Failing at Passing

“What’s your failure rate?”

That’s a question principals, department heads, and other interested parties may be asking teachers in upcoming weeks. It’s a question that causes anxiety, tension, and cognitive conflict for many teachers. The expected or “right” answer to that question had better be a really low number or, preferably, zero. It’s the teacher’s responsibility to make sure everyone passes, right? No child is left behind. We don’t let kids fail.

Receiving messages like these--ones teachers may interpret to mean they are not allowed to have any Fs in their gradebooks—causes angst because not letting kids fail isn’t as simple as it seems. When teachers look at their gradebooks and notice that students are failing, they’re faced with a dilemma that seems resolvable through several pathways:

• Devise some sort of do-over plan (or, in the case of some students who are missing assignments, a “do” plan), which could involve retaking tests and/or amnesty for incomplete or missing work.

• Add in a few “extra” assignments that struggling students are sure to do well on to counterbalance low grades already in the gradebook. This solution typically involves participation grades or “creative” assignments with low standards for success.  

• Lower their standards. Make tests and assessments easier. Grade work for completion rather than accuracy. If students can’t reach the bar, lower it.

• Do some gradebook magic tricks that cause some assignments to simply disappear and some grades to rise on their own. Presto! No more failing students!

Each of the these solutions is problematic, and some are completely unethical. But we all know that when feeling trapped in a no-win situation, sometimes people make poor choices.

The thing that frustrates and frequently infuriates teachers faced with the mandate to eliminate student failures is that it’s hard to give a passing grade to a student who has put forth no effort in class. This student doesn’t deserve to pass. He’s done absolutely nothing all semester. One problem with the no-fail classroom is that some students have learned to work the system. They know that the teacher is going to reach a point of desperation and are hedging their bets that things are going to get easier for them so that they can pass without earning the grade.

Here’s the truth as I see it:  A student who hasn’t mastered the objectives and standards for a course shouldn’t pass the course.

Here’s the caveat that accompanies that truth: Most gradebooks measure things other than objectives and standards. If a student is failing a teacher’s class because of factors unrelated to objectives or standards, that failure is difficult to defend.

In other words, if the student is failing because of a lack of compliance but knows and can demonstrate what he or she is supposed to know, that student deserves to pass. If passing a class hinges on completion of activities and assignments that don’t relate to the state standards, teachers ought to rethink what they are putting in their gradebooks.

I can’t find a Texas state standard that says that students have to demonstrate the ability to complete work on time. There aren’t standards that stipulate that students color maps neatly in social studies class. I’m pretty sure that following a correct heading format isn’t a state objective, nor is having a parent sign a syllabus, letter, or reading/practice log. Anything related to actual classroom behavior should be off-limits in a gradebook. Finding words in a word search? Nope. Baking a cake or cookies should probably only count for a grade in Family and Consumer Science classes as there isn’t a state objective in academic classes that involves food preparation, procurement, or consumption. And there’s no objective that says students must donate tissues, paper towels, or other classroom supplies.

In my days as a student, I received grades or suffered numerical penalties for every one of those things at some point, and I have given grades or deducted points for many of them over the years as a classroom teacher. I’m sure most of us have. But when we know better, we have to do better.

Before I knew better, some students failed my class who probably had mastered the objectives of the course, and other students received inflated grades in my class because of their compliance, their art skills, and their participation, not because of their high-level mastery of the objectives. Looking back, both of those bother me.

Gradebooks have one job: to communicate whether a student has mastered the objectives of a course. Recording grades based on completion or on aspects unrelated to standards misleads parents and students about students’ progress. It also unfairly penalizes students who know the content and skills but can’t be bothered to jump through the extraneous hoops.

A student, then, who doesn’t master the objectives of a course might receive a failing grade. But what about that lingering refrain that says, “We don’t let students fail”? Educators should be relentless in their efforts to teach students so they can master objectives. That doesn’t mean that teachers give up on students, saying, “If they’re not going to try, then that’s their decision.” Students are not adults and don’t get to make that decision. It also doesn’t mean lowering the bar—as long as the bar is at the level expected by the state, not a bar set at an extra-high level because teachers believe they are teaching a grade much higher than the one they actually teach.

This whole discussion about grading and assessment is a thorny one, and most of us are still struggling to find the answers. As we search for solutions and try to reach a shared understanding, it’s essential that teachers talk with one another and with administrators about practices and expectations. What grades are needed to provide an accurate and reasonable picture of a student’s learning? What do we want our gradebooks to communicate? What are the standards to which we intend to hold our students accountable? How are we measuring progress toward those standards? What is acceptable evidence of mastery? What role does daily work play in the gradebook?  What does an A mean? What does a C mean? How are we encouraging our students to become learners rather than performers and completers? What legacy practices are we holding onto that violate what we claim to believe about assessment?

