6 korrents from this piece
Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.
Their wordsInstruction is collaborative: students want to learn, and I want them to learn, too. Evaluation is adversarial: students want the points, and I have to make sure they don’t get too many.
Their wordsEvaluation forces me to flatten everything I teach into something that can be tested, and it encourages students to ignore everything that isn’t on the test.
Their wordsIf my class is so boring that I have to devise an additional carrot-and-stick system to get students to pay attention, the problem is my class is boring.
Their wordsGrade harder, grade softer, grade with words rather than numbers, hide the grades entirely—none of it works, because the problem was never the grades themselves. The problem was trying to be both a teacher and a cop at the same time.
Our reading
Evaluation should be taken out of the classroom and given to people whose whole job it is.
Their wordsOne solution is to separate instruction and evaluation. Let teachers be teachers and cops be cops.
Their wordsEvery time we rank one another, we lose a little humanity.