Kids won’t do anything.

These were once my “impossible” words. I, too, believed–rather earnestly, I suppose–that without grades attached to work, kids wouldn’t do the work. I remember, back when I was finishing up my master’s, sharing this conclusion in my ed psych class during my presentation on grading.

We had to complete a small, independent action-research project, and I decided to dig into grading a bit. And in my digging, though I have now forgotten the names, I came across a number of “measurement specialists'” works claiming that grades were inadequate measures of learning, that grades were a hodgepodge collection of arbitrary approaches, lacking any objectivity (blah, blah, blah--how I heard it at the time). And I dismissed it as, “They don’t understand the reality of the classroom. If we don’t hold them accountable with points (ick, compliance), then they won’t do anything. We have to have points and grades.” Who was I?

Now, looking back, though I did not know it at the time, this, I believe, is when I started distancing myself from grading. Turns out, the “blah, blah, blah” continued to echo long after I dismissed it, a telltale heart of sorts that continued to reverberate as I wondered and worried about grading’s impact on my teaching and their learning.

Such a memory now makes me cringe. As you know, I loathe practices of compliance, seeking instead kids’ commitment to their learning. And though it is cringey, it’s a part of the journey that led me to here. And from here, when I hear, “The kids won’t do anything,” I get it. I was once there, and I, too, once believed this the reality in the classroom. But as my journey continued from there to here, I now know differently. Kids will do. Kids will learn. The last five years of Project 180 have taught me that. Three weeks in to the new semester and not a single point has entered into the experience, and nearly all of my kids are doing everything that I have asked them to do. Of course, my approach is significantly different than it was years ago when I still relied on the carrot-and-stick of compliance, and it didn’t happen overnight (it took years), but kids are choosing, kids are committing. They have revised my reality.

Even so, I am not sure, back then, that my current self could have convinced my former self that such an approach would work. I would have told my current self that he simply did not understand the reality of the classroom.

“Kids won’t do anything” will present a hill for us to climb come November, but from the climb we may learn that reality isn’t always as real as we imagine it. In truth, we don’t know. We don’t know if the kids will or won’t. And in our not knowing, we should give the kids the benefit of the doubt. They might just surprise us. It is their learning after all, and maybe when we give them the room to own and explore what’s theirs, they may be better stewards than we ever imagined. #NoGradeNovember21

Happy Thursday, all.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.