Are Grades Important?

I read an article on Education Week today that seemed to discuss this very same idea.  Now I just got done reading the comments from everyone on the article, and wow.  People have a lot of different opinions.  I really don't like confrontation on the Internet. And these people sound belligerent so I am not commenting in the box.  But it got me thinking about how we doing grading at our school.  We still do grading, as I'm sure everyone here is aware.  And it is still very subjective with moments of objectivity just as every other teacher.  However, we do focus on competency and mastery. 

How do we do this?  We make sure the student knows the material.  Cs and Ds don't fly anymore....they just get As and Bs.  Most of our students have just "done what they had to" and tried to just barely pass before.  By actively creating these guidelines, the students reach for a higher standard. I saw comments on this article about schools that just let students retake as many times as they want so kids don't even try the first time.  WE also have things against that in the fact that they can only really take the tests twice until they need to go back and prove mastery to the material that they are being tested on.

But the cool thing to me is that the power of the letter grade gives these students confidence to go on to their next school with more confidence whether that be in college or another high school. I know that they are actually having to learn something to go through what I make them do :) unlike other schools where they could just skate by.  So it is definitely something that is worth considering in the constant debate of education reform.

Picture courtesy of: http://www.legaljuice.com/2011/07/post_245.html

My Life....STILL!!

Yep...this is pretty much my life....Thought it was another day for a great meme.

Thank you Pinterest

A Quote Inspires a Mini-Rant

Our quote today is:

"This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature."--Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

I mentioned yesterday that movies, TV shows, and books are all escapes from my life.  When I was little, I thought that I would get married to the perfect guy who would be romantic.  And then I got older and understood that nobody was perfect...but for some reason I didn't put that with the teaching movies that I enjoyed watching.  I thought that teachers were heroes and their students appreciated learning from them and worked hard and put in the effort.  I have learned very quickly that this is not exactly how it goes and I know in the back of my mind that I always knew that.

This weekend I have really been reminded that students will take the easy way out...every time--even the ones you don't expect.  Even though I have worked almost all weekend long, and I'm not even close---I wonder sometimes why we do it.

This whole thing reminds me of a great movie Sleepless in Seattle. At this point they say: "You don't want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie." So I don't want to be a real teacher, I want to be a teacher in a movie. Thanks to http://www.snakkle.com/galleries/before-they-were-famous-stars-on-rosie-odonnells-50th-birthday-snakkle-celebrates-her-most-memorable-moments-photo-gallery-then-and-now/rosie-odonnell-meg-ryan-sleepless-seattle-movie-1993-photo-gc/ for the picture

The Bain of My Existence this Week...Grading

Ugh! I bet some teachers feel like this...but some times all I feel like is that I grade, grade, grade.  I knew that this is a frequent problem....especially for English teachers.  I knew this to the point that it was often a discussion with my fellow pre-service teachers in college.  The biggest thing that I got out of that was the fact that don't assign too much because you have to grade it...and don't assign something you don't want to grade.  However, my job is super unique in the fact that I don't assign the amount and I don't assign the work either.  With our online system the questions are randomly given to the student and the students work at their own pace.  So sometimes I feel like this....

From: http://macleodcartoons.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

Or like this....

From: http://www.philosophyandlaw.com/2012/12/grading-student-papers-insanity.html

Bottom line: Exhausted and tired...so this is a fast post.  Off to grade!