Tootsie Pop vs. Homework

                As I sit here, writing this blog, I realize that it is 8 hours late, officially. I did not meet the midnight deadline. However, I am doing the work, correct? Because we don’t know about a student’s (or person’s) extenuating circumstances at home, we cannot condone a child for doing work late. Therefore, this blog will be accepted because we promote equal opportunities for learning. And as the student who dropped the ball, I appreciate that rule. But what about you – the others? – who did their work on time and listened to all instructions: do you feel it is fair to have my grade equivalent to yours even though my work is not of the same quality?

                I know we are supposed to preach the material, the skill, the standard, rather than the homework and the grade, but at what point does a student recognize this “sermon” and decide to maneuver around our preexisting rules? Students are not as dumb as some may think (and that is not my implication that they are indeed dumb). Rather, it is an insightful look at the fact that students have learned to manipulate teachers. Every time a student comes in with work not done and they say, “My flash drive is lost” or “My computer crashed” or “My backpack was open and snow got in it so all my work was ruined and I had to throw it away”, we know someone has been doing some serious amounts of thinking. (And low-and-behold, I have had all of these excuses just this week.)

                Now, the purpose of this week’s blog is grading, not homework, but sincerely, I feel the two go hand-in-hand. We discussed the 100 point grading system and that, if a student hands nothing in, they should still receive a 60 out of 100 because that is the same as the 4-point system. If this were the case, I would be awarding students who completed nothing. How can I promote, “No, you don’t actually have to do the work because I am really just going to give you points anyway?” What kind of sense does that make? Students need to be held absolutely accountable for their own learning. The teacher is the navigator, the student the pilot (I feel like I use a metaphor every week).

                Granted, I don’t want to see students fail and I will bend over backwards to give students an opportunity to get missing work in. But, at the end of the quarter, when grades are demanded from me, what am I to do? I can’t leave things as “missing’ because that is not an accurate reflection of the student’s achievements. Maybe they do know the material and can pass the test, but I do not feel their incomplete assignments should earn them anything more than they deserve: a 0. I know it sounds harsh and whatnot, but a student who does nothing should get nothing. If a student comes and, for any amount of time, shows me they are willing to do the work, I will give them something. I want my students to pass – I really do – it’s just hard when they don’t want to pass. The old cliché applies: “You have to try really hard to fail my class.”

                The grading conundrum will follow us deep into the educational world. Even if we switch to standards based or a 1,2,3 system, we are still giving students work to complete and they can still choose not to do it. I cannot get behind a system where, if a student has made the choice to not complete an assignment, I then choose to reward them with at least a 60%. I’m no math teacher, but for some reason, that doesn’t quite add up.

                For those of you who completed your blog on time, do you feel I should receive a similar score? I am handing my assignment in hours later than you did (if not days), and yet, in some situations, I would receive the same score. Is that fair? Does that promote fairness in education? (I mean, that was one the author’s major points.) It’s like trying to get to the center of a tootsie pop – “The world may never know.”