What Going Gradeless Taught Me about Doing the “Actual Work”

The Revelation

When I entered the teaching profession in 1998, I envisioned building relationships with students, discussing the intricacies of stories, and inspiring students to explore literature. I imagined my students developing into expressive writers who articulated their deepest thoughts with eloquence. In short, they would become lifelong readers and writers.

My first year in the classroom felt like this. I got to know every student. They showed an interest in books. And though their writing needed some structural and mechanical improvement, they were writing. I didn’t know how to use a grade book, so my focus was on learning, and my passion for reading and writing was evident to my first class. I knew every student’s name. I knew their strengths and weaknesses. I knew their hopes and aspirations. It was a lot of work, but it was an amazing year.

However, as years passed, I noticed my students were losing interest in reading. The discussions began to lack depth; the writing became more mechanical. It seemed as though I had to threaten students with consequences, such as detentions, phone calls home, and poor grades, to motivate them. I continued to find easier ways to get students to understand reading and organize their writing. Year after year I found new formulas and tools to help my students, but it was clear the joy of learning had faded from my classroom and my room was more of an assembly line than a flourishing garden.

I began to wonder what was going on. What happened to that joy? Where was all the wonder? Were the kids changing or was it me?

I am a product of the eighties, a Gen Xer to the core. I grew up on John Hughes films. They spoke to the core of who I was and what I wanted to become. Hughes was a prophet to my generation. He embraced my teen angst and challenged me to question the status quo.

One of my favorite Hughes films is The Breakfast Club. In the movie the antagonist Richard Vernon, the teacher in charge of detention, complains to Carl, the janitor, about the kids. Vernon sees them as irreverent, lacking respect, and just plain apathetic. Carl reveals something that, though missed by Vernon, was quite profound:

Vernon: Carl, don’t be a goof! I’m trying to make a serious point here . . . I’ve been teaching, for twenty-two years, and each year . . . these kids get more and more arrogant.

Carl: Aw bullshit, man. Come on Vern, the kids haven’t changed, you have! You took a teaching position, ’cause you thought it’d be fun, right? Thought you could have summer vacations off . . . and then you found out it was actually work . . . and that really bummed you out.

Vernon: These kids turned on me . . . They think I’m a big fuckin’ joke . . .

Carl: Come on . . . listen, Vern, if you were sixteen, what would you think of you, huh?

Vernon: Hey . . . Carl, you think I give one rat’s ass what these kids think of me?

Carl: Yes, I do . . .

These lines resonated with me. They shook me up. Rewatching this scene as an adult, I felt almost as though Carl was talking directly to me. The kids did not change. I changed. I lost touch. I wasn’t someone students wanted to listen to. However, though both Vernon and I care about what our students thought about us, I acknowledge it and reflect upon it to build my practice.

I had lost my focus. I was more interested in keeping a class period busy, justifying the point value of each assignment, how these points would add up to ensure grades were earned. I was more concerned about how my colleagues and administration saw me than my learners. And in order to make my class more rigorous, I scoured student work to find ways to ensure no student earned 100 percent. I was no longer a teacher. I was a gatekeeper. It was apparent to me because the profession was not as invigorating. I felt detached from my students, and school became a power struggle rather than a learning environment.

Most of my conversations with students were about grades. I was hounded with questions like “What can I do to change my grade from an A− to an A?” or “What will my grade be if I choose not to do this assignment?” When I would pass a student failing my class walking down the hall, there was always a mutual understanding that if we did not acknowledge each other we would not have to acknowledge the failing grade. My relationships with students were dependent on the accumulation of points in my gradebook. I felt like a cruel god who was keeping records of my students’ sins to ultimately pass eternal judgment on them on the day of reckoning.

Besides this, I noticed that students had turned on each other. When I wanted to inspire students to debate ideas, I heard conversations based around who had the highest percentage in the class. Instead of more collaboration, students were in competition with one another. Instead of students being willing to learn from each other, they saw diversity as a threat to their status. This was not what I thought I’d become when I signed my first teaching contract in 1999.

When I realized this, I decided I needed either to leave the teaching profession or to make some major changes. I shared my concerns with my department, and they helped me explore options that would reignite me and transform my classroom.

As a department we began to deconstruct teaching and learning. We read the work of Alfie Kohn, Maja Wilson, Rick Wormeli, and others who wanted to liberate the classroom from a system focused on conformity. We asked the question, What is essential for students to learn? The answer led us to the discovery that learning can be fun.

