Questioning Grades

Grades can suck the joy out of learning. When I first started teaching, I said I didn’t want to use grades. I was told I had to give grades. Fine, I said, then I’ll give everyone A’s. No, that wasn’t an option either. Since that time, I have asked a lot of questions about grades’ effects on learning. Like a strong spice, you cannot have grades nearby and not be flavored by them. They change the nature of the learning and the relationship between the student and teacher. They shift the focus from the good deed to the gold star.

So if grades are a necessary evil, how do we put them in their proper place? The way we approach grades is a snapshot of the way we see school and learning. To change my metaphor: if grades are like a powerful medicine, when used carefully and in proper proportion, they can be healthy. However, they can also be addictive drugs that do great harm.

As a teacher, I know what I want students to learn. Grades should be a measurement of that learning. However, this isn’t always the case. It is easier to count grammar errors than evaluate analytic thinking. It is easier to have a scantron test than an essay. Rather than grading the real learning, it is easier to grade what I can easily measure.

Some classes focus more on learning information, the content. Some classes focus more on skills: learning to do things. Most classes are a mixture of the two. In my discipline, I see the content as a means to learn the skills. I teach annotating as a means to learn how to read. I teach grammar as a way to become a better communicator. For me, the real learning will always be centered on skills much more than content. We live in the information revolution. We will never be able to hold all the facts in our heads. How we interact with that information, our information management skills, is what is really important.

If the skills are what are important, then mastering them is the focus of class. Grades should be a measure of students’ mastery of these skills: in English, how well they can communicate and analyze. But it isn’t that simple. What if George can master the skill in two tries and Lennie takes ten attempts. They both landed in the same place. They have both mastered the skill. Should George be rewarded for getting there quicker? If Lennie is a hard worker and does all his homework, should his grade reflect that? Is hard work a trait we want to encourage? What about errors? Lennie might make more mistakes than George. Should he be penalized for that?

It is easy to create tests and assignments that are worth a set of points and add them up and divide for a grade. Students and parents are used to that. The averaged point grade system may not in the best interest of learning. An averaged point system is simply the average of all the things we have counted over the term. If a student makes a mistake and then learns from it, that is not part of the average. If a student takes a risk and it doesn't pay off, the average goes down. If a student really learns and starts off doing poorly and gets better with each assignment, then the grade will be the average of where she started and where she finished. Does that make sense?

Despite my issues with the Boy Scouts, I think the merit badge system may provide a model for grading. Scouts get a merit badge when they have mastered a specific set of skills or activities. The criterion for each merit badge is clear and the same for all scouts. It doesn’t matter (that much) how long you took to get the badge or how many times you fell down along the way. What matters is that, after two or twenty attempts, you mastered the skills. Could we learn to be that specific and clear in the classroom? Could grades look like that?

What should our students learn? How do we know they have learned it? What habits, skills, and behaviors do we want them to master? If we must have grades, they should be the answers to these key questions.

Plan B

My favorite game is chess. I am not fond of games where the players’ success is dependent on chance: the roll of a dice, the deal of the cards, or random selection of tiles. While those games are certainly interesting and have their challenges, the player’s success is integrally connected to random chance. Not in chess. In chess, both players have the same “hand” and the only difference between them is who goes first. In chess, success or failure is the result of the skill of the player.

In my experience, the key to a successful chess game is the ability to think beyond the immediate move. Good chess players have many contingency plans. They think beyond the next move, the move after that and the move after that. They anticipate the moves of their opponents and create multiple versions of those plans.

This skill is critically important, not only in chess, but in life. Of course we want to, “live in the moment.” But how many of our own and our society’s problems are the result of short-term thinking? While all consequences cannot be predicted, many can. I would argue that a person with a plan B (and a plan C and D) is better equipped to deal with surprises than a person without.

Recently, the Chicago Tribune published an article providing drivers with winter safety tips. One of the those tips was to look head and see what was coming up, “Drivers should anticipate difficult situations by looking down the road far enough to identify potential problems. They also should be aware of drivers coming from other lanes and cross streets. ‘Across the board, that's the No. 1 mistake people make in driving, period: Not looking far enough ahead,’ said Mark Cox, director of the Bridgestone Winter Driving School in Steamboat Springs, Colo.”

