It’s Not About Learning

9 a.m. this morning final grades were due.  Pushing the deadline until the end, in my typical do-it-later fashion, I submitted the grades under the wire.  Well, it was about 18 hours before the wire, but still.

Since that time, I’ve had at least five out of 30 students contact me about their grades.  A couple of the students contacted me, concerned that a score was missing. Those who submitted work and I failed to assess it, are definitely in the right.

But the ones that I don’t understand are those who decide that they are going to question every aspect of the grading, now that final grades are in, now that they are not perfect.

Perfect?  Is this really what we are trying to achieve?  I hope not!  They never will be perfect.  Their students will never be perfect.  And I will certainly never come close.  I hope that a search for perfection doesn’t keep me from trying and learning.  If it did, I would never be where I am now.  That really deserves repeating:  I can’t learn if I’m trying to be perfect.

And I’m left to wonder what I can do, what teachers can do, to make learning the goal, instead of the final grade.

It has to be about learning!

Without that focus and desire, mediocrity will prevail.  Good enough will be good enough, as long as I get the “A”.  We will never question, investigate, be curious.  “I don’t need to learn, just give me the A.”  Really?  No!

My daughter thinks that I’m probably a “mean teacher” because I stick to the principles I believe in.  I do not give into the student “who’s always had A’s” because he/she worked hard.

So, I’m donning my armor and bracing myself for the attack and the fight for mediocrity.  In the end, I will win.  They will try to wear me down, but I feel too strongly about learning.  If I give in, they don’t learn and in the end, after all, it really IS about the learning!