Make Our Garden Grow

It is the beginning of the fourth quarter of the year 2014-2015..There is something to be said for knowing where you are in the year.  You can judge where you have been, you can take stock of what you have accomplished, and you can see what time you have left and where you have to go.  That being obvious, it is also a complicated process when you are working with proficiency based learning, and proficiency based assessments.

When do you draw the line?  When do you say to a student, it is too late to go back and take that assessment again?  When do you say, you never did that assignment at the beginning of the last quarter when it was assigned, why is it ok to hand it in at the beginning of quarter four, and say that you deserve a mastery on that project?  I think there are varying opinions on this score, and I know that there have been many heated discussions amongst fabulous teachers that have shown that there are viable reasons for these opinions.   However, if we are proficiency-based from beginning to end, then you have to accept work whenever it has gotten to a proficiency level.  That is another reason NOT to translate into old-fashioned grades.  It won't compute at all, to take an assignment from another quarter and try to translate it into conventional grading practices.

 Finally, we must ask, what is the standard?  What did the student work on to find his or her way to proficiency in that standard?  Did that student meet that standard?  Did that student do all that was required to meet that standard?  Is that student prepared to move onto a higher and more complex level?  Can we say that this student has truly mastered this standard, and can both remember it for further use and also can and would want to go to a deeper and more sophisticated level with it?  If that is the case, then we must give that student a mastery, a green light, and continue to keep that child engaged, learning, enthusiastic, coming to school regularly, ready to face the next challenge, and the next challenge and the next one.

I have never believed in grades.  I, myself, have never been motivated by grades other than that I was afraid to fail or be mediocre.  I was afraid of getting a C because my sisters were so brilliant and I was considered the "not as smart one with a talent" growing up.  I couldn't test well to save my life, and I had test anxiety so much so that I almost flunked the written driving test when I moved to Chicago at 24 years of age.

I have since realized many things about myself, and especially the ways I am motivated to learn, to grow, to challenge myself.  It has helped me to see all the benefits of motivating students in a positive way.  I know my students don't have to take a Smarter Balance test about Modest Mussorgsky or the notes of the scale.  I am grateful of this every day.  The anxiety for me is only my motivation always to do the best and to be the best that I can be.  I only wish to, as said in "Candide" to "Make Our  Garden Grow".                                   Make Our Garden Grow