A good driver is always looking ahead and asking, “what if.” What if that truck pulls out? What if the door to that car should suddenly open? What if that child runs into the street? What if the light changes now? Like a chess player, a good driver must have multiple plans to fit many possibilities.

It goes beyond chess and driving; it could be a philosophy of life. Whether it is with financial or personal choices, at home, school, or work, how much more successful would we be if we thought a few moves ahead?

This doesn’t mean that we save all our money because the pleasure we buy today would prevent us from purchasing food tomorrow. Not at all. Rather, it means that we consider the possibilities. It is prudent to anticipate needs. Americans are notorious for spending money they do not have. They are terrible savers. Buying a fun toy today is even more satisfying knowing that it will not jeopardize tomorrow’s necessities.

But it goes even further than these simplistic examples. Considering the options while making choices could help us with our relationships, the environment, and bring us more success. When I purchase a product, who is getting the money and what will they do with it? If I support this candidate, what is she likely to do in office? How will my words and actions affect my family, friends, and co-workers?

Thinking a few moves ahead will slow us down. It will help us have fewer of those impulsive mistakes. It will make us safer drivers and more successful chess players and human beings.

Formula For Finals

In college, final exams are a part of the academic formula. Put in a few papers, a midterm and a final and a grade pops out. Final exams in high school are a different mix. Students are often taking more courses and the nature of each final may vary widely. It is very easy to mess up the final exam recipe in high school.

In my twenty-five years as a high school teacher and my more recent experience as a high school parent, I have found that some practices make the final exam process beneficial and others create unnecessary stress and pain.

While both the students and teacher contribute to a positive final experience, most of the control is with the teacher. There is a straightforward formula that will help make the final not only a summative assessment but a good learning experience as well.

The teacher should start by providing students with detailed information about the nature of the final at least one week in advance. This information should include the form of the test (multiple choice, short answer, essay, etc), what the test will cover (the entire semester, the most recent unit), materials students may bring to the test (books, notes, old work), and some guidance on how to prepare.

Students frequently complain that the pace of teaching speeds up before finals. It should be the reverse. The pace should slow down as finals approach. There should not be any more quizzes, tests, papers, or assignments in the weeks before the end of the semester than there have been throughout the term. If a teacher has not made it to the finish line, the kids should not pay for that by having to run twice as fast to get there.

Spend several days, maybe even the last week of the semester, reviewing with students. Instruct them how to study for the final. If there must be homework at this time, connect it directly to the final studying process.

Have a unified final. Do not splinter a final into several pieces. The final exam should be a single paper, project or test that is due at the assigned final exam period. While it may be tempting to ask students to create another assessment, even if it is complementary or good preparation for the final, this practice amplifies students’ anxiety and stress and steals energy from their preparations for other exams. In my school, we call this double dipping. While there are a few exceptions to this rule (if the course involves pubic speaking, the speeches will never fit into a single testing period), double or triple dipping is really a sign that a teacher may be uncomfortable with the grade weight of the final itself. If one assessment experience should not be worth that much of the grade, that is the real issue.

Speaking of the weight of the final: one size doesn’t fit all. Should a first semester freshman final look like the final for seniors about to go to college? Should they be weighted the same? Finals should be tailored to the course, content, and students who are being assessed. If the grade weight of the final feels too much to the teacher, imagine how it might intimidate the students!

Make sure that the final is consistent with the assessments that students have already experienced. If you are going to collaborate with colleagues or use a departmental final, students should have already experienced unit, chapter, or other assessments that were created this way. If you have never given students an in-class writing test, for example, the final should not include one either.

Carefully time your final. Too many of my students’ and children’s finals are too long. Teachers then rationalize this by allowing students to take extra time. This is an insensitive and selfish solution. The time in-between finals belongs to the student, not the teacher. Many students use that time to prepare for the next final. Is it healthy for a student to go from one long and challenging final to another with barely enough time to go to the bathroom or review? If your final is consistent with earlier assessments, these should give you a good idea of how long students will need. Err on the side of shorter, rather than longer.

