Last Sunday Josh and I went to his moms house for dinner. She has had some people living with her recently so she has been sorting/organizing/getting rid of things. She found some books Josh wrote in fourth grade. We read them and had a good laugh. Now, these were cute books - the typical books you see from a kid - but they weren't spectacular. Josh and I were talking on our way home and he told me he got a horrible grade on them. I told him about how I had to write a few books in Elementary and I always got horrible grades on them. That is why he's an engineer and I was always a Biology Major.
While I say this I will add I have a very different style of writing. You might not see it as much on my blog as you would if I actually wrote a story, but it is more unique. Through middle school my teachers realized that I write that way. Not saying I'm amazing, just different. In Middle School I always got good grades on writing assignments. High School was the same. My AP English/1010 English teacher had us write papers weekly, and he always had me read mine to the class. Probably because I have a different writing style. Now that I've told you I'm not a horrible writer I can move on to the purpose of this post.
I always wondered why I got such a horrible grade on the books I wrote, yet I was well ahead of the class in every other subject. When Josh told me he didn't do so hot with his books I realized what it was; we were graded subjectively by teachers who expected cute stories about bunnies and basketball. We were graded subjectively, not graded because we followed length guidelines and used proper spelling. Once I got to Middle School the teachers weren't subjective graders, sure they probably didn't like some of my poems, but they realized they weren't useless. They didn't care that I put sentences together in a different way that made the style of my paper different, or that I constantly repeat the beginning of sentences for dramatic affect. They cared that they could understand what I was saying, and that they enjoyed it. They graded on length, understanding, and probably spelling (which I imagine doesn't happen anymore now that everything is typed, but they probably check to make sure you are using two/to/too's right), not if they didn't like underdeveloped writing styles (I mean come on, we were like ten).
Then I started thinking about other things that are subjectively graded. Art. Art is huge. Now I like art, I'm very subjective about it. Which is okay. Which is the point. Being subjective is okay, but you can't grade subjectively based on content. Here's a little story of mine:
Last Fall I attempted to take classes at the U to finish a degree as fast as possible. Some misunderstandings about babysitting forced me to quit after the first day. But I went the first day. I was sitting in an introductory Art History class looking at a picture of a urinal someone turned on it's side. I looked at it thinking 'who would call this piece of crap art?'. Apparently the teacher. She went on some rant about what is considered art. Some kids in the class (men I should add) kept saying how they saw cars as art. The teacher commented back that the car itself is not art because it is useful, but a picture of the car would be art. Many of the guys said that a picture of a car is crap, but that a brand new Aston Martin is art (O how I agree when I see them in James Bond movies, and how I cry when I find out 5 were destroyed in filming). Some added that a urinal is useful so how is a picture of it art if they don't think a picture of a car is art. I was getting annoyed of the conversation so I raised my hand and finally said something similar to "we will see it as art if we want to, and no definition of art can change that. You can tell me this urinal is a piece of art, but I will never see it that way. You can tell all of these guys that cars aren't art, but that won't change how they see it". I got a five minute lecture about how I wasn't "culturally intelligent" enough to tell her what was and wasn't art to different people.
Sorry for the long story. Anyways, I wanted to punch her because in a way she was subjective grading. To her this was art, but a picture of a car wasn't. What if she was a photography teacher and someone turned in those two pictures? This one would get an A, the car an F.
This urinal will never be art to me. But can I put a letter grade on it? If it was a contrast and shading assignment no. If they were supposed to do a color photo yes. Nothing to do with the urinal.
Being subjective is fine with me, but why is subjective grading being used in schools? If you tell kids to write a story, then judge them on following the guidelines and proper spelling, not the material or how they write. If it doesn't make sense then give good feedback, don't give them a bad grade because another teacher might love it. If it's a picture book and has the amount of pictures required, proper spelling, and maybe commas where necessary then call it good and give them an A. Who cares if the story is about Sweeney Todd? Okay, maybe the school shrink cares, but the teacher shouldn't. Same with history papers and essays, art classes (yeah Mr. Dillon, my vase in ceramics fit all of your requirements so you shouldn't have given me a bad grade because I think it looks awesome!), and essays for any other subject. Let people be creative, say it's crap in your head if you want to (or out loud in the case of the urinal), give feedback, but give letter grades based on simple guidelines, not content.
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