Accountability vs. Opportunity

June 1, 2022June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 3 Comments

One of the coaches in my district approached me last week and asked if I had a moment to talk about a few students. Each of them had come pretty close to passing my class but had fallen short largely due to things entirely within their control – not turning in study guides for easy points, not participating in review sessions, etc.

While my interactions with this particular coach had always been friendly enough, we don’t really know each other all that well. He was clearly concerned about how he came across, repeatedly reassuring me that he wasn’t asking me to do anything I didn’t think was appropriate. Once we got past the pleasantries and multiple disclaimers, his basic question was this: would I be willing to revisit these students’ grades and see if there was some “wiggle room”… if maybe they might be made eligible to play ball next year?

I can hear some of your reactions even as I type. How dare he! That’s what’s wrong with high school athletics! How will these kids ever learn responsibility with these sorts of people enabling them?!? The gall! The moxie! The fruvous! And I get it – that’s probably how I would have reacted only a few short years ago.

Three things stopped me from immediately saying no.

The first was how graciously he approached the issue. He wanted to make sure there was nothing suggesting pressure from him or anyone else to do anything I might be uncomfortable with or consider unethical – and I think he meant it. These kids weren’t athletic superstars or anything. I teach freshmen, and while they may have potential, none of them are critical to the success of anything happening on a track, field, or court next year. In his mind, it was about what being involved and playing sports MIGHT do for them overall – including, but not limited to, academically.

He was genuinely interested in listening to and answering my questions and hearing my thoughts on the issue beyond “yes” or “no.” Once I understood what he was asking me, I think I said something like, “So… I guess what this comes down to is what has the best chance of being good for these kids. Is it the tough lesson of failure and natural consequences thereof? Or is it the potential learning experience that occurs when part of a team struggling together to get better?” That’s the point at which he relaxed. Even if I said no to some or all of them, he seemed relieved that we at least shared a basic conception of the issue.

The second reason I considered his question is that the kids in question are genuinely good kids, at least most of the time. They’ve each shown flashes of far more ability than their grades would suggest. I know something of their hopes and visions for their futures, and while ambitious, they’re all certainly plausible. (None of them are counting on the NBA or YouTube stardom to get them through adulthood.) These weren’t kids with a 12% or a history of serious discipline problems; they just didn’t always show the focus or determination one might hope.

These were also kids who might have made better academic choices if they had a bit more of a foundation of good decision-making on which to build. There’s nothing stopping them from being that success story who prevails against the odds, but not everyone lives on the front end of the Bell Curve. Some kids respond to their circumstances by fitting into their circumstances. Maybe they could use a different sort of nudge.

Finally, there was my stubborn belief in the power of extracurriculars in kids’ lives. I’ve had the honor of working closely with too many coaches to buy into most stereotypes of their priorities or abilities. Sure, there are some bozos – but that’s true of any position in public education. Thankfully, those are generally the exception rather than the rule. Educators sign up to coach for the same reason others sign up to teach English or AP Calculus – they want to help kids.

The district I was in for many years in Oklahoma had a massive athletic program, a huge marching band, a semi-professional drama team, and so on. There were certainly a few times I could have lived with fewer pep assemblies or some more balanced scheduling. For the most part, however, one thing was all but certain about students involved in extracurriculars: they passed their classes and they graduated.

I can’t guarantee they always loved learning in all its forms, but they cared very much about grades and doing well academically. Some of this was about eligibility, but it was also about the culture of being involved. It was a positive sort of peer pressure – a “be true to your school” kinda vibe. I don’t want to oversell it; there were still problems here and there. Overall, though, I’d rather push for kids to get involved in SOMETHING than hope they’ll spend an extra hour a night doing homework instead.

If that were even a real dichotomy, I mean.

So the question before me was one of probabilities and teacher philosophy. Coach was quite transparent about the fact that he couldn’t guarantee anything either way. While he hoped he’d be able to work with these kids as they continued through high school, there was no certainty they’d stay on the team. Playing or not, there was no way to know if they’d take advantage of the extra support and improve academically going forward. It’s possible I might nudge their grades up a few percentage points and all I’d be doing was feeding their delusions about how school works.