The Problem

I came to the conclusion that it was my grading practice driving a wedge between the teacher I was and the teacher I wanted to be. I had turned on the kids. The kids didn’t turn on me.

Grades are not an effective tool to communicate learning. Let’s say a student gets an 85 percent (B) on an essay. What does the grade suggest? Did the student stop writing and turn in a perfectly written essay when he was 85 percent into it? Did the student fail to capitalize proper nouns and leave out citations? Was the essay late three days and I deducted 5 percent for each day it was late? Was it because I was tired of grading essays and simply threw the same score I put on that student’s previous essay? It can be any or all of these. The problem is this grade does not tell the student what was done well and what she could do to improve.

Grades not only fail to communicate learning. They are also a carrot and stick that neither motivate nor promote learning. They diminish it.

I discovered Alfie Kohn’s “From Degrading to De-grading.” In it he argues the negative effects of grades. Grades “tend to reduce students’ interest in the learning itself,” “students’ preference for challenging tasks,” and “the quality of students’ thinking.” They “aren’t valid, reliable, or objective.” They “distort the curriculum,” “waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning,” and “encourage cheating.” Finally, “grades spoil teachers’ relationships with students” and “students’ relationships with each other.”

All nine of these effects were found in my class. I was no longer emphasizing relationships. I wasn’t inspiring. Letter grades and points became a shortcut—a way to avoid the hard work of getting to know my students on a personal level, working with them when they struggled, finding creative ways to encourage and instill wonder. I was avoiding the “actual work” to which Carl was referring.

I came across the work of Ruth Butler. In 1988 she published “Enhancing and Undermining Intrinsic Motivation.” Butler studied the effects of only comments, comments and grades, and only grades on student performance. She found that students who received only comments consistently outperformed the other two groups. Ironically, students who received both comments and grades performed about the same as (and sometimes worse than) those who received grades only.

I learned that comments, comments and grades, and grades impacted the ways students saw themselves. Butler suggested those who received comments only were more engaged in the task and viewed the work as either a success or failure. This meant that the work had problems that could be corrected, and the student had the power to make these revisions. However, when students received grades, they were more ego driven and saw success and failure as a reflection of themselves. Thus when I would put a letter or a number on student work, I was passing judgment on the student.

It bothered me that my students saw themselves as either successes or failures and that this attitude diminished their desire to try more challenging tasks. If students saw themselves as successes, they would be less likely to attempt tasks that could make others see them as failures. Conversely if my students perceived themselves as failures, they’d be less likely to put themselves into situations that reinforce this feeling. Butler’s work forced me to look in the mirror and consider how my grading practices affected my students.

Ultimately, I wanted my students to see learning as a process of ongoing trial and error rather than as a judgment of who they are. If my students did not fail, they did not learn. How often had I heard students say, “I suck at math,” or “I just can’t write,” or even “I’m a C student”? If my students were going to learn and be challenged, then judgment needed to be eliminated. I had to take action.

The Way Out

I was easily convinced I had to eliminate grades. However, this meant I couldn’t use them to make my students work. So could I engage students without points and letters? Once again Carl hit the hammer on the head. This is the actual work of a teacher.

It became more apparent to me that students need to find value in what they learn. There has to be substance in school. In his book The Schools Our Children Deserve, Alfie Kohn challenges teachers to consider the value of the curriculum. At one point he questions the purpose of children knowing how to find the square root of a given number. What is the square root of ninety-three? Kohn’s answer is, “Who cares?” He suggests that if children cannot use the information in their daily lives, then there is no value in the curriculum. However, if it is important for children to know how to solve for the square root of a given number, then there needs to be a reason. This could be said about anything teachers expect kids to study in school from the US Constitution to Beowulf. Why do students need to know these things? They need to know these things because they are going to be citizens of the world, and part of being a citizen means to have an understanding of culture, history, and the ideas that are the foundation of our nation.

I latched on to the ideas found in Daniel Pink’s book Drive. He suggests three things that motivate someone to learn:

1. Autonomy—The desire to be self-directed

2. Mastery—The urge to get better at something

3. Purpose—The idea that what is being done has meaning

I wanted to tap into my students’ drive and inspire them to achieve greatness. In order to do this, I had to start with the students’ interests. I had to open conversations and get to know my students. I needed to provide choice and allow them to ask questions they found important and encourage them to seek out the answers. I had to give them control over their learning.

