Miyagi or Cobra Kai?

I now take you to your regularly scheduled movie, already in progress:

Daniel: No the problem is, I'm getting my ass kicked every other day, that's the problem.
Miyagi: Hai, because boys have bad attitude. Karate for defense only.
Daniel: That's not what these guys are taught.
Miyagi: Hai - can see. No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do.

And so begins an epic relationship between student and teacher.  When reflecting upon my own teaching, I often find I'm in the Miyagi dojo, as opposed to Cobra Kai.

In the Cobra Kai dojo, there is one master.  The sensei is all knowing and all controlling.  He snaps orders and the students complete the drill in unison.  When he asks a question they answer together, "Yes, sensei!" There is no questioning, no deviation, no discussion.

Students are given very straight forward workouts - practice the jab, practice the round kick.  There is no doubt these students are learning karate. When anyone walks into their dojo they are surrounded by awards, trophies, and other accolades.  The students of this dojo pass all of their tests.  The students win for their sensei and their dojo.

Does your classroom intimidate or inspire?

On the other side of town, Daniel is training with Mr. Miyagi.  Daniel is washing cars, painting fences, sanding floors, and feeling like he's Mr. Miyagi's personal servant... and he tells Miyagi such.  He doesn't see the connection between waxing cars and defeating his enemies.

When he questions Mr. Miyagi about this, Miyagi shows him the connection between painting the fence and defending himself against an attack.  "Show me wax on, wax off." To his surprise, Daniel defends himself against Mr. Miyagi's attack.  He was learning karate the whole time without even knowing it.

Sometimes 'math' lessons don't have to look like math

Curriculum is just that - curriculum.  It is a series of standards or studies that a teacher must impart onto the students. It is a collection of facts.  Pedagogy is how to best implement those standards, how best to teach the lessons. That is the art of education.

In education there are multiple ways to teach. Pre-service teachers are introduced to Gardner, Montessori, Piaget, and others. Yet I would argue that many teachers and schools model the Cobra Kai style of teaching and development. One teacher, the sage on the stage, preaching a skill with students practicing: I do, we do, you do.  Students in this model get really good at drills.  They pass the tests. They win awards for their teachers and school.

But what else do students in this system learn - or more importantly what do they not learn?  Students learn to be uncreative and unimaginative  They learn to not try alternative methods. They learn to say "the teacher told me to do this way, so I must do it this way." Teacher say, student do.

Many websites (such as AACU) talk about how employers are looking for creative thinkers, problem solvers, and other 'outside the box' innovators.  Miyagi helped produce such a student, and hopefully my classroom will as well.

Yes, sensei

Maureen shouldn't deal with this - and neither should students!

Maureen is a 24 year old recent college graduate with a degree in Business Administration and Commerce.  She gets an entry level position at a local company an is put in the accounting department.  After her first day she is feeling pretty good - she has lots to learn but feels the skills are ones she can acquire.  After a month she has really learned the ropes and gets introduced to the data base and other higher level skills.  She's still unsure about how some systems work, but has a supervisor that helps her figure her mistakes.  After two months she has mastered most of the skills of the entry level position and is thinking about a raise, and possibly even a promotion.  She has a meeting with her supervisor:

Maureen: "I clearly have become proficient in the skills necessary to go to the next level.  I've learned how to use the database, and compile account information for dozens of clients, and have a 90% verification on my previous two evaluations. Clearly I have mastery of the skills needed."

Supervisor: "Yes, I see all of that.  However, your 90% verification score isn't accurate.  That is your most recent score.  As I look at your performance evaluations, you scored only a 25% on your first evaluation, a 65% on your second, and a 90% on your two most recent evaluations, meaning your overall score is only a 67.5%.  On our scale that ranks you as 'inefficient'.  Come back when your score is above 85%."

You seem to have a problem with your TPS reports

How would you react if you were Maureen?  Clearly she is now proficient at the skills needed to advance, but the system has her rated as inefficient.  It will take Maureen another 14 evaluations of 90% (Or 5 perfect evaluations) to hit the manager's 85% expectation.

