Author: Khadijah Seay

Oftentimes in education courses, I find myself growing increasingly frustrated with the pedagogical strategies and educational tools that we discuss. The primary reason for my frustration is that I always find it difficult to map these seemingly ideal techniques onto a classroom in my hometown (Cleveland). The schools in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District are typically urban, public schools with overcrowded classrooms, out-of-date, textbooks, low teacher retention, and poor funding. Thus coming to the Mainline was a major culture shock for me, especially as I looked at the elementary and middle schools that are near Bryn Mawr. The ways in which we talk about education don’t always seem to be grounded in my “real world.” In its design, the field placements would help aid in grounding our classroom discussions in practical and tangible school settings. However only one of the three placements (including this one) that I have been in has been similar to schools back home. So I still find it difficult to apply this knowledge in a different context. These observations from my past experiences in education courses and field placements leaves me with a lot of questions. The overarching question is: What does holistic education look like in different contexts? Can the systems/structures in which different schools exist support a holistic model for education? In thinking about these questions I hope to address my frustrations as well as check the assumptions that I have going into my placement at Thorne Preschool. For this essay I plan to primarily discuss the reading about expulsion in preschool and how the ideas and cases from that article map onto Thorne as well as my other school experiences.

In thinking more about my placement at Thorne, I’m hoping to answer the questions I presented above as well as check any assumptions that I have about the school. Some of the assumptions that I have are related to the demographics of the students.  The school is described as a self-structured environment that has play rooms and art rooms where children have the ability to make their own choices. There is a traditional preschool program as well as a language enrichment program.  Based on the information I saw on the website, it seems as though the majority of students are white, middle to upper-middle class. I also think that a good number of the students are “typically developing” although the school website does say that, “children with special needs can be considered for admission if their needs can be met in the regular classroom.” [insert more]

I was immediately drawn to the reading, “Empathy not Expulsion” because I could not wrap my mind around three and four year old children getting expelled from preschool. In the case that was described a young boy, Danny, was exposed to abuse in the home which resulted in some behavioral issues in preschool. The teacher in this case was afraid that Danny was a danger to the classroom and instead of learning more about this child and his history, she had started to make the decision to remove him from the program. Walter Gilliam who was interviewed for this article said that, “expulsion is not a child behavior, it’s an adult decision.” This statement leads me to thinking about how a holistic view of education, especially at a young age, requires extensive and thoughtful work by the teacher. If Danny had of been viewed as a whole child, with a family and home life, a myriad of e [insert more] I find myself questioning if this type of expulsion would happen at Thorne Preschool. [insert more]

Credit/No Credit Course

Credit/No Credit? Grades? Assessment? In thinking about whether or not this course should be offered as Credit/No credit, I hope to open a conversation about how learning is assessed. I plan to talk broadly about my own experiences with learning and my changing views on grading as well as talk specifically about how the learning goals for this course don’t necessarily map onto a grading system. I also want to acknowledge that there are as many complexities in offering a class as credit/no credit as there are in offering the class as gradeless, or assigning numerical grades. I’m not necessarily arguing that grades should not be apart of a classroom but rather urging us (as a community) to think about learning as an experience that is unique to the individual and only truly measurable by the person who is doing the learning.

For me, the discussion of grades leaves me with many questions about what does it mean to learn and how do we assess it. Is it measured in grades? What does pass/fail mean? What is passing? Would each assignment be pass/fail? Does simply doing an assignment mean that you’ve passed because you experienced the assignment? What does it take to not receive credit? I think that these questions highlight some of the complexities of grading but I also think these questions highlight just how arbitrary grading is. What’s the difference between a 2.7 and a 3.0? According to Bryn Mawr’s website (https://www.brynmawr.edu/node/4074), a 2.7 is a B- or “Good -” and a 3.0 is a B or “Good” If a professor is assigning a grade to a student that is “below merit” that faculty member must be able to provide information about class attendance, performance on exams, communication between the student and professor, failure to turn in assignments, and quality of written work. While these seem to me to be fair measures of student work in the class, there doesn’t seem to be room for the student to explain their work in the class or how they believe they should have been assessed. This leads me to wondering where’s the student’s agency in grading and assessment?

I think that this question of the student’s agency in grading and assessment still looms even when the criteria for assessment are co-constructed with input from students and the professor. The criteria can be seemingly clear regarding the difference between a 3.0 and a 4.0 and there is shared power in determining those base level differences. However, when it comes time to grade the project, a professor may be the sole person interpreting the co-constructed criteria and thus assigning the grade. In my experiences at Bryn Mawr, it seems that when grading criteria are co-constructed, that it may be for one project and not necessarily a process that happens for each individual assignment in the class. Oftentimes, students are encouraged to take charge of their learning, however the part of their learning that gets reflected in documents, such as a transcript, are not determined by or in the control of the student. The professor has their own discretion as to how to grade and interpret grading criteria. Again this leaves me questioning to what extent do students have agency concerning grading.

