Let me be clear, I'm as vocal of an advocate for public education as you'll find, but I understand with crystal clarity what Sir Ken Robinson was getting at when he asked the question Do Schools Kill Creativity? or why John Taylor Gatto wrote a book titled Weapons of Mass Instruction.
As an educator who abolished grading in 2004 and initiated a Grading Moratorium, I have an acute understanding for how grading sabotages learning. Because of this, I have drafted this letter for my daughter's future teachers.
As an educator who abolished grading in 2004 and initiated a Grading Moratorium, I have an acute understanding for how grading sabotages learning. Because of this, I have drafted this letter for my daughter's future teachers.
Dear teacher,
Kayley loves to learn and is very excited to start school this year.
Because the case against grades has a wealth of anecdotal evidence and scientific research, I am requesting that Kayley's assessments and evaluations only include formative comments. This means that Kayley's learning would never be reduced to a symbol (such as a number or letter). This includes individual assignments, quizzes, tests and her report card.
As a family that plays an active role in Kayley's learning, the best feedback we can receive about Kayley's learning is to see her learning. No reductionist data is required.
If you are interested in learning more about the case against grades, I would be happy to provide you with these resources, and if your school's assessment and reporting policies make this request problematic, I would like the opportunity to discuss this further. Feel free to e-mail me at joe.bower.teacher@gmail.com
I look forward to working with you to support Kayley's natural intrinsic desire to go on learning.
Sincerely,
Joe Bower
Joe
ReplyDeleteAnother great post. This is the main reason I switched my boys (a 1st grader and a 3rd grader) to a different school in my district. The school I moved them to has no letter grades, no textbooks, strong PLCs, no homework, engaging teachers, and lots of technology. Now it's not perfect, they use more of a Marzano style report card and I'm sure you would say that grading with 1s, 2s, 3s, and 3+ is still grading but I'm glad that my sons can at least explain to me what those numbers mean. It is certainly a step in the right direction. My boys love learning now more than ever.
Good luck next year with your daughter in kindergarten. I have no doubt she will be just fine and you'll find the right way to support her and her school.
I'm currently trying to navigate all of this with my own son. It's been difficult to say, "Actually, I don't want him to get rewards or grades and I want to do my own home learning when he comes home from school." It helps that he's a "good" student, but it is still really challenging.
ReplyDeleteI played around with the same ideas as my son began kindergarten this past fall, however, as a teacher, I've seen waaaaay to many other teachers in the lounge complaining about what they deem to be "ridiculous parent requests." My fear became my son's teacher having a problem with my request and taking it out on him.
ReplyDeleteI chose to talk with her instead of sending an email. In an email it's difficult to read tone and intent - I feared that the teacher would peg me as a problem and that would impact my son. Instead of sending an email, I talked to her in person about my beliefs. She was very receptive and eager to learn more.
I've shared several things with her since, and she's reciprocated by sending some great articles my way. Let's hope the school is as receptive in a few years when I refuse to have him take the state tests.
Minookatap makes a powerful point re tone and communication. Your use of the word 'never' seems to set up a conflict from day one, especially if you have no idea what the teacher's grading philosophy is. A possibility exists he/she holds a similar grading philosophy as yourself and by setting yourself up as an expert, rather than a partner, it could become an awkward dance with Kayley in the middle.
ReplyDeleteThere are 26 letters in the English language. If the class does an activity where Kayley identifies 23 of the 26 letters, your note seems to suggest that her teachers shouldn't mention, make note of, or even acknowledge the fact that her learning can be communicated using two numbers. Rather, they will have to perform linguistic gymnastics to communicate with you about her learning. I'm wondering if you could provide some examples to the teachers to understand what you mean. For example, what does it look like to communicate with you about her learning? If your only criteria for communication is to see her learning, should they be recording each moment of her day so that you can review the tapes? (Hyperbolic, yes but that's what will happen in the faculty room).
What does formative feedback look for a child who can't read? Feedback is ultimately for the learner, not his or her parents, so what does it look like to give Kayley feedback that isn't reductionist? Let's say Kayley knocks it out of the park and the teacher gives her powerful, formative verbal feedback pointing out all of the great stuff she does and together, they talk about what Kayley needs to work on. At the end of the conference, the teacher uses a smiley face to indicate that this is work that Kayley did really well on. Is the sticker now a grade in your eyes? What you'll see is the sticker - what Kayley experienced was a conference. What does it look like to negotiate that tension?
I have been thinking about this a lot this year, thanks to the experiences of my own child. There are a lot of reasons for this that I won't bore you with at the moment, but one quick, simple example is his reading habits. My son can be a voracious reader, even at only 8 years old, and reads all the time: magazines, books, blogs, wikipedia, anything he is interested in. When reading became a grade, however, he stopped reading outside of the 100 minutes he was required to read by his teacher (for which I had to sign off). I finally decided to just sign off without timing him, so he could read when he wanted for fun. It has worked really well. I find him reading again, by his own choice (he has a good selection of video games, so I know he's chosen to read when he's doing it).
