“It would be nice if all of the data which sociologists require could be enumerated because then we could run them through IBM machines and draw charts as the economists do. However, not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
William Bruce Cameron
If there was a better quote for how many schools assign grades to student work, I don’t know what it might be.
Yes, the US’s most popular form of grading still uses letter grades. I know I know, those letters have numbers assigned to them to make it easy for teachers to score.
But who decided what the numbers meant, and why is the range for failure so huge compared to everything else?
Normally, on a 100-point grading scale, more than half of the “numbers” give you a failing grade.
Really? Can we finally admit that, much like Whose Line is it Anyway, the points don’t matter?
Authentic work, the goal so many of us in education are working toward, isn’t easy to “count,” no matter how you frame it.
But the skills students learn when they are presented with real problems and shared with a real audience absolutely count.
Count what counts, leave the rest to the number-crunchers.
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Happy Monday to you all. I’m back after a nice break and ready to get things going this week. I’ve got some cool things to share with you today.
What I’m Reading:
Reversing Learning Loss
There’s a new working paper out of India that discusses the “learning loss” experienced by 19,000 students in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. I’m not the biggest fan of the term “learning loss” due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that’s not a battle I can fight. I’m just diving into this report, but the results from the interventions provided by a government-run program show a significant reduction in the deficits.
Rethinking Exit Tickets
I’m more invested in student-centered, personalized learning and taking the focus of our classrooms from the teacher being the “ultimate source of knowledge,” so when I saw an article from Eric Sheninger on rethinking exit tickets, I jumped right in. Eric presents an example of an exit ticket that isn’t just a “did you learn” activity. It’s a short exercise, to be sure, but it provides a student a chance to reflect on their learning and think about their level of understanding of the topic.
I am, without a doubt, the introvert’s introvert. I thrive in my alone time. Susan Cain’s “Quiet” has been on my TBR list for some time, and I finally started reading it during my break. It’s brilliant.
I’m about a third of the way through it. My first big takeaway is society’s focus on being an extrovert. Extroverted behavior is encouraged in our schools, companies, and governments. Nobody wants to be an introvert. Until you dig a little deeper…
For instance, Cain points out that the ranks of CEOs are filled with introverts. She quotes the imminent business expert Peter Drucker who said when speaking of companies he consulted with, “the most effective leaders had little or no charisma and little use for the term or what it signifies.”
Another interesting point from the book: 128 companies studied showed that CEOs considered extroverts had bigger salaries than their introverted counterparts but not better corporate performance.
I wonder what damage we do to introverts in our schools by not letting them be who they are and working in ways best for them.
Quote of the Day:
The one who has no wounds has never fought a battle.
As a reward for completing some of my coursework, I binged three episodes of Andor on Disney+. Oh my goodness, it’s so good. I highly recommend it to anyone but especially to my fellow Star Wars fans.
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