 

Specifically for this course:

From my understanding (generally over the course of my academic career), learning goals are assessed throughout a course in various formats including papers and exams and specifically for this course essays, postcards, class discussions, and field notes. Below I have copied the learning goals from this course. After each learning goal, I will discuss ways in which I see these learning goals being evaluated. I also plan to draw on some course readings to help analyze the goals and how these goals are assessed. I hope to be able to address the critique that I posed in the beginning of the paper about whether or not  the learning goals for this course map onto a numerical grading system.

 

• To recognize and draw on individual and community funds of knowledge, strengths, assets, and aspirations as resources for learning and thriving
  • One thing that comes to mind with this learning goal is a quote from the Grace Boda talk that is, “…but we need people at all development levels to make humanity whole.” My understanding of this quote relates to this learning goal in the sense that there is an appreciation for the difference in histories, knowledges, and experience that individuals or groups may bring to the class and that each of these is needed in order to make the class whole. I think the way in which this learning goal is assessed or accomplished is through class discussions. Whether we are in small groups, pairs, or large groups, there is typically opportunity for students to draw on their “funds of knowledge” however this portion of the classi isn’t necessarily graded. While attendance is required and multiple absences can affect a student’s grade in this course, the discussion component that highlights this learning objective (in my opinion) is not apart of our formal grade. In that case, a numeric grading system can be mapped onto this learning goal if attendance is the outcome, however if attendance is not the assessment measure, then this learning goals isn’t necessarily assessed. Could this be a pass/fail item? Would it be based on a student’s participation (or choice not the participate)?  (Note: I want to be clear in saying that I don’t think each learning goal needs to be assessed, but I did want to discuss the ways in which I see these learning goals being approached and connected to the overall experience/evaluation of this class)

 

• To gain a critical vocabulary for defining, analyzing, using, and assessing a range of holistic teaching tools inside and outside of classrooms (including uses of breath, art, and movement)
  • In thinking about this learning goal, I am drawn to a quote out of the Stages of Adult Development reading that says, “The same objective experience and the same conversational content will be understood and expressed differently and predictably depending on the complexity of the meaning making.” For me, this quote reflects the fact that as a class we may all sit and be apart of the same discussion and reading the same texts, however what people take away and choose to focus on is different. I also think that this quote highlights that the way that people express what they’ve taken in is different and thus needing to be assessed differently.
  •  I think that this learning goal is assessed through field notes and the analytic reflective essays. In both of these assessments, we are connecting language and techniques that we discuss in class to our field sites, course readings, and experiences. The criteria for both of these kinds of assignments have some guidelines, but how they are graded (and in the case of field notes, if they are graded) seems to be unclear. In thinking back to the reflections that we have done for this course, there seems to be consistency in students asking for clearer guidelines for these assessments. In thinking about the quote I mentioned above, I think that differential assessments based on students meaning making of the materials is necessary, however that becomes a lot of work for one professor. If these assessments were graded credit/no credit I think there would still be confusion about the criteria for grading. However I think the important takeaway is that each student presents their learning differently.

 

• To gain the capacity to understand and to practice being a healing presence, and to create conditions for self-empowerment for yourself and other learners in a field setting and in our class

 

• To clarify your own values about the significance of holistic approaches to educating with empowerment in mind
  • I think that this learning goal is assessed largely through the final essay. However what I think is important to notice in this learning goal is that it’s focused on the student clarifying their own values. With this goal being focused on the student, it doesn’t seem to me that there should be or would be an assessment attached to this learning goal that would be graded by someone other than the person writing it.

Conclusions

I think that one of the tensions that comes up for me is the fact that many of the learning goals (at least 3 out of the 4) are based on the student’s individual experience in the class, but the ways in which are grades are assembled, this learning is not necessarily reflected in the numerical grade. This leaves me wondering what our grade is based off of and if this grade is representative of the learning that has (or has not) happened throughout this course. If my assumptions are incorrect about one of the purposed of learning goals, then I’m curious as to how the assignments that we do connect to one another, the learning goals, and our grades in the course.

Finally I’m drawn to two quotes from the Grace Boda talk. The first is, “…at advanced stages of adult development we are able to self-author our experiences” and the second being, “what I like about how spacious the adult development framework is that it does not define normal.” In the first quote, I think that the idea of self-authoring our experiences can be extended to grades in a classroom. In this case, self-authoring my experience would be determining if I felt like I learned anything in the course. As a student, and even more so now as a senior, I am very aware of how I am processing and learning in a classroom and I don’t always find it necessary to display that learning through writing or other mediums that allow for professor critique. In the second quote, I think that this idea of not defining a normal is important. I think that ultimately, grades impose a certain standard that all work is measured by, that’s not unique to each student, and inserts a normal for expectations of student performance.

I think that how we assess our own learning is unique to us. Maybe the tension of a grade lies between what a professor understands learning to look like and what the student understands their learning to look like. In this respect, I don’t think that it matters whether this course, or any course for that matter, be offered as credit/no credit but rather the focus should be on the agency of the student to engage from co-creation of assessments all the way through to the grading process. I also think that in collaborating through the entire process, the arbitrary methods for grading (that are often left up to the professor to decide) become a shared responsibility between the instructor for a course and each individual student.