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! 

You’re Not So Sure of Yourself, Are You? Good! Skill of Thought , Part 3

It seems like people value confidence and correctness. We hate to admit we are wrong. We trust people who convince us that they really know what they are talking about. When someone wavers, we see it as a lack of expertise. We wonder if we should believe their opinion. 

That’s unfortunate because doubt is the sign of both wisdom and knowledge. 

Each year, I would ask my comparative religion students to tell me something on which they thought everyone could agree. They struggled. Often, we came down to something like 2 + 2 = 4, although George Orwell might disagree. 

There is a reason why we can’t agree on much and there is nothing wrong with that. It is because questioning, doubt, skepticism, and thinking from multiple perspectives are crucial to strong thinking. 

This does not mean that everything is unknowable. Quite the reverse, one way that we do know things is because we doubt them, test them, rethink them, and apply them. This way we discover what is true and then test it when new questions arise. 

When someone says they hold something as true and have no doubts, I hope the real statement is that they have no doubts right now. They had some once and resolved them. They know that it is likely that they will have doubts again. They are in between doubts. They are checking out doubts about other things and this particular thing will have to wait its turn. 

There is a proverb that says that a fool has no doubts and a wise person has too many. Doubt can be crippling. It can prevent us from taking important action. However, the lack of doubts can make us rush in where even fools fear to tread. When we have no doubts, we may be overconfident and impulsive. A person who has no doubts probably doesn’t know enough – or is denying their doubts. 

Sometimes, we have doubts, but we wish we didn’t. We want something to be true. We need it to be true. We wish it were true – really, really badly. We swallow and silence our doubts because listening to them erodes our fragile beliefs. We know that what we think cannot stand up to scrutiny and we wish it could. That’s a sign that our thinking needs strengthening. That’s just wishful thinking. 

When people change their minds, our politicians “flip” their views, or scientists update or alter what they consider fact, we should celebrate! Wrong is a fact of life. Change is the nature of the universe. Growth is the opposite of death. It is good to doubt and question these and all other ideas. 

Silencing the nagging voice in our head that asks, “What about…?” does only one thing: it marries us to our current way of thinking. Sometimes that works. Sometimes, it is inaccurate, out of date, or just plain wrong. If nothing else, our own humility should compel us to ask ourselves, “How might I be wrong? What is the downside here? What is an alternative way of thinking?” 

Doubt is the seed of learning and growth. Questioning is the road to truth. It is more comfortable to ignore complexity and ambiguity in favor of consistency and simplicity. Yet, our growth as a society comes directly because great minds have challenged current conventions and beliefs and moved us all from darkness into the light. 

If you doubt the truth of this: good! Ask the questions, seek the answers, and keep learning – forever! 

Twenty Years Ago: December 2003

For so many years, December was the most challenging month of the year. The weather turns colder, the weeks of school between Thanksgiving and winter break are hectic, and there are many holiday celebrations. I am not sure this got any better as my children got older. Thus, my level of busy was at its peak, “My school computer froze on me yesterday and it is sitting in the tech office. I have a haircut, interdepartmental lunch, I’m teaching Humanities solo and I need the laptop cart in the computer lab. It is going to be one hell of a day. Oh, and did I mention there is an FAC meeting after school. Oh yeah, need to call the kids’ doctor to set up a nasal spray session for them.”

The dog was still waking us up early – but not enough. He was leaving us smelly surprises, too. He was nearly blind, but had an operation on his eyes that was helpful – and time-consuming. 

We celebrated Hanukkah with family and at temple. I was also getting ready for a special family trip for winter break! We had never been on such a long plane flight as a family. Boarding a dog with significant medical needs was challenging. I kept waiting for the kennel to tell me it was too much. They didn’t say that in December – but they did say it later. 

I noted that, although a lot was going on at school, it was the portion of the day over which I felt like I had the most control, “Teaching is a challenge today, but that was the easiest part of the day.”

Packing for ten days out of town with young children was stressful, “We are going to schlep a ton of bags. We have four small bags, several as little as one of our carry-ons, one large Pullman, a car seat, three backpacks (carried on), and one rolled-on carry-on. Thank goodness we do not have a connecting flight; with so many pieces of luggage, the odds of getting one misplaced are way too good. Unlike my usual strategy, two of the bags primarily have the kids’ stuff and three have mostly our stuff.” It was clear to me, even then, that we overpacked. Oh, well. 

One theme of this retrospective of 2003 is that we had lots of colds. December was no different. One of my children almost always had a cold and either my wife or I would share it. However, this was the first time that our children got a flu shot. That helped! 

As we got closer to winter break, I found I was more and more desperate for the time off, – “I just need some downtime. I just need some time to turn off the real world.” Recently, one of my children felt the same way. These trips are now more about being together than relaxing and decompressing – but that was not the case twenty years ago.  

When we finally left, the kids were great on the long flight “Both took naps, both watched DVD, both nibbled and read and played chess. They are awesome.” They were and are great travelers. I sat between them with lots of activities and things to eat. The trip there was laden with anticipation, which helped. 

The trip itself was wonderful. I think that getting away from Chicago’s gray and cold weather is healthy and helpful. A change of scene is also a great way to feel renewed and see things differently. However, we do make the distinction between a trip and a vacation. While there were some vacation elements, such as the children going to the resort’s kids club, this was most certainly a trip. 

One child had an issue with water in the ear that necessitated a house call from a doctor. We learned that, after a day of play, the kids might literally fall asleep at dinner if we ate too late. One fell asleep and I had to carry him back to our room. 

