Pointless

Recently, I heard teachers complaining about their districts’ grading policies. One teacher was against the policy of giving students 50% for missing work. Another railed against grade inflation and giving students points as behavior or completion rewards. 

Whatever you think about these issues, they both presuppose two ideas: that kids should earn points for classwork and these points should be used to arrive at their grades. I would like to challenge both of these assumptions. 

I have written about grading many times. I have asked questions about the side-effects of grades, made an argument against averaged grading, discussed grading’s arbitrary nature, presented the mathematical reality of averaged grades, discussed my way of evaluating students, and presented many stories and examples of the problems of our current grading systems. 

All of these issues rest on the reduction of student learning to points. We use points to make grading seem fair and based on students’ performance. Like money, students receive point payment for tasks: the better the proficiency, the more points. Usually, the total points possible are considered the top grade and students are given a letter grade based on how far away they are from perfect. 

So, a student who walks in without any skills or knowledge and, by the end of the term, has reached the desired goals, would end up with something like fifty percent (a failing grade). That doesn’t seem right, so we break down our goals and give students points for taking baby steps. Some students need more baby steps. These students’ grades will probably be lower.  This is because making more errors costs points, even if the student ends up fully proficient by the end of the term. Thus, the point average grade is really a measure of how quickly a student achieves proficiency. 

Teachers, schools, and districts have contorted themselves to find ways to make this system make sense. The “no zeros” rule is one of those attempts. The reason for this rule is that half of the grading scale is failure; each grade band is ten percent and everything under 60 is failing. Some schools have redistributed that scale more evenly. Some schools have said that practice (sometimes called formative) assignments should not be graded and points should only be given on end-of-unit exams and assignments (summative evaluations). 

How does a teacher determine the value of a point? Is a good thesis worth ten grammatical errors? Why is a question worth two, three, or twenty points? Points are not objective: the teacher makes professional judgments about what activities are worth. Good teachers do this well. Poor teachers can manipulate this – and kids can then manipulate their teachers and the system. 

Rather than learning, students can become grade grubbing point collectors. They must work hard and have a high degree of maturity to see the goal through the point payment. Every teacher can tell too many stories of the students who would negotiate every point. “It’s not about the points,” teacher says. “If the points don’t matter,” the student retorts, “then just give them to me!” Both points of view are misguided. 

Learning is not an average of accumulated minutia. Averaging points, as I have written before, devalues the learning process and penalizes students for taking more time to learn or thinking divergently, even if they eventually succeed in fully reaching the goals. Shouldn’t a course’s evaluation really reflect the student’s ultimate proficiency? 

How do you measure proficiency? What does it look like? The more complex the subject, the more difficult to do. Elementary arithmetic is straightforward. What about high school social studies, science, or literature? Points simplify this problem so completely that the real worth and complexity of the subject is turned into the collection of green stamps. Put your points on a page and trade them in for a prize! 

Points are not aligned with the way the working world measures effectively reaching goals. Many professions use object metrics, like sales and billable hours, there are many things like interpersonal relationships, team contribution, and non-quantifiable results that figure into employees’ evaluation. Is there a job where each thing is translated into pennies and put in a pot and then, at arbitrary times, pulled out and evaluated? There must be. Points are far too seductive not to transcend education. There must be employee evaluation systems that mirror grading. I’ll bet they have the same issues we are discussing here. Ironically, most teachers are not evaluated the way they evaluate students. 

The reason the point system is so popular is that the alternatives are messier and more difficult to implement. Teachers will average themselves into oblivion to prove that their grades are objective.  There it is: to make points unimportant and create a grading system that really values learning and the achievement of educational objectives, we must let go of the idea that learners must be labeled by letter-based categories.  

You can get rid of points but still assign letter grades. I did it. Teachers all over the world have lots of ways to do it. Here is a video of one talking about it. However, if we want systemic wide change that acknowledges that our real goal isn’t an A, but is helping students to be able to learn specific skills and understand specific content, then we must stop tallying the trivia and instead focus on the learning!  

Twenty Years Ago: January 2004

I was surprised by all the ways that January 2004 was similar to January 2024. It was quite different, of course, but the similarities showed how things had not changed. While this reflection on twenty years ago has been a wide-eyed tour of the past, it also shows how my present is still connected to that long ago time. 

I laughed when I described our return from vacation as, “mildly overwhelming” because I was feeling the same thing after I got off the plane with my twenty-something children and my aging eighty-something parents. 

Similarly, the entire family spent a few days, “bubble headed” then and now. We got home and everyone went to sleep, even though it was 7am. Some of us took longer to get back on Central Time – the same someones as twenty years ago. 

We arrived home exhausted and, as I went to bed, “I was so tired last night that when I tried to read, the book kept slipping from my hands.” I had napped earlier but it didn’t matter at all. We were pooped! 

Twenty years ago, my daughter got a stomach bug as we got home from vacation. The same thing happened this year. However, this year, she had to suffer on a plane back to D.C! I felt guilty that I could not nurse her the way I did in 2004. 

Fortunately, unlike 2004, none of the rest of us caught that bug. In 2004, it went through the house like that nauseating montage in the movie version of The Secret Life of Dentists. In 2004, we also shared colds; not doing that this year.  

I laughed out loud when I referred to, “The ladies of the morning;” my mother, my wife’s sister, and my wife’s aunt, who would always call us before 8am. While that no longer happens, my wife and daughter have a morning call routine now. 

As it was in 2004, I returned home and I almost immediately planned the next trip. Then it was a spring break visiting my cousin in Florida back then, this year, it is little jaunts, local science fiction conventions, and a February escape. We no longer celebrate spring break. 