ReplyDeleteThis is helping me to reflect on my own classes and wonder what I can do to lesson the impact of grades on my students.
I would be terribly offended by receiving this communique by a parent. Not only are you saying you know better, but you offer some stuff to read to "educate" the teacher. I remember Jehovah's Witnesses doing that to my parents at their front door. They knew what was best for our family.
ReplyDeleteI get all sorts of requests from parents all the time. Some of them are reasonable. You would not want a parent to tell you how to do your job either and therefore I believe this is unreasonable.
I appreciate your point but I would caution against using this letter how you have worded it. I agree with other comments that it sets you up as an adversary as opposed to a partner in the learning journey from day one. It also takes too extreme a stance on the whole point and a grade value such as 'A', 'B', 'C' or .../20, .../100 is a useful way of representing a child's process SO LONG as it is accompanied by the reasons the mark was not 'A' or 100/100. Extremist but thought-provoking so thanks,
ReplyDeleteAnna
It's nice to play Devil's advocate once in a while but I'm confident that you wouldn't actually send this letter in to a school. If you REALLY wanted to share your views I think we all know that this would be best handled in a face to face meeting.
ReplyDeleteStill, it's a nice post all the same.
I, too, struggle with the negative effects that our grading practices have on my children. Your post got me thinking, and inspired my own post in which I referenced you: http://teacherslifeforme.blogspot.com/2012/01/protecting-my-children-from-grading.html
ReplyDeleteThank you for continuing to make me question my own grading practices in my classroom.
Hey Joe - I am hoping that you will be pleasantly surprised but the primary teachers at your daughters' school... When I came from teaching high school to being a VP of an elementary school I spent a ton of time in primary classrooms and I was always inspired by the focus on verbal descriptive feedback and formative assessments. Very little learning, from m experience, is converted into numbers for kids. Report cards are still given but between them, there is so much great formative that I hope that your letter will be unnecessary. We can learn a ton from primary teachers. :-)
ReplyDeleteI adore this post!
ReplyDeleteMy daughter has been a Montessori student since Casa and is now in 6th grade there! It's magic!
ridiculous parent requests.......
ReplyDeleteridiculous teachers.......
discuss:):)
there's more than one way to skin a cat just as there's more than one way to learn
and if someone doesn't want institutionalized learning for their child, that's their choice and more power to them. some of our greatest leaders, artists and other successful individuals never fit in at school or the 'box' but went on to achieve and thrive anyways...with the support of those that love them.
no, i'm not a hippy or utopian,just someone who doesn't think there is one solution for all AND that schools are still based on an institution like premise and theory that is way, way out of date for today's world:)
Of course this is just my opinion and believe and I value all the others also.
And, most teachers are gifts and play a huge role in a child's development although they too are under a lot of pressure to do more with less and deal with a lot more social issues that affect the classroom.
Kudos! My son is only two years old, but I've already sent a version of your letter to every kindergarten teacher in school districts within a 35 mile radius.
ReplyDeleteAny teacher touting this letter as 'unreasonable' must have an inherent superiority complex. Aren't we as educators meant to be lifelong learners? And if we aren't, should we not consider a new profession?
With the exponentially decreasing amount of value that families in my community place in education, I would welcome any parent who placed as much time into their child's education as you do. Even if there is disagreement, that's OK. Part of being an adult is the ability to openly communicate your beliefs and ultimately come to compromises or new beliefs. Isn't that what we teach our children?
I personally think the e-mail is a great way to begin this conversation. If the teacher wants to discuss this further, they can contact you. As a teacher, I value electronic communication for the sole purpose that it saves time. Once I assess the intended purpose of the e-mail, I decide whether further communication is necessary.
I would hope that any educator would put their ego behind them and welcome any chance to learn and to further serve their community with open arms.
I forwarded this on to the principal at my daughters' elementary school. It was the perfect response to the report card I just got. It is two pages of expected skills acquisition for the 1st grade. The scores are based on where they expect them to be in June, so basically score them low so that the teacher can document progress. There are two lines of "personal narrative" included...aka the teacher chose two codes and the information system plugged the lines onto the report card. Absurd and useless.
ReplyDeleteThis is no longer a school/parents issue. The push to turn people into an objective, quantifiable measure is being pushed by councils,think tanks,self-proclaimed education reformers. A lot of money is at stake, and in order to send it in the "right" direction intricate designs based on data (like the derivitives formulas that made some very clever people very rich) have to be implemented. A philosophy of education (what is included,it's purpose/desired outcomes,what should be valued)is also at stake. In order to control the philosophy so the power and money go in the "right" direction,political power will be used to take power away from people who could provide alternatives (like more comprehensive measures of achievement).
ReplyDelete