First of all, thank you all for a very insightful, fun, and intelligent experience in this class. I have learned a lot from all of you. I happily put it all that I learned in my brain and no grade is needed from any of you.
Dr. Bogad, although you will grade me, I really have learned so much in your class. Since the beginning of the semester I have been incorporating what I have learned into my teaching. The following example is a situation that happened spontaneously in my classroom, and I quickly, without too much thought, blurted out that there would be no more grade issued until the end of the quarter.
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My collaborative class consists of 26 students. Two students with severe speech impediments, one students who is repeating for the second time and he is 19 in an 11th grade class, and 5 students who are huge behavior problems and are very immature. The remainder of the students are great kids, hard workers, many who have IEP’s and struggle with the content and in school in general.
Their assignment is to create a poster/college, poem, or any visual representation they want to create to depict a theme. One student asked me what it will be counted as...
Student – Miss, what will this be counted as?
Ms. Lee – What do you mean?
Student – Well, will it be a test grade, homework grade?
Ms. Lee – I’m not sure yet?
Student – Well, I need to know?
Ms. Lee – Why is the grade so important? Maybe I won’t grade it right away, or maybe I won’t put a grade on it at all.
Student- If I don’t get a grade I won’t do it.
Ms. Lee – Hmm… Why does everything have to have a grade? Isn’t it more important to learn something, even if you don’t get a grade?
Student– You don’t understand, I just want to graduate for my parents, and I’m not that smart you know. I just need the grade.
Ms. Lee – I am not going to give grades in this class anymore! From now on you will get your work back with remarks on how you can improve. At the end of the quarter we will look at all your work as a whole and see how much you have learned. If you have made improvements, and completed all your assignments then you will pass the class. I will give you one grade this quarter and that will be your midterm grade.
Backlash from students: What…you can’t do that? How will we know how we are doing? I need to see my grades?
Miss Lee, I happen to be a really smart person, I just don’t like to have to show you or anyone else that by writing an essay or reading a book. I just want my 65 so I can get out of this place and be a fireman. Nothing I learn in this class has to do with what I want to do when I graduate.
Why this is going to work!
After that class I had a student come up to me and say, Ms.Lee what you said inspired me. Don’t tell the class but I like the idea of no grades; I don’t want to get made fun of. Every time I look at my grades and I see a bad one I get so upset and it makes me want to quit.
I was not expecting that! But that was all I needed to hear. It made my day and I realized that I have to follow through with this. The first set of comprehension questions that I gave back to them simply had comments on ways to improve and words of encouragement. I put a check mark in the Power grade for the students who completed the assignment and under the comment section I gave a formative assessment. This took more time and effort on my part but I am hoping it will pay off in the end. No more pressure for these kids! No more just getting a grade! More learning!
I am taking the risk and hoping it will pay off! No repercussions so far; parents haven’t called, students haven’t mentioned it since, and principal hasn’t noticed!
Alfie Kohn brings up some controversial, passionate, and valid points in her twotexts, “The Trouble with Rubrics” and “The Case against Grades.” She states some points that I agree with, and other pointsthat I do not.I have never done research on the topic but as an English teacher I do have some experience with rubrics and grading.Bottom line is that we, as teachers, do not have too much of a say in how we assess these days.
Kohn states in “The Trouble with Rubrics” “Second, I’d been looking for an alternative to grades because research shows three reliable effects when students are graded: They tend to think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in learning itself.”
In my experience students are driven by grades, not learning;This is so unfortunate. I have tried to wrap my head around this concept many time but it all comesdown to the grades. For the higher level kids, they seem to e learning at the same time though. The understanding that they are learning if they get a good grade seems to go hand in hand. However, for the lower level kids, it is all about the grades and they don’t seem to care if they learn anything. A few examples:
Scenario 1:
Teacher:Ok ladies and gentleman let write a reflection of the activity we just did, pleae take out your journals and just write. Write whatever you want; did you enjoy the activity? Would you change anything about it? What did you learn? What connections did you make? Choose one if you need help getting started.
Student: Ms. Lee? Are we getting graded on this?
Teacher: No, this is your own reflections, a chance to write whatever you want.
Student puts his head down and closes his eyes:
Scenario 2:
Student: Ms. Lee, are you collecting this?
Teacher: No , I’m not going to collect it, please put it in your binder and we will discuss the answers as a class on Thursday.
Student: I need a grade for this Miss. I did the work now I should get credit for it. I’m not doin no busy work!
Scenario 3:
Student: If I fix this what grade will I get? All I need is a 65 to pass.
Teacher: Why do you just want to pass? If you make the corrections necessary you could get a hgier grade.
Student: I don’t want to do anything more that I have to, I just want to get out of this school with my diploma.