On the other hand, I could hold the line and they’d fail a required class, rendering them ineligible to play. I’ve had students for whom that would be a painful but powerful lesson – pulling a 58% in a class they could have easily passed, then taking the natural consequences. It’s just that I’m not sure these are those students.

That sort of resilience requires a support system, or at least some personal experience with overcoming obstacles or riding out the storm or whatever. One of the most difficult things about working with kids from marginalized backgrounds is that they haven’t all developed much resilience because they haven’t experienced true “winning” very often – if ever. One of the biggest struggles my district faces is getting kids to come to school in the first place, especially if they’re not passing anything.

Failure can be a powerful teacher. I believe in the positives of failure. But it doesn’t work the same way or mean the same thing to everyone. Sometimes it’s just one more failure.

There was one other reality to consider. While there’s no doubt in my mind any of these kids could have passed my class with a little more effort, the true difference between a 57% and a 61% is painfully subjective and impacted by any number of factors. I’d love to tell you that my English instruction and assessment is so data-driven and pedagogically holy that every tenth of a percentage point reflects a very specific level of skills and knowledge in each student, but in reality most of it’s just a matter of showing up, turning in work, and being receptive to teacher suggestions so that next week’s writing is a bit better than last week’s.

English matters. Grammar and effective communication and close reading are all important, not just in academic contexts, but in life and in many professions and in terms of personal fulfillment. Then again, teamwork also matters. Learning the importance of individual effort while remaining part of a group matters. Persevering and struggling to get better at something matters. The thrill of victory and the agony of flying off that ski slope week after week matter. The unique relationships kids have with coaches which are never quite the same as they have with other teachers – those especially matter.

So what would be best for these specific kids? What would have the greatest chance of setting them up for success – not just next year, but in years to come? What’s the ethical thing to do? The professional thing to do? The right thing to do?

If the answer seems obvious, I respectfully suggest you’re missing something.

If I do it, I told my colleague, the students would have to be fully informed of the decision (as opposed to thinking they’d somehow “slid by” at the last minute). This isn’t about wanting credit for the decision (I’m not sure enough of myself to feel too pious about it). It’s about wanting them to understand the reasoning behind it and the opportunity they have to take advantage of the moment. “There are adults in this building who believe you have better things in you than what you’ve shown so far and who want to give you the chance to express them. We’re trying to open the door a bit; what you do with it is up to you.”

Apparently this was already part of his approach. Go figure.

I don’t like different rules for different kids, even if it means opportunity for some of them. On the other hand, if I’m going to be wrong, I’d rather it be because I was too hopeful – too optimistic about the possibilities.

I chose the lady over the tiger this time. I nudged the grades up a few points. I’m comfortable with the decision, but not overly so – certainly not enough to insist it’s what anyone else should do. I hope they make the most of it.

Please Correct The Highlighted Sections

July 27, 2021June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Like many people, I’ve been trying my hand at freelancing here and there for extra income over the past few years. In my case, it’s nothing glorious – just writing (or rewriting) web content explaining the benefits of regular eye exams, how a reverse mortgage works, or where Eddie Murphy’s net worth ranks him compared to other actors or comics. (He’s doing better than Mike Myers or Denzel Washington but not as well as Rowan Atkinson or Robert Downey, Jr.)

I share this because of an experience I had this week that I found illuminating, if not entirely surprising.

The service I work through is set up so that once you’ve established a track record of relative success, you have the opportunity to move up the freelancing food chain a bit. I was contacted by company wanting me to compose some informational pieces involving building materials and design choices for retail spaces. The trick was that it had to be researched and then accurately presented at about a sixth grade reading level.

I knew that the content would prove a challenge, at least at first (I know little to nothing about construction), but I wasn’t particularly concerned about the complexity of the writing. Many of my kids read at a similar level and I modify stuff for them all the time.

I was wrong.