Examine the final grades closely. If the students and teacher have done their jobs well, grades on the final will resemble the grades from the rest of the semester. If a student who has earned A’s or B’s on the quarter does poorly on the final, it could be that she didn’t study well. If several students who did well struggle on the final, their preparations are probably not the cause.

Think twice before posting any grades where all students can see them. Of course, you would never post grades with student names, but ID numbers are not much better. In addition, giving students access to the whole class’s (or course’s) results is a set up for bullying, humiliation, and unhealthy academic competition.

The final exam of a course should represent the key skills and content that a student should take away from the learning experience. The final is the destination: the time when the teacher’s and student’s work is demonstrated and celebrated. Done well, they are a formula for successful learning. Done poorly, they are a stressful game of grade roulette.

Winter Break, How I Love Thee

Let me count the ways:

Your timing is impeccable. December may not be the middle of the school year but it feels like it. The weather has cooled, snow has fallen, and the freshness of the fall is gone. Summer vacation feels very far away. By the end of December, I am tired and I need down time.

You are long enough to actually give me a true break. Most breaks from school are a day or maybe two. Even Thanksgiving break is not long enough to really create distance from school. Most days off are really a chance to catch up. I spend most school holidays grading papers, planning and whittling my list down to a reasonable size. Of course I do work during winter break too, but the work does not dominate the time. I can do other things and not feel like I should be doing schoolwork. There is plenty of time for the many things I want to do.

You provide me with a change of scene. For many years, I didn’t care to go away during spring break. It is too short. Winter break is my family’s time to get out of town. I value this change of scene. When I am at home, home calls to me. There are chores to do, bills to pay, errands to run. When I am away, I can’t attend to all those mundane details. I love having a week or so to just “be” and not “do.”

You rejuvenate me. After winter break, I feel renewed and can return to work with new energy. Unlike summer, I am not eager to return. The break isn’t long enough for that. However, I feel like I have actually been away and, since I haven’t spent a majority of my time on school, I can see some through the stress and frenetic fogs of December. I have more patience upon my return and that is a good thing as we roll into final exams.

You provide me with quality family time. I spend a vast majority of winter break with my wife, kids, and parents. We eat together and the meals are slow and luxurious. We play games and watch movies. On vacation, we spend most of our time as a group. It is a great time to talk about important (and trivial) issues. Whether it is my son’s impending bar mitzvah, my daughter’s college plans, my parents’ health issues, or household planning, winter break is the time for substantive family dialogue.

You let me read things that are not for school. My winter break reading, unlike much of my summer reading, consists almost entirely of material I will never teach. I read fluffy science fiction, parenting non-fiction, and computer and health periodicals.

Winter break, you are my favorite time away from school. Shorter than summer, but far more sweet, longer than spring break and better timed, you are the best of the school holidays.

I must admit, winter break, that when you leave me, I feel stranded and cold. Getting back to school after winter break is a dive into a cold pool and it takes at least a week to adjust. Summer break fades away while winter break shuts off. While it is a difficult transition it does not negate the positives. Winter break, how I love thee!

Rich Kids and Rich Parents

“Rich kids” are American archetypes. They are brash and entitled, spoiled, self-centered and concerned only with their own pleasure. They are materialistic, shallow, and believe that the world revolves around them. While I am describing a stereotype, I have taught long enough to know that these kids exist. I also know that they need not be the product of wealthy families, but wealthy families have an easier time producing them.

Often, when I am traveling, I observe older teenagers in the airport, on their way to exotic and expensive vacations. I don’t know these kids but I wonder about them. I see them playing with their toys, throwing teenage tantrums, being rude and unaware. I wonder if I was one of those kids. I worry that my children will become like them too.

As a child, I never thought of myself as wealthy. I think that the air I breathed was so “rich” that I didn’t know what a rich or “non-rich” kid was. I have never driven a fancy car. I didn’t wear expensive clothing or have the latest gadgets. My house was neither extravagant nor enormous. I never saw myself as snobby or entitled. Yet others noticed: I came from money.