We celebrated Hanukkah and enjoyed the resort’s Christmas activities. My parents traveled with us, and have over winter break since the kids were born. It was great to be together. I have always been so grateful that my parents have been such an integral part of my children’s lives – and are to this day. 

On the way home, the kids were tired. Yes, they slept, but they were also out of sorts. No one was looking forward to going back to the cold – or regular life. And then we moved on to 2004, as we now move into 2024: with hope, with conviction, with anxiety, and with renewed resolve. 

Happy everything to everyone! 

The Emotional Fallacy: The Mirror in the Media

I was introduced to the idea of the emotional fallacy when studying literary criticism in college. The idea was that, instead of evaluating a work on the characteristics and qualities of the work itself, people sometimes respond to their own emotional response to the work. Thus, we are analyzing our individual and personal reactions and not parts of the work. 

For example, few people regard those highly sentimental movies about lovers, one of whom gets a terminal disease, and we watch their relationship grow as one of them dies, as great art. However, someone suffering from an illness or whose lover, mother, or friend had a similar situation might be touched emotionally. They would identify with the characters and situations in the movie. Their evaluation, therefore, might be a function of their response and not a result of the quality of the writing, acting, cinematography, editing, or other pieces of the craft of movie-making. They like the work because they relate to it. 

Yet, people judge works based on their own emotions all the time. They like things that make them feel good, inspired, or uplifted. They recoil from works that challenge their firmly held beliefs or make them think too hard. Sometimes, they miss the real art, skill, and beauty of the work because they are too caught up looking at themselves. Instead of examining the work, they see a mirror that reflects parts of themselves. 

We identify with a character and then that character becomes a stand-in for us. We think we know how they feel. We know how this plot goes because we have encountered situations like this in our lives. The work feels authentic and rings true because it mirrors our experience. 

Or our values. A work that confirms and supports our view of the world can be more appealing than one that challenges us to see a different perspective. A work that is simple and sweet goes down easier than one that is complicated and depends a great deal on the craft of storytelling. We like pretty pictures more than complex puzzles. 

Have you ever talked to someone who read a book you read or saw a movie you saw and thought to yourself, “Did we see the same thing?”  They may make a minor character into the protagonist because they see themselves in that character. They may impose their view of the world on the world of the story. They embellish the work with their values and experiences and transform it into an extension of themselves. Their response to it is no longer about the work.

Of course, creators want their audiences to connect with their works. They rejoice when their characters and situations are real to people. However, when the response centers on the viewer to the detriment of the work, we are no longer focused on the work – but on the viewer. 

It is not difficult to play with people’s emotions using words, images, music, or story. Advertisers, politicians, and propagandists frequently use anecdotes and compelling tales to manipulate their audiences. They are so good at this that their audiences rarely look behind the curtain to evaluate the vehicles themselves. They only see their images in the mirror. 

They see themselves in the characters and rewrite the story to fit their world, values, experiences, and prejudices. Think about the responses to the first Hunger Games movie when a Black woman was cast as Rue. The book made it clear that Rue was Black. However, many people who claimed to love the book rewrote that fact in their minds. They brought their bigotry to the novel and, when its explicit features were turned into a movie, it no longer matched what they recalled from the book – and they got mad! 

We recast the world in our own image. We rewrite the story to fit our values, wishes, and worldview. We think we know who are the oppressors and who are the victims because of course they reflect what we have seen and experienced in our world. 

And if it is not the same, if the story is not our story, we sometimes ignore those aspects of the text and rewrite it to reflect us. We create a confirming and comforting carnival mirror instead of analyzing the work itself. 

But the real story, the real movie, the real world doesn’t change. It isn’t just a mirror of us – and that can be difficult and uncomfortable to accept. It can make us the pawns of manipulators and Machiavellians. It can make us allies with evil.  

Reading for Treasure: Israel and Gaza

There is so much news coverage about the current conflict in the Middle East. Over and over, I find that my heart is broken. I read an article, see video, and then I cannot take it anymore. I realize that only my distance gives me that privilege, so I face again the horror both in Israel and Gaza and the reverberations around the world. 

It is not a straightforward situation. I chaff against the use of words like “simple” or modified by “just,” or preceded by, “all that needs to…” as if this is a knot that any casual observer could easily untangle. I wish it were so. Who am I to tell people half a world away how to solve problems that are centuries old? 

One way I have found to deal with this situation with integrity is with a “both/and” approach: The Israelis suffered a horrible pogrom and their response to it is causing another horror. The Palestinians have been treated dreadfully and Hamas is not moving them in a good direction. The hostages must be freed and all of Gaza is hostage to Hamas. Some of the criticism against Israel is valid and some is antisemitic. 

I do not see this situation objectively. As an American Jew, I empathize with my Israeli family. Yet, as a Jew, I identify with the downtrodden and see Gaza as another ghetto. Both/And. 

So here are some articles from The Atlantic, a publication I have come to both trust and admire. I am not advertising their publication, rather it has become a mainstay of my reading and understanding of a variety of issues. These articles represent several perspectives and were written through this awful time of war. 

My wish for this season, as we head to Thanksgiving, is for peace for all of us, a return of those held hostage, and an opportunity for voices like the writers below to be heard. Please give them a read. 

“My Message of Peace”

“Even the Oppressed Have Obligations”

“Hamas Must Go”

“The Children of Gaza”

“When Anti-Zionism Is Anti-Semitic”

“America’s Most Dangerous Anti-Jewish Propagandist”

I am currently reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky