For the Ones Who Care

 Every day, part of my current job description is checking off work that students completed online the day before. I give an effort score, and leave a small comment.

The score doesn’t reflect on their report card, as our district has moved to credit or no credit for the end of the school year.

The difference between a top score of 4, and a low score of 1 is really how close they followed the directions, answered the question and demonstrated that they did the work.

Most kids don’t care about these scores, at least that I have seen in the last several weeks that we have done this.

About a third of the class doesn’t even complete the daily assignments, no matter how much we remind them.

But there is one student.

Just one student so far in the whole class who clearly cares about these scores.

Last week, she got less than a 4 on an assignment and she reached out to me, and asked if she could improve her score if she corrected the mistakes. I was thrilled that she had an attitude of wanting to improve, and encouraged her to make the necessary changes, and sure enough, she was able to get full marks after a few adjustments.

Today, again, I sent out her score, and she had missed a few questions on her assignments, and again, she read my comments, and made her corrections.

Isn’t this what we dream of for our students?

Don’t we all hope our kids grow up to be someone who is willing to take feedback and learn from it?

There are days that I wonder if there is a purpose for how much effort I put into giving these scores, and letting the kids know why they got marked down.

I read people’s comments on Twitter, and their cries to just close schools down, and not even bother with this strange hybrid virtual learning from home. Kids are too stressed, families are too stressed, and it isn’t equitable.

I can’t deny that there will be even bigger gaps between the kids who are doing their work and those who have stopped participating completely when school resumes, hopefully in the fall.

If it wasn’t for kids like this student, they might even be right.

Yes, kids and parents are stressed.

Yes, there are kids completely dialed out.

Yes, there are times that I have to force my kids at home to do schoolwork when they would rather play, and I think play is super important for them too.

But there are some who care. These kids who need school to feel normal, and who want to do well.

Kids who, even without a school building, even without an adult holding their hand, still want to get the best scores they can, and are willing to put out extra effort to do so.

In a world filled with uncertainty, school is normal, and keeps kids connected and grounded to the world they knew before the virus.

Obviously we hope that they learn, and can stay more or less on track to finish the school year, but I think most educators would admit that for now, we want our kids to be mentally healthy more than we need them to thrive academically.

We need to keep providing feedback, and showing kids that we care, because again, that is the normal, old way that school used to be. We teachers and support staff can’t let go of our comments and our feedback, even if it is never for an actual letter grade.

Why?

Because there are kids who care.

Kids who want the feedback. Kids who want to improve. It might only be a small percentage, but that percentage matters.

Also, many of them need the help filling up part of the day.

Continue reading at:

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/for-the-ones-who-care-d0774fb79e84