Susan said...
"One Buttocks Player" and "I Give You An A"
First of all, Benjamin Zander is a wonderful speaker and extremely easy to listen to. I was a bit confused in the beginning of the video with what exactly a “One Buttock Player” was, but then I caught his point. You need to look at the whole, not at the individual parts.
Being a science teacher, I am constantly telling my kids to think outside the box.
One quote from the book that stuck with me was, “…even science relies on our capacity to adapt to new facts by radically shifting the theoretical constructions we previously accepted as truth.” Although I do completely agree that a world without measurement would be really nice and relaxing, I do not feel it is actually realistic. The author states, “You are more likely to be successful, overall, if you participate joyfully with projects and goals and do not think your life depends on achieving the mark because then you will be better able to connect to people all around you.” One point Zander makes is that if grades were not given, people would be more willing to take a risk. However, I feel that also needs to be understood by the instructor. My sophomore daughter decided to challenge herself on her Spanish assignment. She refused to take the easy way by using given phrases and really worked hard on her assignment, but made some mistakes with it and was docked points for doing so. If she had stuck with the easier phrases, she would have achieved all of the points for her grade. That instructor was teaching her to just do it the easy way and don’t challenge yourself because then you will get a better grade. In my classroom, when I ask a student a question that they do not know the answer or to think they don’t know, I tell them to just give it a try, the worst thing that can happen is they are wrong and if they haven’t been wrong yet today they should try being in my life! This usually relaxes them and they give it a try. They frequently surprise themselves with being right or having a new way to look at something.
As I continued to read through chapter 3 I realized that the authors were not strictly referring to a grade, but to a teacher’s encouragement of his/her students and the manner in which the classroom is run and allowing students to be contributors.
I just hope that I can rescue one starfish!
Meghan Bassett said...
I agree with you that the instructor needs to understand that grades aren't everything. I know some teaches that tend to see in black and white, wrong and right, and find it hard to grade based on growth rather than right or wrong answers. Teaching art, I grade based on the individual student. I had a parent call yesterday to yell at me for giving her son a 'bad' grade. She had seen pictures of two students work in my class who did not look 'up to par' with her sons work and she wanted answers. I had to explain it to her like this; your son didn't challenge himself, Quite frankly, he gave up early, worked on other work in my class, and took 'the easy way out'. I'm normally the opposite of everyone else in academia as far as grading, but I like getting the change to see students work for what it is, and watch them grow instead of having them recite an answer they have been fed. Great points!
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