Entry 3 - Wk2 Comments to Tim Brehm: Required Reading

Wk2 reading – If only everyone thought like this!!!

Tim’s Wk2 BP:
To be honest I was really being bored to tears with this weeks reading, Art of Possibility, until! I came to a paragraph the just rang out to me. In this paragraph the topic of grades is discussed. I always had a problem with grades as a way of measuring mastery of skills, I just didn’t know why. Well the authors of this book gave me the answer I was looking for, letter grades just compare student against student, and say very little about the actual work completed by the student.

Every student is different and learns at a different rate and in different ways. Taking into account these differences, why should they all be measured on the same scale. How do we resolve this situation? I really don’t know, but it is definitely something that should be studied.

Reading the paragraphs in this book relating to grades had really opened my eyes to something that has been bothering me for a long time. Wouldn’t it be great to get a giant gathering of educators together and have a massive brain storming session and see what we could come up with? Makes me really wonder about the possibilities……

My comments to Tim:
Tim. I like your viewpoints on the reading this week. I think there were some dry parts of the first four chapters of "The Art of Possibility," but I think the highlight was the chapter on grades. I think that "Giving an A," if nothing else, gave me a refreshed perspective as to why I aspired to become a teacher in the first place. It's not like I went into college or my credential program with strong desire to know how to compare kids to other kids and then slap a letter grade to their report card every 3 months. No...I became an educator because I wanted to be a piece of a student’s education journey to assist them in discovering their strengths, weaknesses, and everything in between. This is the real reward about teaching and learning. But instead, our system still clings to the art of disability, as opposed to possibility.

p.s. Let me know when the next major collaboration session of educators happens. I am down for having a massive brainstorming session...could be scary...scary GOOD!