Change in education often moves at a glacial pace (unless it involves the government changing its mind about what is necessary about as often as a new boy band pops up). Teachers are loath to change what has “worked” for years.
Trying something new often brings resistance, but that’s with any job. If you are comfortable, why change?
As I enter my 18th year of teaching, I’m bringing a drastic change to my classroom: no grades. That’s right, no A’s, no B’s, etc. It will simply be pass or fail. Now that you’re jolted awake, allow me to explain my rationale for this experiment.
First off, grades don’t really matter in junior high. Sure, you have a GPA, but it doesn’t count toward graduation or scholarships or anything. I’m looking for a way to track my students’ improvement or lack thereof. Thus, if you do your work and show improvement, you pass. If you don’t, you fail.
There is a lot of research out there from teachers who have tried this. There is some negative feedback, but by and large, I found plenty to justify giving this concept a try.
For many years, I’ve struggled with students who are happy to get a D. “Whew, I didn’t fail!” That’s a tough attitude to deal with for me. I also have students who work very hard but struggle mightily, and the grade ends up in the D range. We all know that brings a negative connotation, and it demoralizes a child who works hard, but can’t find much success.
There are also the kids who know how to work the system. They find extra credit to boost a grade. On the other hand, some slack off, doing just enough to get the grade that won’t get them in trouble at home.
The people who tend to dislike this system the most are high achievers; they want to see their A since it quantifies their efforts at the top of the scale. The people who tend to like this system are the ones who don’t have to worry about the negativity of a low grade.
I will be setting a baseline for each student based on a number of projects we will do at the beginning of the year. Following that, we will chart growth together, and I will work with each student to move them ahead. Some kids will only move fractionally forward, but that improvement will be beneficial in the long run. Students who normally excel will be pushed to go even higher.
What this ends up being is differentiation for each student. Every student learns differently to some degree, and my goal is to set each one on a path to improvement and success. I’m very aware this will create much more work for me, but we’re entering an age in education where growth is being judged, and both students and teachers will be looked at differently based on that positive change.
As I visited with some other English teachers from neighboring schools, it was brought up to me that this might alleviate some of the anxiety and pressure students feel, both to avoid failing and to fear that slight dip in a grade that might bring down the wrath of parents.
Will I get this all right the first year? I’m sure I won’t; there will be some missteps along the way and some things I will do differently in the future. In the end, that will show growth for the teacher as well, and growing in whatever we do should be viewed as more important than what a test score or one hour observation will ever be able to show.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is confabulate, which means to replace fact with fantasy to fill in gaps in memory, as in, “The child was able to confabulate a story to satisfy his parents regarding his low test score.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!