The content was difficult, to be sure. I had so little to build on (no pun intended) in terms of background knowledge or relevant experiences that the waves of new information had nothing to grab on to – no schema or framework on which to cling. I didn’t understand half of the vocabulary, let alone the concepts, priorities, or science involved. It was humbling.

But, hey – I know the drill: “The learning happens in the struggle.” “It’s the effort that matters most.” “Stretching ourselves is how we grow.” All the usual motivational stuff we tell kids when they frustrated. Stuff I absolutely believed up until this week, when I discovered that I’m an idiot and incapable of the most basic tasks others seem to master easily.

See, the content is only half the writing battle. Then came the “easy” part – explaining the required bits about that content at the reading level requested. The client provided a link to a free application they use for just such a purpose and asked me to make sure any problems it identified were “cleared” before I submitted the final product.

You feel it coming now, don’t you?

I did my first draft in Microsoft Word like I always do. It’s silly, but I have specific fonts and margins that feel right to me and help me think more clearly. My preferred approach is to just get it all down on paper (well, virtual paper) then go back and clean it up afterward. I’m usually well over maximum word count with my first drafts, but I’ve accepted this as my own personal style – which is a nice way to say it’s a glaring flaw I’ve simply learned to work through each and every time.

After doing some revising, I copied the entire thing into the app.

It looked like Jackson Pollock did the highlighting, there were so many problems marked. My sentences were at best too complex, and at worst incomprehensible babble. I used big words where small ones would do and semi-colons where decent, God-fearing Americans would have put periods. The app particularly hated my transitions or anything reeking of comparisons, contrasts, or examples. Worst of all, I’d used adverbs – the Devil’s diction and a form of speech best relegated to corporate-cloned pop songs and Stephanie Meyer novels.

After regaining my composure, I began editing. And rewriting. And cutting. And reworking. And… and…

Let’s skip ahead a bit. Emotionally, it was easily another sixty or seventy hours of grueling mental and emotional labor. According to my wife and her attachment to traditional, linear time, it was about forty-five minutes. The page no longer looked like the Apocalypse had come to grade my efforts, but neither was it anywhere near clear of problems – at least according to the app.

I closed the lid and walked away. I said some ugly, unprofessional things about the app, the company who’d hired me, the general reading level of the average American, and may have unfairly slandered Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carter somewhere along the way. I wanted to throw things, which, granted, seems a bit disproportional in retrospect, and for a moment thought I might actually break into tears.

Please understand, my Eleven Faithful Followers – this story isn’t about the app. It’s not about whether or not the writing was as bad as it looked or the reading level of the target audience for this particular company. I’m a grown-up (well, most of the time). I was hired to do a job a certain way and if I can’t do it the way they want, I don’t deserve to get paid. My opinions about rhetorical choices are irrelevant in this situation.

What I’d like to focus on, however, is that experience. Sure, clearly there were some other things going on for me to have melted down like that over some algorithmic highlighting. But it was nevertheless in that moment absolutely crippling. I couldn’t process what it was wanting me to do differently. I no longer even believed it was possible to meet the requirements of the assignment. In that moment, I was swept up in emotions and irrational lines of thinking absolutely familiar to any educator.

Clearly, this assignment was ridiculous. Impossible. The person asking this of me is either delusional or cruel.

These requirements are absurd. Undoable. No one can satisfy this program. Or, if they can, they’re just as stupid and useless as the app and the assignment.

You know the last one. It’s the one all the others do their best to obscure.

I’m too stupid to figure this out. I don’t know why I’m even trying. Clearly other people can do this – just not me.

Like many of you, I’ve learned over the years to let it out without doing anything too destructive and then come back and deal with whatever set me off. That’s the advantage of age and a little wisdom. It’s not about avoiding every possible failure; it’s about how we recover and respond, yada yada growth mindset, mutter mumble faster smarter wiser, blah blah blah cue Captain Marvel soundtrack.

It’s an advantage of perspective which many of our students do not yet have. And that’s why I’m sharing my moment of crash-n-burn with you here.