Assessment that is not meaningful is a waste of effort for students and a waste of time for teachers. And discussion about failure rates is only meaningful when teachers, parents, administrators, and students understand what passing and failing truly mean and when teachers focus on learning goals instead of compliance.

Two Ideas to Let Steep During Your Summer Break

One of the joys of summer during my childhood was sun tea. There was something especially wonderful about filling a big jar with water, dropping in a few tea bags, and letting the tea steep in a sunny spot in the backyard for the afternoon. A tall glass of sun tea with a sprig of mint snipped from the garden and a squeeze of fresh lemon surpassed the quality of traditional boiling-water-brewed tea and, not surprisingly, the instant Nestea or Lipton varieties. Perhaps the difference was merely in my brain, but I’d like to think that allowing the tea to brew slowly over a long period of time produced something superior.

Ideas are a lot like that. The ones we let steep for a long time are often better than the ones we cook up in a jiffy. When I have a problem to solve, I often find it’s useful to let it marinade over time rather than try to solve it in an afternoon. The summer is the perfect time to passively ponder over something that you can put into place at the beginning of the new school year.

If you don’t already have a burning question you hope to ruminate over during your vacation, I have two suggestions of topics that, because of their complexity, might not present easy answers at first but could transform your teaching practices in the fall if you had an opportunity to think about them in depth:  the state of your gradebook and your classroom expectations.

The State of Your Gradebook       

Grading has been a hot topic in recent years, and, if the chatter I see in my Twitter newsfeed is any indication, it’s not going away anytime soon. There’s a call for change in schools because people have realized that our long-held practices about grading don’t accomplish what grading is supposed to.

Your gradebook should do more than just provide a numerical proclamation of a student’s performance in your class. The numbers are meaningless unless your gradebook provides worthwhile, usable information about a student’s progress toward mastery of objectives in your class. This means that every entry— major or minor— communicates to students and parents what a student does or does not know or know how to do. This also means that things such as “completion” grades and “participation” grades need to go. Teachers embracing gradebook reform have to rethink what their gradebook looks like, what constitutes a meaningful grade, how many grades need to be taken, when and how students can redo an assignment to reach mastery, how this intersects with the district’s curriculum, and what this looks like in a teaming situation with multiple teachers teaching the same class on a campus. Such change will certainly necessitate discussion among teachers and administrators and some re-education of students and parents.

Wrapping my head around this boggles my brain because it’s hard to unlearn something that was a part of my upbringing in the school system as well as my accepted practice for decades of classroom teaching. I’m convinced, though, that it’s time for a change, and this is something I might need a summer to ponder to figure out for myself.  

Clarifying Classroom Expectations

A second thorny topic has to do with classroom management. Once upon a time, I’d spend hours over the summer devising a new set of rules and consequences to be unveiled on the first day of school to a new crop of future offenders. What behaviors are unacceptable? How many times should a student be allowed to leave the room and for how long? How many warnings occur before something terrible happens? How will I display my rules and consequences so my students will know what dreaded fate awaits them if they violate my policies? Should I underline the word “not” each time it appears on my list of rules, put it in boldface, italicize it, or do all three?

The reading I’ve been doing lately on the subject of classroom management says that punishment it out and expectations are in.

Effective teachers teach students the behavioral expectations for each activity that occurs in their classroom: how to enter and leave the room, what to do when the tardy bell rings, what reading time looks and sounds like, what happens during group work, what to do when you finish an assignment early, and what to do if you have a question or need assistance. At the beginning of school, teachers communicate, practice, and model these expectations, and then they hold their students accountable for them consistently throughout the year, reteaching as necessary and reinforcing the desired behaviors as they observe them.

What this means is that I need to spend some time clarifying my expectations for myself. What situations are likely to occur in my room, what do I want the students to be doing in each instance, and how can I communicate those most clearly to my students at the beginning of school? Setting up clear procedures at the outset is the best way to have a classroom that functions smoothly throughout the year, and that requires clarity in the mind of the teacher. I’d let that one brew over the summer so I have a clear picture in my mind when it’s time to go back to school in August.