Obviously these scenarios are not indicative of all my lower level students but unfortunately I have learned that many students want to do just enough,; not any more, not any less. Motivating my students to want to learn is very difficult to do at times because of the structured curriculum we have. It is imperative we use texts that the students may connect to or are interested in, especially in the lower level classes.
“Grades create a preference for the easiest possible task. Impress upon students that what they’re doing will count toward their grade, and their response will likely be to avoid taking any unnecessary intellectual risks. They’ll choose a shorter book, or a project on a familiar topic, in order to minimize that chance of doing poorly—not because they’re “unmotivated” but because they’re rational “ (2).
Again, this is catering to the higher level kids; the kids who are motivated, who already love to read and who know how to manipulate the system. What about the kids I spoke of previously.These unmotivated kids, who may be kids who speak a different language at home and need to work on a daily basis to help their family; the kids who do not have the parental support and value for education that many others do. If some of my students do not think that the grade would count, they would choose a shorter story, they just wouldn’t do the assignment. Grades are here to stay and kids are driven by them. A perfect example: The NECAP assessments.
Every year the 11th graders are assessed in reading, writing, math and science. Up until this year, the grades have never mattered. On the three or four days during the testing it was torture for teachers to get kids to even finish the assessment. They just didn’t care! These tests were being used a quantitative date for the state to assess the progress of the schools. Our school set incentives for the kids to show up. For the most part, they were not giving their best effort, to say the very least. Even my own son said he didn’t try very hard, it didn’t matter. Well, the state decided to make it a graduation requirement for all students . If a student tis not at least partially proficient he or she will not graduate! Students showed up, grades went u, and things were quite different this year.What does this tell us?
Learning is a process and so is teaching. In “The Case against Grades” Kohn state, “Replacing letter and number grades with narrative assessments or conferences—qualitative summaries of student progress offered in writing or as part of a conversation – is not a utopian fantasy.”
As an English teacher it is very difficult to teach writing. There is no universal formua (well there is a writing process) that every student masters and voila, they’re writing perfectly. While some kids may struggle with adding content, others may struggle with introductions,or a thesis, or adding evidence ,or the structure . I have found a very successful way in assessing my students writing and teaching writing. It is a long process but that is what learning and teaching is. Whenever I give a writing assignment the students write it over and over until they understand it. This requires reading , assessing, and conferencing on the same text multiple times, but the kids really learn what they need to work on, and they are able to fix it over and over again. I have had nothing but positive feedback on this. The first draft paper is given back without a grade, and often it is given back several times without a grade. My rationale is that if you give a student back a paper with a C on it he or she will take the paper, maybe look at the “markings’ and then put it away. When a student gets a paper back without a grade it is required for he or she to fix what they learned and re-write the paper over.
All level kids benefit from this. The kids who are driven by a grade do not have the satisfactory of taking that D+ and being done with it. I have had students who would end up with a B because they had already revised it several times, but they want to do it over and try for the B+ or an A. This process has been very successful in helping kids gain confidence in their writing skills and forces them to learn more.
This clip is an interview by Barry Lane about the idea of Rubrics and how effective they are to English teachers.
Rubrics
I am not a big fan. At times they do help expedite the assessment process. I am required to use a rubric for our portfolio assessments. What is frustrating is that what I think deserves a 3 other teachers may think deservesa 2. In my school we are spending a lot of time collaborating when grading theses assessments. This works well because we all get a better idea of how to use the rubric. The funny thing is the rubrics are now given a grade. What is proficient? I guess it is anywhere between an 83 and 93, it changes on a monthly basis depending on the latest research that comes out .
For those of us who do use rubrics to assess, there is a great site that helps create your own rubrics. When you need to be more specific to the genre of writing this helps create that rubric specifically for your assignment.
Kliewer's text was very enlightening to read. Unfortunately I haven’t had any interaction with a person with Down syndrome. I have had a lot of interaction with people who have disabilities, so I am very familiar with the judgments, and the lack of expectations that most people with a mental or physical handicap must endure. Kliewer’s perspective from real students with Down syndrome is a wonderful way for his readers to understand more, and be less ignorant and less intolerant of people who have Down syndrome. Fortunately I learned a lot from this text, which I will share with my reader.
Judgment and Democracy:
Community is the key to becoming, or being accepted and equal.Democracy is a word used by politicians and bureaucrats which means freedom for all, only if you are one of the “privileged” of society does this freedom come easily. Society is community; therefore if you are not accepted and valued in the community then you are not privy to the democracy. “Dewey promoted democracy as a way of life in which community both establishes and is derived from each individual’s recognition of the value of every other individual.”
