Zeroes…

First and foremost, I’d like to point out that when we are talking about students in our public schools, we are talking about CHILDREN.  Their brains are still developing (studies show this continues until age 25), they are still acquiring life skills concurrently with the academic skills we teach in schools, and they are still subject to (victim to in some cases) whatever quality of home life their parent(s) provide for them.  They have neither the means, nor the skills (nor the legal right in most cases) to make changes to the overarching environment of their lives.  This ALWAYS significantly impacts their ability to function in a classroom – either positively or negatively.

The second point I will note is that as a teacher, it is NOT MY JOB to prepare them for the real world.  It is my job to teach them the curriculum as Alberta Education lays it out in each subject area.  While some curricula do touch on certain life skills (Health, CALM, Phys Ed), none of the other curricula do.  It is the job of the parents and other persons chosen by the family (generally unofficially) to teach kids how to function “in the real world”.

In my school division, I have been a part of a committee (though my AISI time) reviewing “Admin Procedure 360”.

Principle 5 in Admin Procedure 360 [draft] lists the following:

·        The summative grade should not be skewed by extreme scores

·        Students are expected to complete required work rather than receive a “zero”.  Schools will develop a protocol of strategies to facilitate student demonstration of achievement, rather than assigning a zero.  Schools will develop a plan for dealing with students who are not completing assignments.  This will provide a supportive culture for students who are struggling.

Bottom line is that it is my job to assess students’ mastery of my curriculum.  If they are not completing work, and I issue a zero, the message I am sending to the student, to the family and to Alberta Education is that the student IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM can demonstrate any comprehension of the outcomes being measured.  This is almost NEVER an accurate assessment.  Surely any student who has been attending classes knows something, and if given an appropriate means of demonstrating what they have learned will be able to do better than a zero.

The next part to address then is professional judgment.  At what point have I exhausted all avenues to get a child to provide me with material to assess?  It can come to the old adage “You can lead a horse to water…”  If I have spoken to the student in question, contacted the parents, kept them in at noontime to complete – there does come a point where I have done everything in my power and in my authority.  At that point, I use my professional judgment (with documentation recorded over time) to issue the zero for the missing work.  In my experience, it rarely comes to this.  When I offer the explanation to a parent about what a zero signifies, they are almost always on board to ensure that their child completes the work.  I am not threatening a zero – I am explaining what it means in terms of academic assessment.

Another important point is that zeroes are almost IMPOSSIBLE to mathematically overcome.  Once a zero is entered into a teacher’s gradebook in ink, the student who was “awarded” the zero might as well pack in the idea of achieving a good final grade in that course.  It’s going to take a whole lot of 100% grades to overcome that 0.

Progressive assessment encourages the use of median scores as opposed to averages.  Using this as the method of assessment shows where a student consistently scores, and factors out extreme scores – on either end of the spectrum.

Punitive assessment procedures simply do not work.  Those who advocate for them have not stopped to consider how that’s working out.  The teacher who gives zeroes – do students start handing work in suddenly to avoid the “dreaded zero”?  No.  Those kids generally need a little more hands-on teaching and TLC.

I did note that the teacher in the article teaches senior high Physics.  Generally speaking (and please, forgive the generalization), those kids are the highest academic students, and as such, a punitive grading practice such as the issuing of zero scores may compel some students to ensure that their work is handed in.  However, in other courses, this absolutely will not impact students to up-the-ante in terms of completing their work.

In the earlier days of my teaching career I did award zeros.  I had not considered what the grade of zero was actually saying about the students’ achievement or curriculum mastery.  I have used it as a “threat” (as my academically-minded brain would see things), and it was ineffective.  A phone call home was always far more efficient in influencing students’ behaviors and habits.

And in the end, these students are still kids.  The real world is going to teach them plenty – – as it has for all of us.  Did school teach me about the “real world”?  Nope.  The real world did.  I have no delusions of grandeur.  I’m a teacher.  I’m not the real world.  Only the real world can serve up a good healthy dose of “real”…. Everything else is just contrived.

If kids have grades that allow them college entrance, those kids are ready for college. Or they are close enough to being ready that they will be able to pull on their workboots once they get there and do what is asked of them.

That said, I’ve read lots that indicates that colleges and universities are also changing their assessment practises. One final point with respect to post-secondary readiness is the idea of having the kids learn the curriculum. By making them complete their work, they learn. If they have learned the high school curricula, they are deemed ready for college.

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