People outside of education try to distill everything we do into false dichotomies in order to simplify their outrage. We either teach that America is GREAT or that it’s HORRIBLE. We either teach FACTS or we INDOCTRINATE kids with our personal ideologies. We either focus on ACADEMIC STANDARDS or we coddle students and give them a diploma merely for sharing their FEELINGS.

In reality, of course, it’s al more complicated than that – especially that last bit. Standards matter, but so do student emotions and perceptions. Besides, it’s not a question of choosing one over the other; they’re interwound. Students generally learn better when they feel secure and confident. Sure, some need to be humbled and shaken a bit if they’re going to rid themselves of complacency and entitlement and become their best selves. Others need wraparound services and a reliable source of protein if they’re going to have any chance of passing their state algebra exams.

The app didn’t much care about my feelings (obviously) or the state of mind I was in as my efforts continued to fall short. I confess that it did eventually force me to admit that I have a certain way I like to do things and that I have difficulty adjusting to what others require. In other words, it pushed me to “learn” something about my writing and myself. With enough revision and a better attitude I finally got the piece pretty close to what was asked of me.

At the same time, even if we assume the standards being applied were flawless, the inflexibility quickly pushed me past challenged and into chaffed. Not that many years ago I would have walked away from it altogether. In high school I’d have never kept at it long enough to snap. Once I realized how overwhelming the expectations were, I’d have done something else instead.

At the risk of sounding preachy about something I’m certain we all already know, let’s remember this coming year to be intentional and aware when it comes to standards and expectations and how we convey them. Don’t sacrifice your belief that students can and should do better just because it’s been a weird couple of years. Academics matter. Progress matters. Sometimes pushing them is for their own good. Sometimes they need to fail (short-term) to grow.

At the same time, many of us expect classroom dynamics and personal volatility to be particularly challenging this year – for them, for us, for everyone. Remember to recognize effort and growth and progress. Ask yourself when it’s best for the student to keep pushing and when you serve them best by celebrating improvement and calling it a win. You’re not an app, even if you felt like one for a good part of last year. Fight the faux crisis of “learning loss” or whatever else they throw at you this year and remember how good you sometimes are with live, in-person students.

Eyes open. Mind clear. You got this. And you can use all the adverbs you want.

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I’m Not Sure I Want My Students To Succeed

December 16, 2020June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I’m not sure I want my students to succeed.

How’s that for an attention-grabber? Now I’ll skillfully jump back and lay the foundation for such an outrageous claim and hope it’s enough to keep you reading until we reach it again further on.

Four-Point Scale or Back Hoe?

The question of how to grade, what to grade, or even IF to grade isn’t exactly new in the world of public education. Sometimes it’s set by building or district policy (although enforcement is problematic at best). Other times it’s at least discussed within departments. By and large, however, it’s something no two teachers seem to do quite the same.

Many of the differences are cosmetic. Categories or total points? Are quizzes worth 10% or are they worth way more points than daily work and the math ends up with pretty much the same results? Other differences are philosophical. Completion or accuracy? Effort or quality? Improvement or achievement?

Things quickly get messy. If I grade entirely on objective standards, the kid who rarely shows up and never participates but has a great memory might pull a solid ‘B’ in my class without actually learning anything or becoming less odious to the world at large. The girl who does everything I ask and shows massive improvement still fails if she started off with less knowledge and fewer skills. On the other hand, points for effort sometimes seems like we’re rewarding mediocrity – or worse, giving pity points to kids who have no business moving up a level academically.

In other words, you don’t have to go very far before you realize several things about grades in high school. First, they don’t usually mean everything we hope and pretend they mean – particularly not from one class to another. Second, they’re almost impossible to get rid of. They’re so baked into the system that even districts bold enough to try alternatives usually end up using some form of an A – F, 4.0 scale when communicating with the state or post-secondary institutions.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, any discussion of grades or grading quickly becomes a discussion about priorities and overall teaching philosophy as well. It reveals our assumptions about kids, about education, about “the system,” and about our own ability to accurately observe and assess specific skills or chunks of learnin’ in otherwise complicated beings – teenagers.

