Alfie Kohn

The Trouble with Rubrics

“[Rubrics] do nothing to address the terrible reality of students who have been led to focus on getting A’s rather than on making sense of ideas”(1).

According to Kohn rubrics justify and legitimize grades, while narrowing judgment criteria of student work.  Rubrics are a means to assign a grade as determined by how the student’s work compares to guidelines.

“Studies have shown that too much attention to the quality of one’s performance is associated with more superficial thinking, less interest in whatever one is doing, less perseverance in the face of failure, and a tendency to attribute outcome to innate ability and other factors thought to be beyond one’s control.”

Superficial thinking: Students focus on doing what the teacher wants, rather than thinking about the subject at hand.  I have seen students go through more trouble to search and copy an answer from the internet, than was needed to come up with an answer on their own.  They are often driven by the desire to get it “right.”  They avoid taking risks because the “is this what the teacher is looking for?” concerns hinder creativity and individual expression.  They are working for the teacher, looking to give us what we are looking for, rather than what they have.

Less interest in what they are doing:  The significance problem.  The significance many students find in school is grades.   Grades determine success in schools.  Passing classes, achieving proficiency, graduating, earning honors and scholarships, even eligibility for sports and activities are directly connected to grades, so students find significance in this number.  If only students asked meaningful questions about what we are studying as frequently as they ask what their grade is. “Students whose attention is relentlessly focused on how well they are doing often become less engaged in what they are doing” (3). 

Less perseverance in the face of failure and a tendency to attribute outcome to innate ability and other factors thought to be beyond one’s control: Grades label students as successful or failures, and make them feel as if they belong to one of these groups.   I think of Issac licking the spoons and throwing the blocks here.  When we narrow criteria and label students with F’s we are setting standards that appear to be beyond their reach.  Too often students become discouraged and less willing to try when their efforts are not valued by the grader.

In his last paragraph Kohn challenges us to consider the reasons we went into teaching and design assessments that reflects these goals.    “Neither we nor our assessment strategies can be simultaneously devoted to helping all students improve and sorting them into winners and losers”(4).  Maja Wilson, author of Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Instruction links the creation of rubrics to helping universities sort those prospective students into the “good ones” and the “bad ones.”  She refers to rubrics as templates that we try to fit student work into.   

Schools today have created a culture where the discovery, exploration and connections are funneled through testing and labeled with grade.  When rubrics, or grades are used to measure how well a student’s performance meets a set of prescribed standards, those who don’t fit the mold are sorted into the “loser category”.   Instead of allowing students to construct meaning themselves, we design the house and hand over the blueprint to follow.  Why don’t we provide them with the foundation and see what they can build.

What He Is, Not What He Isn't

Christopher Kliewer's "Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome"

"...actual educational arenas where all students are welcomed, no voice is silenced, and children come to realize their own self-worth through the unconditional acceptance." 

 "All students" means all students; those who look different, who learn differently, who communicate differently, who behave differently.  Education is not a privilege; it is a right afforded to all children.  Week after week I find myself noting in the margin of each reading: is this just good teaching?  I've come to realize the answer is yes.  However, education is often organized so these "good teaching" methods are geared mostly to dominant culture.  "Society itself is hurt when schools act as cultural sorting machines" limiting diversity and maintaining the status quo.  In Shayne Robbins's description of three students in her class with down syndrome, she said, "it would be hard to say ,'This is how you should teach kids with down syndrome. They are not at all alike" (85). My response: What group of kids is alike? What group has a definitive way they should be taught?  They are all individuals. 

"no voice is silenced" 
 I am reminded of Delpit’s "people are experts on their own lives." Shayne Robbins was ability to create a community experience and in essence a voice, for Anne and Isaac "beginning with the simple act of listening" (78).  Anne and Isaac had something to say, but unfortunately, like many other students who don't fit the "rigid, linear" expectations, people didn't hear them.  Hearing these students allowed Shayne to create better opportunities for them to find their voice and participate in the community.

"Children come to realize their own self-worth through the unconditional acceptance."
Think of the significance problem that existed for John in North Hollywood. Once he was "'accepted for what he is, not what he isn't" he was able to focus on "what he can do, instead of being told what he can’t do."

My father's cousin has down syndrome.  When he was young, his parents were told his future was dim.  His parents refused to accept this.  When schools seemed to have the same expectations, his parents found after school programs that allowed him to interact and learn with other students.  He celebrated his 50th birthday last year.  He is a manager for a family business and is one of the most caring individuals I have ever met.  Thankfully, his parents didn't accept the prognosis of those who could not see "past his chromosomal anomaly to his humanity" (86).


School Success VS Community Success...In this corner School Success weighing in at "test scores and AYP status" and in this corner Community success weighing in at "problem solving, self-worth, and relationship building."

"...reliance on a narrow interpretation of mathematical and linguistic characteristics when defining school citizenship in no way captures the multiplicity of knowledges valued in a wider community."