When I was in middle school, a new family moved next door. They immediately built a pool in their backyard. That didn’t shock me; my family had a tennis court. What did shock me was the way their children left their toys around. Their toys were awesome. I would have loved these expensive, often electronic, toys when I was their age. I knew this because I frequently found their toys in my backyard. At first, I would return them. Then I set them aside and waited to see if anyone came to collect them. No one did. Finally, I left them where they fell. These kids didn’t value these toys. They didn’t miss them when they were gone.

Stereotypically, rich kids have an air (heir?) of entitlement. They expect expensive toys to reappear after they have lost them. As a teacher, I have worked with children like this. They expect the good grade and are flabbergasted when I expect them to earn it. Families with resources sometimes have the expectation that all problems can be solved easily, quickly, and without non-monetary costs – and money can buy a lot. Their children see that it only takes a checkbook to make challenges vanish. And without challenges and struggle, real learning doesn’t exist.

If your every desire appears when you wish it (or even appears before you had the chance to wish it), then you are in a perpetual childhood. Your happiness depends on your parents providing and you are ineffectual. You have no intrinsic power and are dependent on external things to keep you happy. It must be frightening for a child to think, “without all this money, I can’t do anything and neither can my parents – and our happiness depends on it.”

Money is only a piece of the happiness puzzle. Granted, it is an important piece, but there are other critical factors that shape our lives and our children. The great author, Robert Heinlein said, “Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.” Some well-to-do parents are concerned about “wealth poisoning:” that their money may rob their children of the motivation to achieve independently. My experience says that this concern should not be taken lightly. It has become a central piece of my parenting philosophy. I don’t want my children to fit any of that rich kid stereotype.

Providing our children the best of everything without any of the costs may be robbing them of real wealth. Good parenting requires a consciousness of how our need to provide for our kids will shape their outlooks on the world and thus their futures. We also need to look in the mirror and think about the lessons that our behavior teaches them.

Greater, Further, Harder, Meaner

I used to think that assigning more challenging work was the mark of a good teacher. It seemed to me that the kids most respected the tough teachers. Teachers in my department bragged about rigor. Teachers would look over each other’s shoulders and judge. Those who assigned fewer assignments or texts were lightweights and slouches. I didn’t want to be one of those!

The other day, as part of a school in-service, groups of teachers sat down and graded the same paper. Everyone had his or her own beef with the sample paper. There were dozens of ways the student writer didn’t measure up. It felt like a game of “can you top this.” I was so glad that the writer of the paper wasn’t in the room; he would have felt horrible.

Is that how kids feel when they get their papers back? Do they feel beaten up? Is that how kids feel in class, rigored and worked to death? Has the goal become greater, further, harder, meaner? I have become concerned that we are moving in that direction and it isn’t good for any of us.

My daughter has an unbelievable amount of homework and an overstuffed schedule. In some classes, she can have several hours of homework. For example, in her English class right now, she is working on a paper on the last book they finished, and reading the current book. In addition, she has an independent reading book and a project on another set of readings. That is four assignments at once – in only one class. In addition to her six other classes, she is a varsity athlete, member of the student council, orchestra and stage crew. She is busier than most adults I know, including those who are parents of teenagers!

Is all this work, all this intensity, and all this time making our children better students? By spending this kind of effort, our kids are learning the skills and scoring well on tests. Rigor works. That is why schools that are struggling use old fashioned drill strategies and cut out the “fluff.” But we all pay a price for that rigor.

The real question isn’t does it work, but is it worth it; is it making our children better people? That is the question I am asking myself as a teacher and as a dad. My child is stretched thinner than cellophane, but she can write well. She doesn’t get enough sleep and is frequently stressed out, but she performs well on tests. Is this healthy?

I can’t teach students how to write without assigning writing. Learning requires some degree of effort, but do we have to take a “no pain, no gain” approach? Can’t learning be fun? Can’t learning be balanced and healthy?