When put into the real world, the averaging of evaluations becomes ludicrous.   If a company has an employee that is consistently scoring 90%, they call that employee a top performer.  The fact that the employee didn't do well when the skills were first introduced is expected.

So why do teachers use a system that clearly has no real world application?  What makes one assignment worth 30 points and another one 50?  Why does a quiz in September affect a student's grade in October? Averaging grades is one of the most atrocious acts in education. It promotes laziness in teachers, destroys communication, and turns grades into a negotiation. 

The idea of percentages is meaningless for communication.  Two students have a quarterly average of 78%.  What does this mean? Do they have the same skill set?  Another student has an average of 77%. Try to explain why he scored 1% lower.  What does that 1% look like?  Could the student raise her grade to an 80% with extra credit?  Those few percentage points turn a C+ into a B-, which means she'll get $30 from her grandma!

What if the learning target is using four major operations to compute fractions?  One student gets 75% on all four sections.  Another student gets 100% on three sections, but doesn't know how to divide fractions at all and scores a 0% there.  They both score a 75% on their report card, but again, do they have the same skill set?  What are we telling students, families, and other teachers with this system?  Who is more prepared to move on to the new skills?

Averaging of grades is fantastically easy.  Teachers use a scantron (or now a days quickkey or other similar apps), get a score, put it in the gradebook, and move on.  If they are particularly 'kind' teacher, they might allow students to 'fix' their mistakes and give extra points for corrections.  Sometimes after corrections they'll just add points to the original score.  Other times they will average the two scores and use that new average as the student's score (but of course they will put a cap of 89%, because clearly you can't get an 'A' on something if it wasn't done correctly the first time!) 

A percentage based system is the easy thing to do, but is it the correct thing to do?  Is it sound pedagogy?  Does it tell the student how to improve?

Ask a student what grade they got in a class.  They'll probably give you a letter or a number.  Ask them what it means.  They'll probably say something like, "I got some things right and some things wrong." or "I did pretty well."   They will not have an idea on HOW to improve or what skills they need to focus upon.  This is not the way to build 21st century skills.  Maureen needed to know what she was doing well and what she needed to learn.  She needed a mentor to help her learn the skills.  She gained new knowledge and reflected on mistakes as to not make them again.   It is how advancement and learning happens. 

I'll clean your board every day after school if you move my grade from a 79.4% to a 80.1%

One of todays gurus on grading (and teaching pedagogy in general) is a gentleman named Rick Wormeli (@rickwormeli2.)  I've had the privilege of meeting him twice and highly recommend every teacher attend one of his presentations.  He's an amazing speaker with incredible ideas and energy, and is an all around nice guy.  If you haven't read many of his works, I'd recommend starting with  this response to grading systems. He has a number of books I'd recommend as well.

The goal of any classroom or educational setting is helping students achieve mastery of skills.  When mastery occurs, students should be allowed to celebrate.  If mastery doesn't occur, teachers need to focus on the 'why' and adjust from there.

It doesn't matter - they all scored a 60 average!

I have a child in 8th grade.  This is a 100% true conversation I had with him recently.

Me: "You're getting a 75% in (class).  What does that mean?"

Child: "I'm getting a C"

Me: "What does that mean?"

Child: (stood there confused...) "ummm...."  (more confused) "I have to do better?"

After some coaching, I asked him to approach the teacher the next day and ask what skills he needs to work on to improve his grade.

Me: "What did your teacher say today?"
Child: "She said there wasn't anything I can do to improve my grade.  We have a test next week though."
Me: "I know you can't increase your grade by extra credit or anything, but what skills do you need to practice?"
Child: "I dunno.  She said there'd be a study guide and to know the stuff on that."

As a father, this conversation left me somewhat confused.  As an educator it left me frustrated.  If students - in this case a middle school student - is not sure what skills they lack, how can they possible improve?  As a parent how can I help him?  

My current school does a skill based report card with narratives.  Each quarter we have to write a detailed narrative with specific feedback for each student.  It is way more work than a traditional percent system (even those that have the pre-generated scantron comments), but I also know it is far more valuable information and far better teaching.  I mean after all, Maureen deserves that promotion!