Yes, grades are due. I have a love/hate relationship with grades.
Being an AP teacher, I get to see kids that are obsessed with grades every day. They hunger for them. They fight for them. They scam the extra credit in an effort to be 1/10th of a point higher than the kid down the aisle, because that 1/10th of a point might lead to a better scholarship, or a higher place on the dais come graduation, or acceptance into a better school. I can see the stress, but it eats me up. I even give loads of advice, both in person and on my AP Blog (see the latest post at http://apenglishnews.blogspot.com/ ), but it still kills me.
But the actual process of calculating grades is another story. In a weird, counter intuitive way, I really enjoy tapping those numbers into my spreadsheet. I dig watching the formulas calculate the grades, etc. What I really hate is when my students do poorly. I believe that, contrary to popular belief, most teachers are not mean spirited. We wish for student success, and agonize over student failure. The results of such agonizing can either be the lowering of standards, thus ensuring higher grades, or grade inflation, a pandemic reaching from higher education to elementary schools. It seems we all have a thing about grades.
I don't know the answer. I only know that Excel is calling to me even now, and the numbers are just waiting to be crunched.
1 comment:
Student failure? It's all relative. Perhaps those 1/10th students should work a little bit with the kids that probably won't ever get a diploma. Then they'll see what it means to not make it.
Don't ever give up your standards. Kids know when you do and it only reflects badly on them. Here's a story for you...
My first year teaching...I was working with a student that could have a test read to her as per her IEP. She was a tough kid, probably not to much to look forward to in life, but after this test it looked like she would get her diploma. I scored it after she completed it - she passed - maybe there was hope! Do you know how she felt? Do you know what she said to me?
"Hey, ... you might as well put your name on the diploma, you earned it."
She graduated that June, but she never believed she deserved it.
Always...Always make them see that they deserved it. Otherwise it really is just a piece of paper.
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