Our Rubric, Which Art From Heaven…

I’ve worked with amazing educators who believed that a 59.4% was the highest ‘F’ you could earn, so congrats on that. This wasn’t some sort of revenge for being bullied as a child; it reflected a larger conviction regarding expectations, opportunity and responsibility. I’ve heard anecdotes about teachers who announce on Day One that everyone’s getting an ‘A’, so let’s just focus on learning! I can’t imagine this actually working very often, but it’s not founded on laziness; it’s founded on a set of ideals about what education should look like.

Emphasizing quizzes and tests over daily work is more than a calculation; it reflects a philosophy about how things work (or should). The opposite is equally true. Prioritizing completion and effort and showing up every day over performance on formal assessments is about underlying beliefs. The whole “standards-based grading” movement is merely a variation on this theme – are we actually measuring whatever it is we think they’re supposed to be learning?

This means, of course, that we can’t really talk about grading until we talk about what it is we’re trying to measure. This is standard edu-blogging clickbait; I’m not breaking any new ground here. But it’s always worth revisiting the question of what, exactly, it is we think we’re supposed to be teaching. Only then can we wrestle with whether or not our grades actually correlate.

Birth of the Blue

My very first blog post opened this way:

If you want to completely derail any meeting of three or more educators – teachers, administrators, curriculum coordinators, outside consultants, or whatever – ask what our priorities should be.
You know, as educators – what are our priorities for the kids? It’s hard to make a good plan without a clear target, so what are we trying to accomplish – you know, ideally?

It was a relatively brief post (hard to imagine now, I know) addressing the difficulty of actually narrowing down our goals as educators. Do we prioritize content? Academic skills? Mindset? Grit? Job skills? Personal hygiene? The ability to work with others? Reading? Writing? Critical thinking? Citizenship? Not putting your entire email in the subject line?

Schools are expected to be at least three dozen different things simultaneously, plus whatever else people think of along the way. (That way, no matter how many things we’re doing well, there are always something for which we can be labeled complete and total failures.) Let’s assume we’re already doing our best with legislative mandates and district goals. These things are generally insufficient, however, to shape the day-to-day details of HOW we teach, let alone WHY we teach.

That’s what I’m wrestling with at the moment.

Success Secession

One of the top 3 or 4 reasons commonly given by teachers for why we do what we do is our desire that students succeed – not just in our classes, but in the so-called “real world.” We have this idea that success outside of school requires the sorts of mindsets and skills we traditionally value. Personal responsibility. Professional appearance. Work ethic. Good citizenship. Effective collaboration. Subject knowledge. Appreciating other points of view. Communication skills. Not smelling weird all the time.

I’m not sure these skills are as universally useful as we’d like to think.

I love Amazon, but is Jeff Bezos insanely rich because of how much personal responsibility he takes for his employees or his commitment to interacting fairly with other entrepreneurs? Does Mark Zuckerberg’s success demonstrate a commitment to good citizenship, honesty, or owning one’s choices? Are the Koch Brothers doing so well because of how respectfully they tolerate other points of view, or is it mostly their belief in democracy and the fundamental equality of all citizens?

Was Donald Trump elected President because of his work ethic, or was it more about his impressive command of relevant facts? Has he been so wildly influential because of his professional communication skills and ability to work well with others, or because he’s learned to show up on time and meet deadlines? The most powerful individual in the world has absolutely none of the skills or basic knowledge we push in public education – and shows zero interest in learning any of it. He is the personification of printing off your essay from Wikipedia then arguing vehemently that you wrote it even though the URL is still at the bottom of every page. The only difference is that Trump essentially became valedictorian as a result and half the school board is now questioning whether your teaching certificate is even real.

He may be the most outlandish example, but he’s hardly alone in his approach.

Studies suggest that overly confident (but largely incompetent) men get promoted far more often than counterparts who actually know stuff and demonstrate effectiveness at their jobs. It’s increasingly difficult to argue that political leadership requires real historic or legal understanding. Our cultural and political trend-setters and thought-leaders may include a few of the best-and-brightest, but they’re hardly the norm. Classrooms still hold up Abraham Lincoln and MLK as American heroes, but real success stories in the 21st century are about Übermensch more than emancipation.