As educators and parents, we often judge our own effectiveness by our children’s success. That is both natural and problematic. Teachers and parents should be held accountable, of course. So do we get more gold stars or brownie points if our children have twelve activities instead of eight or scores in the 99th percentile instead of the 94th? How much is enough? We have been sucked into an increasing spiral of expectations for them and for us! We are never happy with our performance or theirs because we always want more, more, more!

The latest educational buzz word is “targets.” The idea is that the student is like an archer and it is our job to help him or her hit the bull’s-eye. But the bull is Argos and has a million eyes! A porcupine shooting all of its quills couldn’t hit all these targets. Each time we review the targets, we come up with more. The list is never ending and just thinking of it makes me tired and worried.

More is not always better. Harder work isn’t always more meaningful. We have caught ourselves in a rigor trap and it is eating our children’s childhoods and our sanity. It is time to look at the real targets: what do we want a student to learn? What should the school experience look like? How do we redesign school so that kids can be kids and still learn the really important things they need? It is time to name the important things, the real important things!

The Teacher’s Best Teachers: His Students!

Students are powerful. They don’t realize their remarkable impact. We all have special teachers who touched our lives. We remember them and honor their influence. What we may not realize is that students are as critical in the shaping of teachers. Teachers carry the lessons learned from kids from class to class and year to year.

I have long chafed when a student refers to, “Mr. Hirsch’s class.” It is not mine. It is ours. Students see the teacher as the owner of the class, the master of ceremonies and, at best, they are supporting cast if not audience. Really, it is their class and I am merely the stage manager. When I make choices, I think of the students who taught me how to be a better teacher.

Nicole was my first “discipline” problem. She would much prefer to talk with Anna, fiddle with her books, make up or just about anything, rather than participate in class. It drove me bananas and she knew it. My attempts at reprimanding, refocusing or distracting her seemed to only fuel the fire. Then one day, instead of my usual policeman behavior, I just smiled at Nicole and shook my head.It worked! I found it hard to believe it was that simple. It worked over and over. And if I was not sharp enough to spot the lesson, Nicole made it clear to me when she replied to one of my grins, “That smile isn’t going to work this time, Mr. H. Not this time.” But it did. Smiles as part of discipline? Thank you, Nicole!

Danny was a traditional “kid in the middle.” He was not the brightest student in class but not the slowest. He was a nice young man but not the most (or least) talkative. He did not misbehave but did not draw a great deal of attention to himself. He happened to stop by in the writing lab one day. I pulled him into a conference on an assignment. From then on, Danny sought me out. He looked for that little bit of extra attention and ate it up. Traditionally, students with special talents or special needs receive special services but those wonderful kids in the middle are left with leftovers. Danny didn’t need special tutoring, he was doing fine. Danny didn’t take many honors or AP classes. But Danny loved the extra attention and thrived on it as much as any “special” student. Danny taught me that all students deserve, need, and desire that extra something. I think of him every time I make the effort to give every student his or her “Danny” time. Thank you, Danny.

It was the day before parent night and I jokingly looked at Jeremy. He was my challenge. Not disruptive, just overactive and talkative. Perhaps he might have been labeled ADD – but the label would have been wrong. I joked with him, as the period ended, that I was very eager to meet his parents at open house. “Well,” exclaimed Jeremy, “be sure to sit my dad over here,” he pointed to one end of the classroom, “ and my mom way over here,” he pointed to the opposite side, “because if you let them get together – BOOM!” Now it made sense. The out of control, attention seeking behavior that was so inappropriate in my classroom was the only way to get warring parents’ notice. Jeremy wasn’t ADD or anything else. He was simply bringing his home coping technique into class and it wasn’t working. When students’ behavior is set in context, they cease being behavior issues and become people trying strategies to make life manageable. Thank you, Jeremy.

I have become the lessons students have taught me. It is more than I am a better teacher – or person – I think they have molded me as much or more than I changed them. There is an old proverb that states that the teacher should learn as much from the students as the students from the teacher. I live this every day.

If I am a pretty good teacher, it is due, in large measure, to the fantastic students with whom I have studied. They have generously and unselfishly taught me what it means to learn and study. I have been allowed to glimpse the complexity of their world. Every day, every semester, year after year, they are with me and I am forever grateful to them.