Some Monday Morning Teacher Crankiness

I'm catching up on reading that I missed during NFL Nationals or debate camp, and I stumbled upon this little gem at Bill Ferriter's The Tempered Radical:

Ferriter writes:

What's completely crazy is that I've probably taught about a million Baljeet's in my day -- kids who weren't interested in any experience that wasn't graded.  And that's frightening because when grades become more important than learning, kids suffer.

I have to be honest; my number is a little lower, only about 733,649. The percentage of students in each section is growing each year, so I should get my millionth Baljeet before too long.

I hope the Baljeatles follow up "Somebody Give Me A Grade" with "I Need At Least A 'B' So I Can Get $50 From My Parents."  I'm sure a creative band like the Baljeatles could create a great alt country jazz rap fusion sound to tie in with lyrics.: think Willie Nelson meets Kayne meets Diana Krall.

A Grading Scale That I Wish I Had The Courage To Try

I hate grading essays and other writing assignments.  It may be the worst thing about being a English teacher.

Alan Jacobs, a college professor, has hinted he will adopt the following grading scale for notebooks or other assignments that are not "formal papers."

So, friends, here's how you can interpret the grading of your journals — which is not easy, I grant you, since I'm encouraging you to write conversationally and I'm tending to respond conversationally:

1) If I use words like "excellent," "outstanding," "first-rate," and the like to describe your entry, your grade is W00T.

2) If I say the entry is "solid," or "good," or if I don't make a qualitative comment but just respond to the content in some way — by adding information, or offering a correction, or the like — your grade is WIN.

3) If my comment is of the "yes, but" variety — which happens primarily if you either don't offer enough of your own responses or if you stray too far from the text you're supposed to be writing about — your grade is MEH.

4) If I tell you that you're just off-track — which happens primarily if you offer no responses of your own (instead summarizing either one of our writers or a critic) or if you don't really talk about the literary text at all — your grade is FAIL.

5) And if you fail to turn in a journal, your grade is EPIC FAIL.

Ironically, the scale seems similar to that used by The Savage Critics when they rate comic books.

Stuff about School in the Summer: The Realities of Grading Edition

Although, these videos contain college specific situations, I have had these conversations with only minor variations. (HT Evolving English Teacher)

"You're ruining my GPA"

"I have never been to class, but I don't deserve to fail."

"I didn't plagiarize."

Some Basic Thoughts about Education

This is the third or fourth or fifth effort to try to blog regularly. Let's see how it goes.

Thought #1: I agree with Charles Murray (mostly), at least this time.

Last spring, I read a Charles Murray article about the philosphy that he described as educational romaniticism. A version is here. Murray makes at least three trenchant points and one mistake.

Trenchent point #1

"Many laws are too optimistic, but the No Child Left Behind Act transcended optimism. It set a goal that was devoid of any contact with reality."

To quote the great philosopher Stan Lee, "Nuff said."

Trenchent point #2

"To sum up, a massive body of evidence says . . .that we do not know how to change intellectual ability after children reach school. . . ."

Once again, "Nuff said."

Trenchent point #3

"In public discourse, the leading symptom of educational romanticism is silence on the role of intellectual limits even when the topic screams for their discussion. Try to think of the last time you encountered a news story that mentioned low intellectual ability as the reason why some students do not perform at grade level. I doubt if you can. Whether analyzed by the news media, school superintendents, or politicians, the problems facing low-performing students are always that they have come from disadvantaged backgrounds, or have gone to bad schools, or grown up in peer cultures that do not value educational achievement. The problem is never that they just aren't smart enough." (Italics mine)

This is tricky ground. No one wants to claim that disadvantaged students are inherently less intelligent than middle-class or upper-class students. I am certain that a smart student who comes from a disadvantaged background has more hurdles to overcome than a smart student with wealthy student. Even with that caveat, a smart student from any background will usually be more successful in school than a less intelligent student, and Murray is correct to assert that schools ignore that fact. (I'll put off the success in school does not equal later success discussion for another day.)

The mistake (and I think it's a whopper)

"The good news is that educational romanticism is surely teetering on the edge of collapse."

I wish and I pray, but unfortunately, Lake Woebegone is here to stay. I don't think there's a teacher in the system that I work in that could keep her job is she uttered the phrase, "I don't think your child has the intellectual capacity to earn an A in my class." Further, I doubt that there are more than a handful of teachers who believe its OK to utter that phrase, even though they may think it quietly. Finally, I haven't seen any young teachers who have been taught that they should even think it.

Thought #2: On-line grading programs suck.

Change the brand names, but the problems this post outlines reflect my experience.

Thought #3: I wish I had the answer to this problem

Dennis O'Neil correctly observes,

"Over the past few years, I’ve come to believe that not everyone gets the same education, even if schools and transcripts are identical. Some folk mentally compartmentalize: church goes here, family here, school stuff here, life in general there. So when they pass tests on what they’ve heard in classrooms, and at the end of a span of time, usually16 years and some august personage hands them a rectangle full of fancy lettering, they’re done with it. No more schooling, and no learning above what’s needed to live comfortably. Schooling in its compartment yonder, not touching this compartment, which is where we live."

And

"The problem, I think, is this: There might be information over in the school compartment that is relevant to the contents of the living compartment. It might supply answers, or at least stimulate thinking.

"Left in the ghetto of the school compartment, denied access to other compartments, and it is useless, and it will die. Worse, its lack might cause you to blunder."

I see the compartmentalization every day. School is in a box that gets shelved the second students walk out the door to their real lives. In fact, all school seems to be is an interruption to the lives they want to lead.