easy. If a teacher can do it quickly and casually, something is wrong. Like a diagnosis, it is a professional judgment based on lots of information, observation, and assessment – and it should be accurate!   

In a Kurt Vonnegut short story, Thomas Edison creates an “intelligence analyzer” and tells a young man that, ‘“It will be your generation that will grow up in the glorious new era when people will be as easily graded as oranges.’”  No one should be easily graded. Perhaps no one should be graded at all. In addition to being treated like oranges, grading traps us on George Jetson’s treadmill!

Sign My Yearbook

One of my most anxiety producing moments in the classroom is when a student approaches me and says, “Mr. Hirsch, will you sign my yearbook?” I always agree to sign or ask the student to wait until I have a free moment. The truth is that signing yearbooks makes me very anxious.

I joke that I should sell a stamp when yearbooks are being distributed that says:

Dear _____________

It was great seeing you in __________ class.

You are so _________!

Thanks so much for __________.

Have a _______ summer.

Your _________,

__________

Truthfully, I have not read many student yearbook messages. While their notes to each other might be banal and trite, I think that may not be the case. I watch students spend a long time writing their messages. I see yearbooks filled with notes and drawings. Kids seem to be thoughtful about yearbook notes.

That is why I am so worried. I don’t have time to craft a well-written and personal message. My handwriting is not that great. I misspell words and change my mind after I put them on the page. I just changed the beginning of this paragraph. I just changed it again.

Yearbook messages may not be carved in stone, but they are likely to be saved and, once in a while, reviewed. I worry that this five-minute scrawl is what this student will eventually remember about our time together. By the time all this has gone through my head, I am paralyzed and I regret whatever I write as soon as I hand the book back. I worry that I said the wrong thing or didn’t say enough.

So without the personal student-specific stuff, here is a version of the message I wish I could write in my students’ yearbooks:

My Dear Classmate,

Thank you for sharing class with me this year. Thank you for rolling up your sleeves and working hard. Thank you for your contributions to class, patience with me and our classmates, and willingness to laugh at my jokes. Thank you for the kindness you showed every day.

I want you to know how capable you are. It is healthy to doubt our abilities sometimes. However, your growth this year is not something you should question. It proves you can learn anything you want and become whatever or whomever you choose. You have that power. Use it for good.

I will miss you next year. Actually, I will miss you next period, tomorrow, and over the summer. I will miss you right after we greet each other in the hallway. When you graduate, I will continue missing you. I will think about you when we discuss the topics you loved and hated. I will remember you when we explore assignments that shaped your experience in this class. That is why I take a lot of pictures. They randomly appear on the background of my computer, and I will smile and miss you more when your photo surprises me like a found coin.

Please don’t doubt our relationship. Come back and visit school. You have a permanent standing appointment. At the front desk, when they ask if someone is expecting you, tell them that Mr. Hirsch is expecting you. I am always expecting you. Yes, you may befriend me on Facebook (after you graduate), yes, you may connect via Twitter or Instagram or email or owl or Morse code! I encourage you to use whatever way works for you to stay in touch – and that choice is yours.

When you have those moments of struggle, when you think the audience is empty and yearn for even the echo of applause, when you doubt yourself and your abilities, when things seem unbearable, remember that I am a card-carrying member of your fan club and I am cheering for you from Deerfield. Your audience is never empty and I know that you have the skills to figure out anything. It may take time, effort, creativity, and resources. You have more resources than you know – and I am one of them.

I care deeply about you, even when we have struggled or disagreed. I care deeply about you even if sometimes we fall down and make mistakes – and I make mistakes, too! Sorry about those. I know that, although I want you to master the skills and know the content and all that stuff, it isn’t the real core curriculum. You are the center of this class. Who you are and what you are thinking and feeling is far more important than any target, objective, or standard.

Be well. Make good choices. Move slowly. Read a lot, and continue to discover and create the extraordinary person I have come to like so much.

Your teacher and friend,

David Hirsch