“I have a scheme today… Me at last, me at least, like God Almighty, all for me at last!”

The Better Angels of Our Pedagogy

If we really want our students to be successful, perhaps we should be teaching them complete and total shamelessness – how standards, ethics, or consistency are merely chains to hold them back. We could offer lessons in race-baiting, gas-lighting, and general sophistry. We could teach them how to focus so intently on money and power that they don’t care who they use up or discard to get there, and that legal limitations are for poor people. At the very least, no child should be given a high school diploma without first demonstrating basic competence in manipulating the fears and insecurities of others to sell products or secure influence.

I’m not suggesting that all business owners are evil – merely that being responsible and smart and hard-working aren’t exactly requirements for success in the 21st century. (They may actually be disadvantages if taken too seriously.) Aren’t we doing our students a severe disservice if we refuse to be honest or practical about what success too often looks like in the “real world”?

The alternative, of course, is to continue inflicting our own narrow, idealistic views of how things should work, in hopes they might eventually come true. If that’s what we decide, that’s fine, but let’s be honest about what we’re doing. If what we’re actually teaching is a higher ideal for how society could be, and how capitalism could work, and what success could look like, let’s own that instead of hiding behind “real world” rhetoric. We may not win that argument, but we’ll at least be striving for something better.

I don’t love the real world at the moment. I don’t want to be responsible for preparing kids to “succeed” in it if that means they become more like those currently at the top. I’m willing to risk criticism from the powers-that-be and the perpetually victimized right wing to promote a higher ideal – one built on our founding documents and our national potential more than our Fortune 500 or modern politics.

So… I guess I do want my kids to succeed. I’d just like them to first question what they believe counts as “success.”

The Awareness Test

March 1, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

In the wide realm of things everyone else seems to have heard of except me, a colleague shared this video at a recent PLC:

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There are several variations, although once you know kinda what to look for, you think you’re getting better at it:

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Of course, just when you think you’re looking for the ‘right’ things…

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Sometimes the idea is done for class projects, other times to promote a show (above). It’s also popular with PSA about things like paying attention to bicyclists when you’re driving, or in this case:

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It’s funny, though, how often I missed stuff even when I thought I had a pretty good idea what sorts of things I should be looking for:

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The human brain is amazing at filtering out extraneous information when it really wants to and when it’s had some practice.

I know – you’re picturing your teenager, seemingly unable to set her phone down at dinner or your spouse who keeps checking his texts every time the dryer beeps. So, it’s more evident in some cases than others.

Much of it seems to be ‘preset’ by evolution (or, if you prefer, by the way the good Lord made us), and it’s NOT a bad thing. Can you imagine trying to get through even a relatively calm day if you were equally absorbed by everything around you – every image, sound, movement, option? We’d never be able to accomplish… anything!

This seems to be part of what’s happening with those we label ‘ADHD’. We’re living in rather stimulating times, and yet we insist they stay fascinated by US in a square room surrounded by diverse peers for hours at a time. They lack the ability, whether chemically or developmentally.

But that’s not why I bring up these Awareness Tests.

I’m more worried about the kids who ARE able to screen out extraneous information. We’ve done a great job teaching them to keep track at all costs of how many passes the team in white makes, or how many times the bird drops the stick. They’ve mastered the ability to zero in on the specific elements which result in ‘success’ according to our measurements – 94%, ‘B’, etc.

And yet we wring our hands and wonder why they don’t fall in love with the great short story, the fascinating complexities of history, the wonders of chemistry, or the moonwalking bear. We’re bewildered that they can’t seem to appreciate the stuff we find so very important, even though we’re the ones making sure they’re punished for not keeping track of those damn sticks.

What’s the matter – afraid of a ‘high standards’ and a little accountability?

We’re doing it wrong. I’m not sure I know the ‘right’ ways to do it differently, but I am confident this is not it.

