Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Grades: Should They Be On Effort Or Results?

lilswee - that's what I think. His Star Wars battlefield drawings he used to draw were hilarious.

Elizabeth - that's a great site. Thanks for sharing. Love her sense of humor.

Dad22 - that was also me.

Dude - sounds exactly like my kids. That's why my son is wrestling with this - it's almost his full grade for this grading period. If it was a smaller assignment worth less, he wouldn't be struggling with his decision.

JonLaw - I loved the free baseball tickets in high school - except for the fact that they were for a team 200 miles away.

Colinsmum - thanks for your feedback; it's appreciated. And Epoh, that's where I am as well.

OK, perhaps I am a really mean and cynical person, but I doubt that your DS will ever look back on the poems with fondness. He did them, he hated doing them, and they are done. The keepsake part of this may be a red herring. They will be bound nicely and he will throw them out when he moves away to go to college. Or you will keep them in your house.


I think it's great that he's motivated by grades-- if that's what will get him to work, that's fine.


Remind us how old he is? What standard are the other kids being held to? Has it been articulated in a comprehensible way?


Can he find a way to flesh out the stick figures, color them, add details, whatever, to demonstrate effort that meets the teacher's criteria?

The pic you posted was hysterically funny and very evocative.


Actually, I think it's reasonable. You ideally want both effort and results. You are just being sensible in knowing that with kids who have disabilities, you may get one or the other but not always both at the same time, and not predictably.

Because I don't think he's ever going to care to look at it again, I'd say to see if you can get him to find a way make work that meets the teacher's expectations. It's schoolwork. Once you start bending on meeting standards with a tricky kid like this, you have new problems.

DeeDee

Thanks for being my saner half on this, DeeDee. That is what I couldn't articulate but inherently knew. The "mommy" in me wanted a precious memory, but you are right. It's schoolwork, and if I let this particular 12-year-old negotiate different standards, he will extrapolate on this new freedom in the future in ways that might be far more difficult to manage.

And, thanks - that drawing is one of my favorites - especially my husband in the background with his empty coffee cup. And the size of his cereal bowl is pure fantasy, since it was a special treat that he didn't think he got nearly enough.

He's making an iBook using the new Mac app - my bet is that his book he makes on his own will stay with him a lot longer than this one.

Thanks for the link. I have plenty of family who will love that comic.

And my husband has suggested that we have a conversation with the kiddo about how "some" teachers measure effort - coloring ALL of the page, adding any color at all, adding details, etc. and that this assignment is about regurgitating what the teacher wants and has no bearing at all on his own artistic talents that she may or may not recognize. His opinion is that this is one of those "playing the game for the grade" teaching moments. I think he's right.

Welcome. Oh, have I been there.

DeeDee

I think that you have more than one question to answer here.

1. What are grades for?
2. Define "effort" with respect to drawing.
3. As DeeDee said, how valuable will this keepsake really be?

1. Grades. For me, grades are a reasonable measure of progress in a subject. They aren't perfect, but they mostly communicate the message reasonably well. That said, I think that grades should reflect work appropriate to a student. So, for example, if your son's disability affects his ability to spell, he should be given appropriate instruction and asked to learn the material appropriately. He shouldn't be expected to spell 7th grade-type words like lucre and caste.

2. Effort. My eldest could pick up a fountain pen and draw a gorgeously-rendered person in a few minutes with one eye closed. If I worked for an hour with a pencil and a fancy eraser, my drawing wouldn't look half as good, and I'd have to build it off of stick figures. Would your son's teacher give my DS a better grade because he "put more effort in?"

Your son's drawing reminded me of my second son's drawings. DS9 doesn't have his older brother's technical skill, but he has true style, and has done since he was five or six. His creations are expressive, alive, and vibrant. His birds SWOOP! down the page and the frustration in the dinosaur who didn't get the meal he wanted is palpable (not to mention the relief in the face of the would-be meal). DS9 is every inch the artist that his brother is. So I say this to your son's teacher for her stingy definition about what makes something artistic: :-P


3. Keepsake. If a child has suffered through an art project in a certain way that responds to someone else's expectations, is it really a true keepsake? Or is it an artificial LetItGoForGoodnessSake to be forgotten? In my observations, the real keepsakes are the ones my kids treated as labors of love. I still have copies of the first letters my kids ever wrote. They were so excited and so proud to show them to me! "I can do it, Mommy!!"

Meanwhile, we threw away, you know, those book reports as soon as they came home.

FWIW my dh is an art professor and I ran this one by him. We are currently on the road so couldn't access the image. He related the stories of a couple of his current students, one of whom is actually an art minor. No matter how hard they try these students simply lack the ability to *see* some of the specific techniques he is teaching them. As he put it something gets lost as the image is taken in by their eyes, or as it is translated to their brains or as it is transferred from their brains to their hands. It doesn't matter how hard they try there are certain things they simply cannot do. In a Drawing class where they are graded on their grasp of certain techniques their inability to satisfactorily do the work affects their grades. However if this is not a Drawing class and certain techniques are not required it's a different situation. Just as his students get credit for the effort they put in it seems that your ds's stick figures do not necessarily mean a lack of effort just because his end result is different from other kids in the class.

He has an IEP right? Is it because of dysgraphia? If so it may mean this teacher is saying she plans to penalize him for his disability. If this is not related to his disability it could still be his chosen artistic style. If it's the former I would be looking att making a major fuss. If it's the latter I think your choice outlined above is something for him to consider. If it's really just a matter of him lacking effort the teacher may have picked up on a legitimate issue. Are you able to decipher which it may be?

Val - thanks for your thoughtful response. And you're right. After all this misery, it won't be a keepsake.

Pemberly - thanks for tapping into your husband's expertise. His experience with the two students is interesting. And, yes, if the class is art, I can see where not being able to perform some basic tasks assigned would result in a lower grade for them in college.

This is for language and literature. The teacher has a wee bit of "attitude" about my son's IEP, although she has seemed to be fair with him in most things. She thinks he is being coddled and that he's smart enough to do what everyone else is doing. I am amazed that teachers are not required in every state to take at least one course that familiarizes them with learning disabilities. The only way some believe a disability is if it is accompanied by a low IQ.

I don't know if the reason he draws stick figures is because of the dysgraphia or because of style. I think it's likely just his style to be a minimalist in his drawings. And I do believe it is fair for her to assume that he doesn't always put his full effort into things. He's a minimalist when it comes to that, too. But in this case, I think he was being honest about wanting to draw the stick figures because of style since he wasn't asking me to intervene - only asking me to help him decide whether it was more important to do what she wanted for the better grade or to make a book with pictures he'd like.

So how much time, care and effort go into the stick figure drawings? That would be important to me as I decided how to proceed here.


In general, I agree with this.

I wanted to add that I feel too much emphasis is put on drawing in the lower grades. My DD happens to be a fantastic artist, but one of her good friends is not at all (he is probably dysgraphic, but anyway). I have seen the frustration that results when he is forced to "draw a picture" for every darn thing. I guess it's fine motor practice, but it seems excessive to me. I also note that DD sometimes slops out cruddy pictures for school assignments "because there isn't any time to do a good job," which seems counterproductive.