“He and fellow educators have substantiated this vision with detailed accounts of actual educational arenas where all students are welcomed, not voice is silenced, and children come to realize their own self-worth through the unconditional acceptance of one another”(74)
The words “unconditional acceptance” stuck out to me. School is a major foundation in the life a child. Creating schools that do not segregate is imperative to the well being of all children and society. Kliewer discusses that peers need to have this unconditional acceptance for each other. There is absolutely no other way but to include all students, with or without disabilities. Kids understand and learn from each other in many different ways. Kliewer gives a few first hand accounts of kids with who have Down syndrome and their experience included and not included with the general population of students. Shayne Robbins, a teacher in a non-segregated school shares her experience with Down syndrome children in her classroom. She explains that these children, although they all have Down syndrome, they are not the same. I think this is a misconception many people have. Shayne tells of Isaac, who has Down syndrome who “might have been considered low-functioning. He had no speech that was understandable to teachers; moved with a great deal of awkwardness “(75); However, Shayne did not see Isaac as imperfect but she designed her lessons with all kids in mind. She drew on every kids strength.Anne, another child with Down syndrome absolutely loved movies, and according to Shayne, knew a lot about them. Shayne knew a good job for her would be working in a movie rental shop. However, the transition planning board thought that Anne would do well as a preschool aide. Anne did not like working with kids but in this world of “privilege” no one in authority decided to ask her, except Shayne.
Kliewer emphasizes that people with disabilities do have a voice and they have significance in the world. They are approachable, they are intelligent, they have hobbies, and passions just like everyone else.
“Vygotsky found that the culture of segregation surrounding people with disabilities actually teaches underdevelopment of thinking through the isolation of children from socially valued opportunities”(81).
Very often school officials think that kids learn better in segregated classrooms. What is it that we are supposed to be teaching? Is it just reading, writing, and math?If school is a foundation for our kids, should we teach about “unconditional acceptance?”
Kliewer discusses multiple intelligences in his text. Multiple intelligences, developed by Howard Gardner is a theory that there are eight different types of intelligence in a person and that these intelligences help a person in learning and processing information. I did a little work with this theory in my classroom a few years back. I think it is time to reintroduce some of these tools. Basically this theory supports the idea that there are many different ways to learn and many different idea of intelligence. Shayne supports this in her classroom. One of the quotes that I found so interesting goes back to the student Isaac. “He was not given credit by the psychologist, who noted that Isaac had not conformed to the specific directions of the test item. Shayne exploded, “He didn’t get credit for it because he didn’t do it right, but he clearly knew which was the block , which was the spoon. And he followed directions in an organizing sense” (84).
Isaac is clearly intelligent enough to determine the difference, however, he did not follow directions. It is like taking a short cut; you get to the end but just in a different way.
“When does twenty-first century technological society have to be so complicated, educational politics so confused, education so bureaucratized and standardized? How do we prepare students to face this complicated world we have created and yet allow them to retain their love of learning?”
Collier poses these questions early on in her text. As teachers we can all ponder over the answers and most likely we all have a good idea why these questions need to be posed. We can go back to our very first class when we learned about SCWAMP.It is the world of privilege and power. Collier does not have a direct answer for these questions but she certainly understands the challenges we teachers face daily. Although many of us do not have ESL students, we do understand the difficulty in teaching our students who do understand the English language. How do we allow our students to retain their love of learning? Wow! When we teachers have lost our love for teaching, our students will certainly lose their love for learning. We need to realize that in the classroom we have the opportunity to put aside the bureaucracy and the politics and do what we do best; inspire, education, and prepare.
Collier discusses certain guidelines for teaching English to second-language learners. In one of the guidelines he states “Teachers should be aware of the special kind of speech that mothers and fathers use automatically with their children, and try to emulate this.”
This connects to Lisa Delpit when she discusses how to teach with “cultural diversity” in mind. This is especially important when teaching second language learners. Rodriquez’ family changed their language, although it would have been a better choice (in my opinion) to have a teacher who embraced their culture and thier words.
I guess we can say this is a “significance “problem; significant to the classroom teacher, significant to the student, and significant to the bureaucrats.After all, these ESL students certain bring down our standardized test scores.Wesch states, “If our students are not “cut out for school,” perhaps we have made the mold too narrow or inflexible, or more likely, just not meaningful enough to inspire a student to fit in. That’s the significance problem”(5).
As teachers we need to make sure that all students are getting the education they deserve. Many ESL students are labeled as not performing well because of the language barrier, when in fact many of these students are very intelligent. We have been learning a lot about “Cultural knowledge” and how important it is in teaching. Cultural knowledge is such an important aspect to teaching.
