It’s a game I no longer play, but it’s a game I played for longer than I care to admit. It’s a game we’ve all played. The grade game.

I write more about the “grade game” in my upcoming book. And while I wish I had given myself the time to write more about it this morning, my real reason for posting this was to put at the ease the minds of my colleagues around the world who are being forced to play their hand in the grading game here at the end of the school year. They have to reconcile the rules and the room. And many do, even maybe most. In my 25 years I have discovered whether we call it the “grade doctor” or the “grade fairy,” many feel compelled to set right the wreck that happens when learning and grading collide at the end. At first we do it quietly, for fear that we may be upsetting the grading gods, but as time goes on and we discover that others do it, too, we proceed with less fear, and we, in a number of ways, fix the wreck for kids at the end. We have to.

Malpractice? I don’t think so. It’s not a whim upon which we act. It’s a why. We know there’s a problem with the game. And until we fix the problem, we can’t let kids be the losers in a game that’s rigged not in their favor. And the fact that so many of us “manage the margin” indicates to me–and hopefully others–that we have to do this, and more, we have to be okay with our doing it. For we are not alone.

We work in a broken system. And while our “managing the margin” in our rooms is not the final fix, it is a band-aid to cover the wounds inflicted upon kids when they get caught in the malfunction of our machine. It is the necessary first-aid we must apply out here in the field.

Happy Tuesday, all.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.