My daughter is not the perfect student. She’s scathingly unforgiving of the slightest perceived flaws in her teachers (no idea where she gets this – must be from her mom’s side of the family). She has trouble getting up for school in the morning, and she spends too much time thinking she’s working while what she’s really doing is Twitter with her calculus book nearby.

Her state test scores were off the charts, and she was a National Merit Semi-finalist derailed only by her GPA – those magic marks we use to reduce each child’s value and learning experience to one of five letters and a number between 1-100 which no one can actually explain or justify.

Her situation is unique only in that she is either unwilling or unable to play the game as well as many of her peers. They learn to count the passes of the white team, the black team, and eventually they can be trained to spot when the curtain changes color. In the process they learn to ‘filter out’ anything not being measured, rewarded, or punished.

They hate it, but they’ve been brought up to believe this is what you do – digging holes in one part of the field and filling them in another, then reversing the process the next day because that’s what their captors tell them to do if they want to earn good marks.

She used to ask me the best questions about chemistry and mathematics – stuff I had no idea how to begin answering – and like an idiot I suggested she ask her teachers. But they’re in the same game, and discouraged such distractions. I’m not sure they always even knew what she was asking, or how to respond.

She doesn’t ask anymore. She’s learning.

I’m not talking about the kids completely alienated and marginalized by our system, the ones who fail and get in trouble and lower our teacher evals. I’m not talking about ‘bad’ schools – the ones supposedly hiding all of those ‘lazy’ teachers afraid of accountability. I’m talking about ‘successful’ students in top districts – the ones who we need leading tomorrow and being the future and lighting starfish in buckets or whatever.

We’ve taught them to ignore the moonwalking bears at all costs. We’ve taught them to grab the ‘right’ answer and present it carefully formatted in the ‘correct’ way no matter what they have to kill in themselves or filter out in their surroundings in order to do so. And every time we change the directions (‘OK, look for the bear this time’), they’ll do the new thing just as single-mindedly.

It’s not the fault of a few ‘bad apples’ in the classroom. We’re all part of a system requiring such travesties for our kids to graduate. Individual educators can fight it, but if you fight it too well, your students will end up outside the game and never make it into a decent college or whatever – so… that’s a problem.

We’ve broken them in the name of education, and I’m pretty sure we’re all going to teacher hell as a result. I’m increasingly unsure whether I can do it anymore. Maybe I can’t stop the abuse done in the name of ‘standards’, but that doesn’t mean I have to help sew the straitjackets. We’ve GOT to find a better way.

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In Defense of Due Dates & Deadlines

September 14, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 6 Comments

There is a good case to be made that part of our job as educators is to prepare students for the ‘real world’ – whatever that is. We could thus argue that deadlines and responsibility are valid goals of public education. In the ‘real world’, you’re expected to do stuff when it needs to get done. Rolling in at 3 p.m. with “hey, here are those burgers you asked for during the lunch rush” isn’t going to cut it, nor will you get paid half if you simply don’t make them at all.

Unfortunately, we can just as vigorously argue that in many cases, not getting something done on time at work doesn’t mean you don’t still have to do it – you’re just in hot water while you do.

Either way, I’m not personally organized enough to make that case. Anyone who’s ever had to get paperwork from me knows what a challenge that can be – despite my best intentions.

The thing is, there are many less noble, smaller scale reasons for due dates and deadlines and policies regarding late work. Not surprisingly, many of them come down to the realities of teaching public school rather than the sorts of grander ideals we usually proffer when challenged.

Most of you are familiar with ‘economies of scale’. We teach kids in large batches mostly because we can’t afford to do it in small, or individually.

I do my best to come up with lessons that have a reasonable chance of reaching a majority of my 151 students while allowing some wiggle room in terms of quality and individual strengths and such. I’m not complaining – I love my job – but this is enough to keep me pretty busy most days and for several hours on the weekend.

And no matter how modern or flipped or inquiry-based I may try to be, there are still things that require grading. I hate grading, but there’s a limit to how much I can job out to students and still be able to sleep at night. There are things they can learn from peer evaluation, but half-a-class spent announcing that #1 is A, #2 is C, etc., is an embarrassing waste of limited time. Besides, most of what I’m grading isn’t multiple choice.

