On my first parent-teacher night, I was nervous enough that I got my only tie out of the laundry and dressed up for the occasion. As it turned out, wearing a tie was not the only thing that made the conferences an unpleasant experience. I had some parents in mind that I really wanted to see. They were the parents of kids who seemed to show some sparks of excellence, but the sparks were usually quenched by the waters of mediocrity and especially sloth. There was some hope for these students, and they were fun to be with.
The teachers were at individual tables placed around the gym. A few chairs were discreetly placed so that waiting parents were out of earshot of each confidential consultation. The waiting parents could at least pretend not to hear the conversation with the parent that preceded them. As it turned out, I had the same conversation numerous times that evening, and it would have been more economical if the parents could have discussed a common problem rather than pretend not to hear each other complain to the teacher.My line was embarrassingly longer that the veteran teachers that seemed to give me knowing smiles as they sat at vacant tables sipping PTA red punch. The vice principal kept discreetly placing more chairs in my waiting area and would occasionally catch my eye and gesture to the solemnly waiting parents in an effort to hurry me along. He didn't show much sympathy.
He was gesturing to the wrong people. I was trying to hurry while getting a lecture from each parent that could not be shortened nor interrupted. I found myself in the middle of a hard lesson on grading. I had given some low grades to kids whose parents expected high grades.
My first defense, that students should have understood the standard from the first, didn't seem to score a point all night. I tried to make it sound like everyone could get an `A' grade. "If they can all write `A' papers by the end of the term they will all get `A' grades."
The point is that most were not doing what I thought was `A' quality work. As a result I found myself set upon by the parents of `A' students who had earned `B' grades for what I thought was `B' quality work. I did notice that I wasn't talking to many parents of `D' students who earned `F' grades.
What these parents were telling me, in language that I could not misunderstand, was that students had worked hard in my class and deserved higher grades. In their view I was not rewarding effort. Hard work should get a good grade in the minds of these parents, and there is something correct about this view even though in the long run it is performance, not effort, that counts.
I tried an analogy. "Would you choose a heart surgeon who worked very hard in surgery courses or one that did `A' quality work?" Somehow the argument did not seem relevant in junior high school.
As a teacher of writing at the college level, I don't often get calls from parents, so I have this same argument with myself each time I grade a set of papers. How do I grade the papers of the student who can turn out a quality essay in an hour? How do I grade the paper of the student who has spent hours in the writing lab revising a half dozen drafts only to produce a mediocre product? I'm not certain there is an answer to the question, but perhaps teachers need to take a truth-in-packaging perspective. When faculty put an `A' on the product that a student has produced, there is an assumption by others, like future employers and other schools, that the product is correctly labeled. There is no assumption by others about the effort that went in to producing the product.
If teachers are labeling products that students produce when grades are assigned, then the process that the students went through to produce the product is at least discounted if not ignored. There seems then to be no evaluation made of the process or effort.
It is easy to see how a student who works hard can get discouraged if only the final product is graded and effort ignored. A challenge for teachers and parents is to recognize and reward effort and still maintain a correct label on the product.
Teachers need to encourage effort not only as a means of nurturing a better product but in an effort to strengthen the self-esteem of hard-working students who deserve to feel good about their effort. This is the message that parents were trying to give me at parent-teacher conference. They were the concerned parents who wanted to see the efforts of their children rewarded in a system that seems to only grade the product.
Perhaps we could do better in education with some kind of dual grading system, but the natural consequence of this may be a bit confusing. If we grade the effort and the product, how about the attitude of the student or the student's contribution to the education of other students, or the student's creativity, cooperation, critical thinking or looks. The point is that many factors contribute to a good product and effort is only one of these factors.
It is easy to make a case that grading the product is unfair until one considers that grading the other factors, such as effort,is really grading the student. At least when I but a `C' grade on a paper I am only saying that the paper is `C' quality. I'm not saying the student is `C' quality. Giving an effort grade is grading a student with all of the implications this has for self-esteem.
Maybe with all of the weaknesses in the current grading system, it is still best to grade the product, but we should at least acknowledge the effort and somehow reward the tenacity of students who work hard.