Do you believe all students can be successful despite their challenges? How important are their successes to you? Does their success depend on your actions? Are students fearful that you do not have their best interest at heart?
While sitting down with a group of colleagues to discuss students' performance and grades, I could not help but to wonder if we all shared the same goals of helping students to succeed. Why is it so difficult to look beyond personal agendas to do what is right? Where does integrity, professionalism, and the need to see students succeed become top priority?
Should students be prevented from getting the credit they need because of our preconceived ideas of the students' attitudes and behavior towards us? Does excellent classroom management equate to "learning"? If a student manages to complete all the tasks that are assigned by a teacher but failed to do them correctly get a higher grade than a student who may have done far less and have managed to demonstrate superior quality of work? Or should the ability to apply concepts to novel situations appropriately aligned to standards be indicators of learning?
According to Rick Wormeli (2006) a grade is supposed to be accurate, undiluted indicator of a student's mastery of learning standards. That's it. It is not meant to be a part of a reward, motivation, or behavioral contract system. If the grade is distorted by weaving in a student's personal misbehavior, character, and work habit, it cannot be used to successfully provide feedback, document progress, or inform instructional decisions regarding that student- the primary reasons we grade. Interesting isn't it?
On further reflection, I thought about the facilitation of the learning process. Were students given all the help they needed to successfully complete assigned work? How were they encouraged when they found these tasks to be too challenging? Did the facilitators just turned their backs because students told them "they were fine"? Or did they persist in offering help? Thereby, sending the message that "This matters and your success is important to me!" Thus helping students to see that "someone really cares".
How can we really make student success a real priority?
Several years ago a research was done about "Changing the Odds for Student Success: What Matters Most. It was interesting that though the findings were nothing new it helps us to really hone in on how we can help our students succeed.
I believe that although students will push us to our limits, we must always remember our real purpose for choosing our profession. Once we adhere to our core values we will do whatever to takes to secure students' success in a fair and ethical manner.
What do you believe?
Have a Great Week!
Petreno
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