Testing, 1-2-3

I resigned from teaching about 7 years ago to become a stay at home mom.  This was just about the time that the New York State tests at the elementary level became more important than our actual lessons so I was more than happy to leave and live my dream of raising my children.  But the testing has followed me, as I view it now from a parent's perspective as my daughter entered 1st grade.

My daughter is now bringing home graded work, papers marked up with a BIG number at the top.  I posted her tests on the fridge, proud of the 95's and 100's.  But, she was often in tears.  If she didn't land a perfect score, she was heartbroken. 

Now, two thoughts are occurring to me at this new phase in our lives.  First, the time has come that I will be returning to work in the near future and I am facing the fact that I will soon be the one giving the grades again.  Second, I have to explore my own philosophies of grading in order to guide my daughter as she faces these small blows to her young, and still fragile self esteem.

I will speak frankly when I say that I despised the new testing that would be required of children in order to place schools on a graph, to determine funding, and to rate teachers' effectiveness.  It pained me more than it pained my students to take these tests that they couldn't even read let alone comprehend.  I wanted my voice to be heard from Westchester to Albany that this was ridiculous, and not by letter or email, but by the screaming from the top of my lungs! Not only was this totally inappropriate for children but it took hours upon hours of the teachers' time outside of the classroom grading these tests. And while there is a rubric for grading, there is so much area for interpretation it can't possibly be truly accurate.  But, herein lies my conflict with a grading system.  Analyzing work to be interpreted and evaluated is subjective and can be misconstrued and yet grading, though more concrete, is black and white, right or wrong, pass of fail. 

As far as time out of the classroom for teachers physically, it is time out of a classroom for teachers spiritually.  I can almost guarantee that no teacher out there decided to become a teacher to teach children how to take a test.  They want to TEACH!!!  We are only scraping the surface of what the kids should be learning, and how.  The excitement and fun of LEARNING has been slowly draining through those little bubbles that the kids have to fill in so perfectly.  I remember a day when teaching, if I didn't "finish" a lesson because we ran out of time, that was a good thing because it meant that we were really IN it.  Now, we are so pressured to finish a lesson because we have to save time for test prep that we are sending home work that really should not be done at home, but we are out of time.  Pencils down. 

Now, change gears to the receiving end of the grades.  My daughter has her limits at home, had great guidance in preschool and kindergarten and then so suddenly, she is exposed to GRADES.  I absolutely do not blame the teachers as they are doing their jobs.  When I first saw the numbers on her papers I was thinking, cool, she is now getting real grades as she proudly shared them with the whole family at dinnertime.  Then, I found her hiding papers, to find out later that she didn't get 100 so she tucked them under old work.  Then, in reporting to us that she got a 95 on a test, she broke out in tears, tears that only stopped because she cried herself to sleep. 

So, what do I do with this pain myself?  I don't blame myself because that is wasted time but it is a chance for me to self reflect on many things.  First, did I do too much coddling to make her think that she is in fact perfect and that everyone in the world will always view her as perfect and now her bubble has been popped?  OK, maybe I am blaming my self a bit.  Then I have to think about what does grading mean to me?  How does it play a role in reality and in being a self sufficient, capable adult?  So I explored this with a psychologist.  My own.  Here is what I found.

He shared with me that he had a 3.9 GPA in undergrad then went to a university that does not use grades, just pass fail.  He said it was the hardest thing he had done up to that point in his life. How was he to judge whether or not his paper was "worthy" without criteria?  Then he had to face constructive criticism face to face and that felt more detrimental to his steady 3.9 foundation of confidence than a red mark on a paper.  Point well taken.  So now my hate for the "grade" was a little less.  So what am I to do with all this new philosophical information?

I am coming up with a way to try to explain to my 6 year old what a grade means and how it can help her to determine her own self improvement.    I would like to try an experiment and ask her to not share her grades with me so she can judge herself without the fear of others judging her.  I would love to say that grades don't matter.  But they really do don't they?  Would I have been a better student if I didn't have grades?  I know I work very well under pressure so I can probably say that I would not have done well, even though  I am my own worst critic. 

So my conclusion is, much to my chagrin, grades do matter, but it is how we digest them that is what is truly important.