Sun tea doesn’t take a lot of work or effort to make, but the result is worth the wait time. Similarly, having an idea in your head— one of the ones I suggested or one you’ve dreamed up yourself— gives you something to ponder in a low-stress environment, the kind where the best ideas develop slowly over time without a lot of conscious work on your part. Maybe you’ll have some inspiration and clarity in a moment of unconscious reflection that will pay off for you in the fall.  

I just read on the internet that sun tea might harbor deadly bacteria because the water doesn’t get hot enough to kill the bad microbes in your tea. So don’t get so gung-ho about the nostalgia that you poison your family and friends. Maybe you could enjoy a snowcone instead. The metaphor isn’t as good, but at least it won’t kill you.

Hearts and Grades

Hearts and Grades

How My Valentine’s Day Craft Project Helped Me Clarify My Thinking About How Students Learn and How We Assess It

Last Wednesday at work, two of my new coworkers placed Valentine’s Day cards and candies on my desk. Generally oblivious to holiday gift-giving occasions at work, I had given little (actually, no) thought to providing any red-and-pink merriment for my teammates, so this took me by surprise. In the ensuing discussion with my officemates about how awful I am at this sort of thing, one of the bunch threw down the challenge that I make something for them. “We want a handmade card,” is what I believe she actually said.

My new work friends have already learned that I enjoy (and can be cajoled into) making things. I once brought some homemade bread to work just because I felt like baking; a few weeks ago I responded to a joking request that I bake cookies for the next day’s planning meeting by bringing in several dozen pecan sandies. And I caused a bit of a stir with my slightly-irreverent set of decoupaged ornaments at the end-of-semester white elephant gift exchange. I think it’s become a bit of a game of “let’s see if Craig will do it,” and I fall victim to the challenge nearly every time.

The challenge of handmade Valentine cards seemed so unchallenging. A more miraculous feat, I thought, would be to learn to crochet tiny Valentine hearts. Wouldn’t that be a fun new skill to teach myself...and a delightful gift for my team!

That night, I sat on the sofa and tried to learn to crochet. Six days later, on Tuesday the 16th, I delivered three mostly-heart-shaped crocheted creations to my teammates.

Between the time I began and completed my task, I had the chance to hear an interesting and challenging presentation by Tom Schimmer, who spoke to many of our secondary teachers about assessment during our professional development day on Monday.

As I was working on my craft project Monday night, I couldn’t help but think about how my own learning effort related to what I’d gleaned from Schimmer. By the time I had finished the final stitch, I had answered a few questions and raised some new ones about learning and assessment.

First of all, my heart-making drove home the point that not everyone starts off on an equal playing field. I quickly realized that the maker of the YouTube video claiming to teach “beginners” like me how to crochet a simple heart had failed to preassess her learners and had presupposed that I already knew things like how to tie a slip knot, how to hold the yarn, how to make a chain, single crochet, double crochet, and triple crochet, and more. Try as I might, this beginner couldn’t keep up with her nimble fingerwork during the 15-minute video.

To catch up, I embarked on the adult equivalent of remedial tutorials by watching a 30-minute video that taught me the basics of crochet. I appreciated that the instructor on that video tried his best to provide me with mnemonics and plenty of practice so that I could--after pausing it frequently and rewinding dozens of times--complete all of the basic stitches with semi-confidence. (Sadly, students can't typically pause and rewind our classes as easily.) It was time for me to rejoin the “class,” and I was already at least two hours late.

Adding to my difficulty was the fact that I have a learning difference. I am left handed. This wouldn’t be an issue if almost all of the videos available for the heart-making tutorial weren’t made by right-handed crocheters for right-handed students. As I watched the videos of unfamiliar moves and tried to mimic them, I had to concentrate extra hard to transpose each move by flipping it from right to left. This must be what it feels like to be a student who struggles with the very act of seeing text as most of us see it. Concentration was difficult yet mandatory if I hoped to succeed.

Suffice it to say that I went to bed that first night without a satisfactory final product. In fact, the result of my efforts was a lumpy tangle of yarn that resembled the shape of an actual human heart more than the familiar Valentine’s version.

If a teacher had graded the outcome of my homework that night, I would have received an F (or perhaps a low C if the teacher were feeling generous). What my teacher would not have known is that at the beginning of the evening, I didn’t even know how to hold a crochet hook and that four hours of hard effort later, I had created something that showed (to me) some promise that I might one day conquer this task. I felt hopeful about my progress; I’m not sure that I would have remained motivated at this point, though, if a grade had been entered in the gradebook to remind me that I still had far to go.