January remains a month of dental visits for most of us. While we no longer have a dog, my daughter’s dog had his dental visit, too. He is in much better health than our elderly ailing dog was in 2004. I was considering doggie diapers, the insulin was so ineffective. 

When my parents moved recently, I found a disc with old photos. My father took photos of the house in 2004 for insurance purposes. Most of the house looked pretty much as it did before they moved. 

That is where the similarities end. In 2004, we had some significant snowfalls, the water main broke and we had no water for a while. The furnace’s pilot light went out and we spent a very cold evening before we figured out the issue. We saw The Lion King with the folks and the kids. It was a little much for our younger child. 

As I have written about in the past, our school moved finals before winter break a few years ago. In 2004, we had two weeks of class then finals, and then the start of the new semester. That makes things more stressful. I do not miss all that grading! I would sit in my younger child’s room and try to get on the school network since the school was just over the fence. Sometimes it worked. 

I often told the story that my parents complained that their grandchildren always used “please” and “thank you” with them. I didn’t know my reply was exactly twenty years old, “At dinner, when my father made his please-thank you comment, I informed him that we were making a special rule just for him. Where the kids normally said, “please,” they would instead say, “now” or “darn it” and instead of “thank you,” they would say “finally” or “it’s about time.”

My daughter made the school spelling bee. I really don’t like spelling bees.  I rehearsed and then officiated a bat mitzvah since our congregation had not yet hired a rabbi. Like this year, the end of the month brought snow and brutal cold. 

Finally, “I was awakened at 1:55am by a  phone call telling me that the folks alarm had gone off and should they send the police? At that time of night, I thought it best to have the police go look around. However, if the problem was something inside, a burst pipe or other problem, they wouldn’t see it. I needed to go to the house. So I got dressed, bundled up and off I went.” Fortunately, that situation has not happened often. My parents just moved out of that house and now live only ten minutes north of me. 

If you ask me what were the highlights (or lowlights) of January (or February) of 2004, I probably could not have provided many specifics. When I read my old journals, it come back powerfully. Things have changed so much, mostly for the better, but I miss when my kids were little and my parents were younger. I do not miss the frenetic and stressful life we lived in 2004. 

To Retire or Not To Retire

Because I retired earlier than most, I have become a go-to guy on retirement for others. They ask about what I am doing in retirement (anything I like) and if I like it (I love it). What they are really asking is, should they retire? I can’t answer that question. I can provide some information about my retirement, but I am not sure how much that will help others make a very personal decision. 

I always tell them that my retirement date was pretty much set in 1986 when I started teaching. Of course, I had to choose to retire, but the basic structure of my retirement was built into my job. 

From the moment I started teaching, people were talking about retirement. Most of the teachers at my school were old enough to be my parents when I arrived. It took a few years before there were five or six of us under thirty! We would roll our eyes as these old fogies would go on and on about retirement. It was so far away and we were so tired of hearing about it. During my first decade of teaching, the State of Illinois had a retirement incentive and large numbers of teachers retired. 

A teacher only gets paid for nine or ten months of the year. My wife and I had to stretch our money over summers every year. I believe that summers, both having no classes and having to work within a narrow budget, were great preparation for retirement. We did this for more than thirty years, so by the time retirement rolled around, we knew the drill. 

We also had wonderful retirement mentors. Many of our friends who retired before helped prepare us. They played the role of big siblings and coached us through our final few years. I remember a wonderful drive with a retired teacher. She talked about how, now that she was retired, she was no longer a teacher. She had stopped coaching and her children were grown up, so she wasn’t a coach or a parent, either. Who was she? She asked questions that hadn’t even appeared on my radar. As she shared her experiences, she provided me (and my wife) with plenty to consider as we moved toward retirement. I am happy to help people think through these retirement questions. That may be the best service I can provide. 

Thinking creatively about retirement early is my biggest piece of advice. Diving into retirement without any preparation feels like a belly flop into an unheated pool. Boom and ouch! I made a list of “In retirement, I might…” on my phone.  As I talked to people and went about my day, I made notes about things that I might like to do if I had more time or flexibility. Some were very concrete: take guitar lessons. Some were more a reflection of my working life: have a slower morning. Some were things I could never do on a school schedule: visit my children on their birthdays. I still have this list and I still add to and remove from it. It is not a contract. It is a set of “maybes” and possibilities. 

Just as seniors in high school or college often dislike that, “What are you going to do next year?” question, people peppered me with the “What are your retirement plans?” question. I knew a teacher who answered, “Move my house one inch to the right.” I told people that I was going to take a gap year or two (or more). I gave myself permission to explore, experiment, and see what worked (or didn’t). I had promised myself that I was not going to make any long-term commitments for my first years of retirement. 

I did end up substitute teaching briefly and, although it was nice to be back in the classroom and with my friends, it reinforced to me that I was ready to try other things. I was glad I did it because it validated my desire to go in a new direction. 

Of course, retirement is a financial decision, too. Some of us are lucky enough to have pensions. Some of us have been great planners and have ample retirement savings. Some of us need to figure out how to make ends meet. I met with the great folks at the Illinois Teachers Retirement System, so I knew exactly what my resources would be. 

I am happy to talk about retirement. I am delighted to share my five years of retirement experience. I love being retired – and my circumstances may not apply to everyone. I recommend retirement. I like it. I think many others will like it, too. I fear that there are far too many people who will never get to experience it and that is unfortunate. Don’t write it off. Consider it. Plan for it. Imagine it. Find folks who will help you see what your retirement might be – I am happy to be one of them!