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

Sorry, this is more about the stated topic than your particular situation, but I think it is relevant.

One of my best learning experiences was an undergraduate cartography class. The professor said, "If you do what I ask you to do, you will get an A in this class."

Every week, he would give us an assignment on Monday. Some aspects of the project were very specific, but there was always a little twist--a problem that we had to solve creatively.

By Friday's class, we would have all posted our assignments on a particular bulletin board in the classroom. We did not put our names on them, but the illusion of anonymity was temporary and only needed at the beginning. Once we'd been through the process a couple of times, we didn't mind going through it. By the end of the semester, we could all recognize styles of the different students anyway.

When we met on Friday, we would look at each of them in turn. For each assignment, we would give positive comments and suggestions for improvement.

"I really like this color scheme."

"I think that a slightly lighter line here would help put this border where it belongs in the hierarchy of information."

When we were done with our feedback for each piece, the professor would give some feedback. He was, perhaps, the most important peer. But it was the peer feedback that motivated us to put so much work into our maps and images. Disabling the usual grade mechanism is part of what made this work.

I teach 6th grade world history now. My memory of that cartography class inspires me to try and harness the power of producing for your peers. Sometimes, I invite student feedback to anonymous student work, or I have my students cruise the classroom for a "gallery walk" to examine their classmates' work from time to time.

On the one hand, I do think effort is very important. I really think (esp.) gifted children need a good work ethic since otherwise your talents may well be wasted.
On the other hand, in the end, our society mainly rewards the results. Your job performance is probably mainly on the output (results), not the input (effort). Like it or not, that is how the world is.

I love this.

My DD is already too psychologically dependent on grades. She loves seeing that 100 at the top of everything--and (unfortunately, in a way) it is pretty much all she ever sees. She has this beautiful internal drive that is being twisted and crippled by external evaluation already.

Well, I'm pretty horrified that your ds was told he can't draw stick figures - I just can't imagine how a teacher can expect to assign an art project and then dictate to a student that the way they draw isn't acceptable. I think it's one thing to dictate what *medium* to use on an art project, or if the purpose is to study a particular style of art to ask the student to create per that style.. but quite another thing altogether to imply that the way many kids draw figures isn't up to par. Ugh!

I also loved your ds' drawing!

Re grades, I think it's impossible to say what works best because kids' personalities are all so different! I have three different kids at three different schools with three very different grading philosophies - but at each school, effort is integral to "grading" (I put "grading" into quotes because my 4th graders' school doesn't have grades, they do self-evaluations). DD's school also is heavily into self-expression, so in her school, your ds would most likely be recognized and appreciated for his stick figures

All three of my kids started out in the no-grades school and my EG and HG+ kid have moved on - lack of a grading system wasn't why we moved them, but they both perform better when they have a grading system as a carrot. They really respond and self-motivate themselves based on wanting to get As and also liking having the actual results of their work "rewarded" in a grade. My ds school in particular weights effort and participation right alongside with actual results and I think it works a-ok. OTOH, I can't imagine that any of the staff at his school would ever tell a child not to draw using stick figures or however they preferred to draw. His teachers are really good about looking beyond individual students' artistic etc abilities and sensibilities and staying focused on the true goals of projects. They are also very focused on building up their students' self-esteem... which doesn't seem to be a strong point for your ds' teacher.... grrrrrrrr......

polarbear

I had a realization that may or may not apply - but it occurred to me - do you think the reason the teacher requested no stick figures is because she sees drawing in full figures as a way of better defining the people/characters in the poems, so she sees it as an extension of more fully defining the work? If that's the case, I can somewhat understand how she's making the connection between stick figures and lack of effort. Just wondering if perhaps that was what she was actually attempting to get across, rather than a blanket assumption that a person drawing a stick figure wasn't trying.

If that was the intent, I might suggest to my ds to make a few of his drawings the way he wants to create them, and them show them to the teacher and she might see that he is really quite creative at expressing himself and retelling the story via stick figures

polarbear

ps - in case anyone is wondering where the heck I thought this up, it didn't come out of thin air. I had a flashback to a 2nd grade parent-teacher conference last fall where dd's teacher told me how proud she was of dd because she was finally filling in all the blank spaces when she colored the pictures she drew above her stories. While the teacher was raving on and on I was sitting there thinking "and why on earth does that matter?"... but then the teacher filled me in lol! For the record, I still don't think it really matters.... other than to show that dd figured out how to beat the system

So for you, it is more about time and effort than finished product? The little drawing I posted in the original post took him maybe 1 or 2 minutes, so he is able to quickly depict what he wants in a few strokes. So if midschool is more about learning to work longer at something, then I guess he should be docked for time no matter what type of drawing he does. And i do think part of school is learning about a good work ethic, and i know from my older two that thinking everything will come easy was a real pitfall later in school. But for this kid, so very little comes easy. The more I've thout about this, I have to say I think it is quite silly that she is putting parameters on the kind of art they are allowed to create for a writing project.

I was always fast like that with writing. When i was writing professionally, one of my articles that earned a top award was written in about ten minutes. Can't say the editor thought the writing was less valuable because it didn't take me the full week allotted to turn it in.

Learning how to beat the system isn't a bad thing to learn, is it?

You point out something that got me to thinking about the way an elementary or medschool teacher might think about stick figures. There are developmental stages children go through as toddlers when it comes to drawing, and stick figures are pretty early in the stage of things. Perhaps she sees full figures as more developed.

Plus, you have that Draw-A-Person test.

I do get what you're saying. I'm a very fast reader and writer, and sometimes I get excess credit (IMO) for something that didn't take much effort. However, something great produced with little effort is generally going to get more accolades than something not as great produced with similar effort. It's not entirely fair, and someone who knows the kid well should probably take this into account--I try to pay attention to this with my kid, who has natural art talent--but it does seem to be reality. In a way, when you think about it, this discrepancy may well be part of why some people resent giftedness.