In a article I read from the LA department of Education, mentions the importance of understanding that students who use English as a second language are not dumb. Howver, many school districts refuse to put these kids in higher level classes even when they reach fluency in English.
“Martinez immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico in the sixth grade, and remained in the English learner program until the ninth grade. Even after his transition into the mainstream curriculum, he was not placed into college-preparatory classes besides Algebra. Martinez proposed translating material from college-preparatory classes into the students’ native languages, so as not to “neglect the whole student” in pursuit of English language mastery.He also stressed the importance of parent involvement in order to reinforce language acquisition out of the classroom. “
Fourteenth Annual Multicultural Conference and Partnership Expo
Promising Practices
Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching
With Marco McWilliams.
Those of you who don’t know of Marco, you are missing out. I first heard him speak at one of my classes at RIC last year. He is a vibrant, committed, passionate, and very current speaker and educator. I was very happy to walk into this workshop and see him at the podium. However, he didn’t stay at the podium; that is not his style.
I was instantly reminded of Gerri August when Marco spoke about the importance of dialogue. This dialogue, especially in a room full of learners is extremely important.What I understood from this is that our classrooms do need to be one of equality when it comes to teaching and learning, equality in the sense that everyone needs to be heard.Not just the ones who want to be heard. We all have those kids in our class, some do not even have anything important to say , but they need to be heard. That’s OK. We need to incorporate dialogicality into our teaching. We learn from each other and although it is difficult to get that shy kids to talk, we (I) need to find a way to help he or she understand that what they say is valuable and that this dialogue is a tool for learning.
Marco also discussed how many of our young kids today are” historically illiterate.” I found this very interesting. Unfortunately today’s youth are not learning. When he gave a simple history quiz to a bunch of teenagers most of them failed. What happens if kids today do not know their own history? Well, history can repeat itself. I guess the big question is why are kids are not learning, or retaining their own history. I was waiting for an answer but Marco did not give us one. He did hint to the fact that kids today do not understand its importance.His passion is apparent when he talks about his own teaching and the words he uses when speaking to his own students.“You don’t have the luxury to not have knowledge!” Delpit, Johnson, and Kozol came to mind when Marco discussed the privileged one percent of the country and the rest of us, the 99% who do not have that luxury to sit around and not have knowledge. His lecture was very passionate and heartfelt. He understands and he wants to make a difference.
Slammin’ for Social Justice:
Teachers and Students Talk Back
This workshop was a lot of fun. It was interactive and inspiring. We listened to some teachers and students perform their own slam poems. They discussed that this is a great tool for students to learn. I agree.Last year I incorporated this into my classroomand I was astonished how open and honest my students were. Many of them didn’t want to perform their own poems but were very happy to have someone else read them for the class. What I love, and the kids love about slam poetry is that they can writeabout anything . It always surprises me when kids are not inhibited to write about personal and social issues. It is really a wonderful release for many of them. I have imbedded two of the slams I show to my class. They are only a few minutes long but all are very powerful.
"What Teachers Make"
"Knock Knock"by Daniel Beaty
Teen Empowerment “Empowering Youth and Adults as Agents of Positive Change”
As teachers what is better than being an agent of positive change. I was inspired from the stories I heard from the presenters. Each of these kids had to overcome major obstacles in their lives and they all discussed the fact that this Teen Empowerment has helped them on the road to success.These three young people opened up my eyes to understand more fully how teenage brains work. The presentation helped me realize how important a classroom teacher is and how we need to be more aware of each and every student. Kids get bored in the classroom and I learned three new strategies ; Stand up and Move, Wind Blows with Words (can’t wait to try this out), and Bean Bag Toss. I learned that many youth are rebellious by nature and we as teachers need to work with this natural instinct to create a classroom where the students feel like they do have some power and that the classroom isn’t a power struggle for authority.
The presenters were not against teachers at all and I know that they wanted to teach us a little better way to teach them. I appreciate that, however the young lady on the stage did say something that stuck out to me. I wish I had asked her about it during the question and answer portion but I didn’t. She was asked by an audience member how she felt after doing the Te Wind Blows with Words activity. She said,“ I feel safe because I won’t be graded for my words. It felt good because I wasn’t being criticized.” This bothered me because I wondered at the time, and I still wonder if kids take our input and suggestions as criticism. We all know that we are simply trying to teach. Do our students think we are criticizing them when we conference with them about their writing assignments? Do our students take it negatively when we tell them what they did wrong but show them how they can learn from their mistakes? What would Delpit say about this? This really has me thinking about the way I conference, grade and teach my students. II need to be mindful of what I say and/or wirte and how I say it. Perhaps my words come out as criticism. I never want a student to take my “teaching” as a negative connotation about their ability.