Gardner poses that schools must realign their values to more closely match those needed to participate in society.  Current models of education base intelligence and success on those who can pass the tests,  not necessarily those who have the capacity to think critically and solve  problems.  hmm...too much weight placed on test scores?

Reconceptualizing
 Vygotsky's suggest the "idea of defect emerges from culturally devalued sets of the relationships that a child has with his or her surroundings" (82).  If a student constructs relationships with his or her surroundings in a manner that does not match the accepted norm, the defect label comes out.   The defect label often leads to isolated environments which encumber the development of higher functions. "...Altering the culture of disability requires that a child be recognized as an active learner, thinker, and problem solver, but this cannot occur apart from relationships that allow for such engagement" (83).

Language and Power

Excerpts fromTongue Tied by Richard Rodriguez and Virginia Collier

Virginia Collier's emphasis on the importance of balancing respecting and affirming home culture and language with teaching Standard English echoes Delpit. “ I suggest tht students must be taught the codes they need to participate fully in the mainstream of American life…while also being helped to acknowledge their own “expertness...” (Delpit 45).  "Aria" exemplifies the idea.  Rodriquez stresses the “necessity of assimilation” while showing the detriment of devaluing his native language.  “…While one suffers diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality”(39).  Standard English is a tool- it allows participation in the culture of power, but it should not be used to replace a student’s first language or dialect. 

Spanish was not valued or affirmed in school for Rodriguez “I would have been happy about my public success had I not sometimes recalled what it had been like earlier, when my family had conveyed its intimacy through a set of conveniently private sounds” (38).  Rodriguez had to give up one language for the other.  Collier not only warns us of the dangers of this, but provides guidelines to overt putting students in the same situation that Rodriguez was in.

What Can We Do…

“However idyllic the original vision of teaching may be, the reality is that in the complicated
school world of proposals and government superplans there are things that can be done” (223). 

Teachers have a lot working against them.  In every issue we have discussed in class this struggle has been embedded in the solutions.  We often feel powerless and unsupported.  Collier acknowledges the obstacles and reminds teachers that “[we] have the chance to interact daily with live, growing, thinking, maturing human beings, and the time is special, despite the complications of managing a bureaucratized, overcrowded classroom of overtested, underchallenged students” (22).  Collier suggests teaching English-language learners following the stated guidelines can “eliminate boredom, raise awareness, and make language teaching as well as learning as culturally relevant as possible for students…enrich[ing] the life of the student, but also that of the teacher” (235). 

Keeping It Real: Code Switching

Code switching is not restricted to ELL.  People use different languages for different purposes and in different situations.  The cultural straddlers in Keeping It Real  “subscribed to formulas of success determined by dominant or elite groups…[while also] leaning on [black cultural capital] to procure legitimacy among their racial peers, to signal their own allegiance to their backgrounds and heritages…” (Carter 63).     Carter explains, as Delpit did, that different vernaculars are part of one’s cultural identity.   The same principles apply when switching between different languages. 

This video connects code switching to many of the things we have discussed in class: advantages of participating in the culture of power, cultural identity, and maintenance of the status.

Promising Practices

The workshop I attended, “Readers Who Shop 'til They Drop” was geared  towards elementary school teachers, but in the discussion of how to set-up your first and second grade classroom libraries a few connections to secondary education were made.  The workshop focused on helping students choose the right books.  It emphasized the idea that in order to get students to grow as readers, they must read the right books. .

 Books that are too easy will ensure readers stay stuck in their reading level.  Books that are too difficult will cause frustration and create disdain towards reading.  Interest level is also important to entice students to want to read.  Applying this knowledge to classroom libraries and teaching students to select texts that are “just right” for their individual needs can develop life-long readers.   By the time students get to high school they have usually decided how they feel about reading--but it is not too late to change their minds.

Book choice is still very important in the upper grades.  A reluctant reader is not going to make it through a book that is too difficult or one that they have no interest in.  In these second grade classrooms displayed books grab readers’ attention.  In high school classrooms this could work too, but actually placing a book in a student’s hands might be more effective for the student who has already written off books.  Peer recommendations also work well.  Setting up a time during your class or designating a place where students can review and recommend books to other students will convince some students to give a book a try. 

I always recommend books for the students sitting who have SSR in my room, but if I reorganze my library so it is easier to find a book of interest,  and display different titles students in my other classes might be more apt to pick one up.  Anything thing that increasses students' interested in reading is worth the effort.

Teen Empowerment

 The teen empowerment presentation reinforced many of the ideas we have discussed in class.  The group made an important point: there is a connection between feeling powerless and the increased risk of engaging in dysfunctional behavior.   One of the student speakers, Jamal, said, “[If you feel powerless] you are going to do what you need to do to get power,” even if those things are dangerous, illegal or self-destructive.   This reminds me, as many of the readings have, we have to look at why students are behaving the way they are.  If we understand where they are coming from, and what they are working against, we can begin to make a difference for that student.

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