The next night, life got in the way of my progress. I had other, more pressing, work to do for a presentation I was giving on Friday, so I didn’t return to my handicraft. If there’d been a homework grade for that night’s work, I’d have a zero in the gradebook.

Things went from bad to worse the next evening when I turned on YouTube to learn more about how to proceed. I determined that perhaps I should view a different video on the same subject and was shocked to learn that there are multiple ways to crochet a tiny heart. Some began with an elusive contraption called a “magic circle” while others wanted me to create a chain and join it to itself. There’s lots of talk of crocheting into holes, but it was never clear to me which of the many holes in my sloppy creation should be the home for the stitches. So many mixed messages! So many teachers delivering instruction at breakneck speed! Each of my attempts turned out different from the previous, and not in a good way.

Fortunately, I knew that the next day I would be riding in a car on a roadtrip with my friend Elaine, who happens to be an expert at all things yarn-related. I sent a quick message (along with my pitiful photo of my attempt) asking for an in-person tutorial, and she gladly agreed. Even better, she complimented my efforts and reassured me that hope was not lost.

We spent about an hour of next-day’s journey working on my hearts. Elaine was a patient teacher, but my disability threw her for a loop. Teaching someone to crochet is hard; teaching someone who crochets with the opposite hand is even more of a challenge. Because my stitches were backward and because I had to work around the circle in the other direction, Elaine had a tough time analyzing the source of my mistakes and figuring out how to redirect my efforts. At several points, she took the emerging heart away from me and, in attempting to diagnose what was wrong, finished the project itself. This resulted in a pretty heart--much prettier than the ones I made on my own--but didn’t help me learn to do it myself. How often as a teacher have I been guilty of doing all the work for my students and assuming they understood because they witnessed it?

What I found most useful was when Elaine took me on a tour of a completed sample and showed me the “why” behind its construction. Once I understood the philosophy behind each section and how they fit together, I felt much better equipped to tackle the rest of the project on my own.

Creating a suitable final product took longer than anticipated. On Monday night, I finally put everything together and managed to produce a few passable hearts. Since it was already two days after Valentine’s Day, I could wait for no further improvements.  I decided to deliver the hearts on Tuesday.

My crocheted hearts weren’t perfect; I would have given them a B+ if I’d been grading them because I clearly demonstrated understanding of the objective, produced a product that fit the criteria, but didn’t exhibit advanced understanding. If I had had more time, I certainly would have attempted to create an A+ heart, but I’m happy with my B+.

There’s just one problem. I delivered my hearts two days late. With Valentine’s Day on Sunday, they were due on Monday, so would I receive a late grade penalty? How many points off? 15? 25? Ouch! I am going to have a failing grade on my report card.

My grade gets even lower if you average in my near-failing first attempt and the zero I received for not having time to do my homework the next night. So what is my grade in the gradebook communicating about my learning?

If we agree that the purpose of grades is to provide an accurate report of what students have learned, shouldn’t my final grade for this project be a B+ since I can make a B+ heart? If my report card says something different, how is the grade useful to me or to anyone else who sees it and wants to know about my mastery of the performance objective?

These were the kinds of questions Schimmer brought up in his presentation. And, like most challenging questions, these raised more questions than answers. I’m completely on board with beginning discussions on how to make our grades meaningful and useful in directing and motivating further learning. Making this happen, however, means that teachers and campuses are going to have to wade into some murky waters, turn a critical eye on time-honored and comfortable practices, and completely rethink what teaching and assessment look like.

I envision gradebooks with a few essential grades each six weeks, grades that can be entered and adjusted throughout the grading period as students evolve in their mastery. Maybe there will be some unweighted grades recorded to show parents about students’ practice attempts along the way. These could help guide students to know where they need to improve on each individual skill that is part of the final assessment but wouldn’t penalize the students who took a little longer to catch on or took an unsuccessful risk. The time teachers used to spend grading and recording a multitude of assignments can be reallocated to helping students in their various paths on the road to mastery. All of this sounds great to me, but it’s not going to look like any classroom I attended or have taught in. For one thing, the gradebook is going to be less full and more meaningful. More important, though, students should be doing the work to demonstrate what they've learned, but it will be happening in different ways and at different paces. Things might get a bit messy.

The outcomes of this transformation might not be perfect at first--like my early attempts at crocheting a heart--but with enough introspection, troubleshooting, study, and vision, schools can transform to have a  culture of learning that empowers all students to continue to strive to be the best they can be. I’m ready to wade into these waters. Who’s coming with me?

Read more about assessment from Tom Schimmer and his associates here.