Welcome to the World...

of smart phones. Just kidding, although I do enjoy my first one. A recent purchase.

"Welcome" to the world of GRADES.

I began giving my students exams today. I give an oral interview speaking exam to each of my students. It's a somewhat painful process. I try to project reassurance and friendliness and I keep telling my students it's OK to be nervous. They are, of course.

I'm not sure how important the grade I give my students is to them. Some students tell me it's very important, others that it's not, it seems to depend on the particular needs of each student, but in general it seems to be very important for their future. It's a big responsibility for me and I struggle to grade as fairly and perceptively as I can. I use a marking rubric and I digitally record each interview so that I can check each exam to refine the initial grade. I expect myself to be easily swayed by a nice smile or pretty face.

I try to be very friendly with my students but I'm not their friend.

I said that to each class the week before the exams start (with a smile). I have to be careful not to show favoritism, I have to give everyone a grade. Perhaps my thinking is a little rigid in this regard, but I hold power over all of my students and both I and my students know that. It seems to me true friendship isn't possible without a free exchange of power between interlocutors and that just isn't possible between a 'Professor' who gives grades to students. That's a responsibility I have. It's a test of my character.

In last weeks class one of the questions was 'What is character?' and one answer that's come to me is that character is responsibility, and then in turn it's also awareness (of what we are responsible for). Responsibility seems like so many things...an awareness of my desires and how their satisfaction might be at the expense of others...an awareness of my actions and my choices...an awareness of the kinds of power I have over others.

I don't expect my students to truly be themselves around me because of this power over them. Likewise, I don't expect them to show me the absolute best of what they're capable of. I have power over whom can speak and what about. Power to punish. I hate it when I have that feeling just as I hate the feeling of someone having power over me. I get to challenge my students but they don't get to challenge me, I get to ask the questions, I get to determine how OK it is for students to ask me questions.

And I'm flattered by the attention from those seeking to impress me. I enjoy compliments I probably wouldn't get if it weren't for this situation.

And I want to seek a dis empowering role, where students feel free to express opinions they suspect I might not like. I want to strip the reward system of activators and separate it from the learning opportunities. But I don't think I can do this completely, I'm not at all sure how much I can do that at all. I guess the more I can engage students in their own learning, in the topics and approaches they want, the more I can distract them from what hangs over us.

One of my first yoga teachers told me that in an ideal teaching relationship eventually the balance of power stabilizes and the roles begin to shift. That's not going to happen in this job.

I wish I didn't have to give grades at all. But I find it hard to imagine a system that does away with them altogether. How else can we determine who gets more authority? Whose voice carries more weight? Is that something we need?

"The upward mobility has put our schools far too much at the service of what we have been over confidently calling, our economy...education has increasingly been reduced to job training" (Wendell Berry).

Maybe grades are the root of the 'upward mobility' problem Wendell Berry talks about, or maybe they're just another symptom? Our job options stand or fall by our grades (for most of us). In Berry's commencement speech he says that not only are the graduates in need of change, so are the institutions, and it's the graduates who need to help the institutions change. Could there be learning institutions without grades? If yes, would that mean there were no teachers? If we do away with job training wouldn't we need to do away with jobs? Pff...what fairy tale nonsense?