So when I hear repeatedly from otherwise respected voices that it really shouldn’t matter WHEN students do the assigned reading, master the required skill, absorb the expected content, as long as they GET it some day in their own special time and way – my shoulders tighten and my stomach hurts. I appreciate the theory, but education reformers and ideologists aren’t known for being bound by the same reality as the rest of us.

If reforms were horses, then students would ride… and teachers would walk behind them in the parade.

It’s time and energy-intensive to grade 150 of anything – paraphrases, thesis sentences, artsy fartsy projects, whatever. It’s FAR more time and energy-intensive when the stack you’re grading is a mix of everything you’ve done so far that semester – some clearly marked and easy to evaluate, some requiring you revisit the rubric you used or the instructions you gave. Some things you’re not actually sure what they are – so you read over them a few times trying to connect them with something you assigned in the past six months.

Yes, I know the answers to the quiz – but I don’t memorize the letters. Of course I can just read each question and its possible responses – but it takes much, much longer. And the writing… sometimes the priority is content, sometimes the priority is the formulation, sometimes something else. I’m so glad you finally turned this in, but I don’t have instant recall of every discussion in every class at every step as we worked through the process, or what priorities I may have suggested you personally focus on three weeks ago when you first asked to redo this particular prompt.

Yeah, yeah – poor overworked teacher. But this isn’t about me missing my tee time after school. What it means instead is that when I am working, at my desk or at home, I’m spending far more time and energy trying to figure out why little Johnny has handed in a page of Level Questions over some – well, over SOMETHING, I’m not sure WHAT – and whether or not they correspond to anything he’s missing in the gradebook – than I’m spending coming up with better ways to teach Johnny’s 150 peers the next unit. Flexible deadlines and nurturing late work policies mean I spend more time grading than preparing, or teaching, or collaborating, or whatever.

And there are other ways to assess – I’m not trying to run us all to the other extreme. Just trying to tie a little string to the kite of late work reform.

Expecting students to more or less keep up is not just about my personal space-time continuum. Remember how bookwork and lectures are the devil and all learning should be in groups, because collaboration is the new god? It’s difficult to really ‘collaborate’ if not everyone has done the required preparation – read the same chapters or worked through the same prompts or tried the same individual activities to get them to the point they have anything useful to say to or gain from one another.

It’s not about all having the same abilities or all achieving at the same level – it’s actually even better if they bring DIFFERENT things to the group. But do we seriously want all group work to be the two prepared kids once again dragging everyone else through the basics just because 2/3 of the group didn’t feel inspired to learn at their own pace and in their own special way that week?

How many angry lil’ Republicans are created this way – barely into high school and already learning that the harder they work, the more they are expected to drag along those who can’t or won’t, often at the expense of their own progress? At least under the old framework the best and brightest were merely ignored and marginalized under the assumption they’d still pass state tests and stay out of discipline trouble – under this new approach we can actively punish them for being responsible!

Which, I suppose, IS part preparing them for ‘the real world’, now that I think of it.

I don’t know how to make good use of class time without the expectation students will arrive prepared. I don’t know how to have a class discussion, build a logical curriculum sequence, structure activities, select reading, or even insert movies if I’m supposed to be OK with half the class working at whatever lil’ pace their specialness allows. I’m hardly inflexible – no two years play out in quite the same way or at the same pace – but I am bewildered by the suggestion that I should deliberately hold off on judging little Barclay until the last week of May when suddenly I simply must give him a grade indicating what he’s done or learned that year.

I appreciate the suggestion we could stand to be more accommodating of students’ various needs. I realize the assumption behind much reform is that I’m an inflexible fascist who enjoys crushing the young no matter how intensely they strive for success. That is, after all, the primary reason to teach – along with my desire to maintain low standards and have no personal accountability, of course.

I respectfully suggest, however, that we’re not doing them any great favors by teaching them that the most important question they can pose along their learning journey is “when are the retakes?”

Related Post: He Tests… He Scores!