Grading What
A
M tters
No matter how lofty
our espoused education
goals, our grading
practices reveal
what we truly value.
Tony Winger
When I began analyzing my grading practices everal years ago, I was embarrassed by
what I found. Although I claimed I
wanted my students to think more critically and engage with the world more
fully, my grading practices communicated a different message. Students
received so much credit for completing
work, meeting deadlines, and following
through with responsibilities that these
factors could lift a student’s semester
grade to a B or an A, even as other indicators suggested that the student had
learned little. My grading practices
communicated clearly that, despite my
claims to the contrary, students’ willingness and ability to comply mattered
most.
I’ve observed that other teachers
approach grading similarly. Recently I
heard from a parent who, after home-schooling for several years, had enrolled
her son in a public school. After just
three weeks, her son was failing his
language arts class because he had failed
© LAEL HENDERSON
to bring a book to read for the daily
sustained silent reading time and to
return a parent-signed course expectations sheet. The message? Compliance is
the priority, and grades have little to do
with learning.
An incident in my high school
economics class confirms that students
have internalized this message. A young
man assigned to write an essay on
health care turned in a neatly typed, but
completely incoherent paper. The introduction supported universal health care,
but the conclusion argued against it. I