I started to look at school as an opportunity to expose students to learning. I started to implement more student voice and choice. I began to adopt project-based, problem-based, and inquiry-based learning.

Instead of reading The Odyssey and asking students to write an argumentative, five-paragraph essay on the book, I challenge my ninth grade students to go deeper into the story. We use project-based learning and transform my classroom into a courtroom. We put Odysseus on trial for breaking and entering and assault with a deadly weapon for his actions in the cyclops’s cave. Telemachus faces justice for multiple counts of first-degree murder. Penelope is tried for falsifying information and obstruction of justice. Students play the roles of lawyers, witnesses, defendants, and the jury and grapple with difficult questions around justice. To grade this work would be ridiculous. My students know whether their efforts were effective because they will either win their case or lose. They will feel prepared during the trial or get obliterated by the opposition. Someone is declared guilty or not guilty.

My senior English class is challenged through problem-based learning when they are asked, “What problems need to be resolved in our school?” I challenge my students to research these problems globally to discover how these problems affect students beyond our four walls. They research the problems locally by performing interviews and surveys. Ultimately they research and come up with solutions that can create positive change in our school and present these solutions to an audience with the power to help them bring about change, such as our building leadership team, the school board, or the administration team. During this time, students are reading, writing, and having critical discussions.

My students make a difference. One group addressed issues of sexual assault in school by developing curriculum to inform their peers about consent and the ongoing, lifelong impact sexual assault has on the survivor. Another group challenged the school by making a variety of menstrual hygiene products available for free, as many young women cannot use one-size-fits-all products or do not carry the cash to purchase them.

My seniors do not need me to give them grades to know whether they did a good job. Rather, they feel the satisfaction of learning that they have the ability to develop solutions to issues they feel passionate about. This sense of satisfaction--knowing that they have the ability to make a difference and be heard--transcends any grade I might put on their work. They develop the skills that help them become engaged citizens who will face the challenges of an ever-changing, complex world, which they will soon inherit.

I placed the students in the center of the classroom and made them the focus of the class. In order to make learning relevant to them, I had to listen to them.

The Challenge

Because there are factors beyond our control, not all students will be engaged 100 percent of the time. Kids struggle with all sorts of challenges, such as exhaustion, poverty, abuse, divorce, and trauma. And because there are certain essential things for kids to understand in order to be responsible members of society, it is the teacher’s call to build relationships, challenge students, and let them know we care enough about them that we will not accept anything less than their full potential, because our students are worth it.

One of my favorite movie teachers of all time is Mr. Hand from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Mr. Hand is able to reach Jeff Spicoli despite his attempts to avoid, disengage, and frustrate his teacher.

At the end of the film, Spicoli is getting ready to go out and celebrate the end of the school year. However, Mr. Hand shows up at Jeff’s home, sits down with him, and begins discussing the American Revolution. Mr. Hand does not accept any excuses from Jeff. When Jeff claims he left his book in the locker at school, Mr. Hand pulls out a copy and settles for nothing less than for Spicoli to take the time to read and explain his analysis of the text.

Ultimately Spicoli demonstrates understanding and expresses a sense of pride in his accomplishment.

Mr. Hand holds Spicoli accountable to demonstrate an understanding of the Revolutionary War—and he does this with Spicoli. The greatest lesson Mr. Hand teaches is that, and Spicoli understands this, no one is beyond hope. Every student, no matter how difficult, is worth the effort.

Learning is something done alongside others, not something imposed on them. If the learning is essential, then students need to be pushed until they get it. What makes teaching difficult is that it requires the teacher to care for the student and see value in the student. Because what is truly important is the child, and this is the lesson that must be learned.

Assigning grades was the easy way out of doing the actual work of teaching. They made it easy for me to avoid building relationships and meeting the needs of the individual student. Eliminating grades tested my creativity and patience. I was forced to rethink what went on in my class. Students had to take ownership of the class. I had to incorporate individualized learning and lots of voice and choice. I had to replace worksheets, tests, and quizzes with better forms of assessment. I had to make sure students were engaged and wanted to learn. I had to do the work with them.

I still have students who challenge my patience and push me to my limits. However, I do not look at them as a problem, but rather as an opportunity to become a better teacher. They are a reminder to tap into my inner Mr. Hand, sit down beside them, and do the learning with them. I do this because they remind me of the person I want to be—a teacher who cares for each and every student independently of what they do in class. I do this because they are worth the effort.