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

Let me just start out by saying I'm pretty sure on this one I am a total hypocrite.

My son has an IEP in place that, in fact, prevents his teachers on grading him on results alone in several areas such as spelling, computation, etc.

But this morning I received an email that has me wanting to challenge a teacher's policy for doing just what it is I usually want - for my child's effort to be valued even if the end result isn't as good as what his peers can do.

My son's class is working on a project that will result in a book published through a vanity press that will be a keepsake for him. It is a book of poems, and writing the poems has been in and of itself a total headache, but he's plowed through each assignment and produced a poem that meets (but definitely does not exceed) the teacher's requirements. His only motivator has been that he is worried about his grade (he is the only one of my kids who has ever cared about his grades), so he is doing his best to produce work the teacher will accept.

The last assignment is the artwork that will go on the accompanying pages. He has been told under no circumstances is he going to be allowed to draw stick figures. This is all he ever draws.

If this were not a keepsake book, I'd recommend that he suck it up and just make the kinds of drawings the teacher wants. But because this is something he will be keeping as a memory, I would at least like him to be proud of his illustrations. I emailed the teacher and asked if she might reconsider about the stick drawings. Her response is that she is grading him on effort, and stick figures show very little effort. So now he truly has to make the choice of whether he wants the better grade or drawings he likes.

I personally don't think stick figures show less effort, but that is my opinion. I am always amazed at the amount of story - action, humor, emotion - he is able to incorporate in just a few strokes on a page.

And so here I am struggling with my own values. Is it about effort or results? I realize I'm wanting it both ways, and that it probably isn't reasonable.

I'd love to hear your thoughts so I'm not looking at this in a vacuum. I have added one of his old drawings here from when he was five - this is what he drew when I asked to him draw a picture of me.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...263327.232507.49045723327&type=3&theater

Personally I think (as both parent and educator) that grades of both kinds are massively over-used. We don't have a grade point average equivalent here, but even so, there are too many grades. There's plenty of evidence that they impede learning, e.g., people take much less notice of the actual content of the feedback they get - the useful stuff, the stuff that tells them how they could improve - if it comes with a grade.

If you have to have one or the other, I'd rather have grades on achievement, because I have no confidence in any teacher's ability to judge effort reliably. I might feel differently, though, if I had a child who tried hard but could only ever achieve modest achievement grades.

DS gets grades for effort, progress, presentation and organisation in every subject every half term (if I've got that correctly). They've been exemplary so far, but every time, I recap the conversation about them being just fallible indicators and not important in themselves, and ask him how he thinks his work is going.

During my bored/annoyed/rebellious phase, the only thing that motivated me to do the slightest bit of schoolwork was the potential embarrassment of receiving a grade lower than a B.

They might impede learning, but they can be exchanged for cash prizes!

I don't know the answer to your question, but I had to say that his drawing reminds me of this site.

Does the teacher realize the detail in his "stick" figure drawings? Maybe show her some examples?

Barring that I would probably suck it up and do what they wanted (see DADD22 response ....Maybe graphic art on a computer?

Reminds of the Art in Diary of a wimpy kid books. My kids love that.

This. Plus, grades told me how seriously to take any supplied feedback. If it didn't cost me a letter grade the feedback was of the "helpful suggestion" variety, and escalated from there.

For something art-related, I think grading on effort is fine.

However, requiring a child draw in a certain way in a class other than art seems rather arbitrary and silly, IMO. Some people are not good at drawing. Some people don't like drawing. Considering it's a skill that is entirely unnecessary in a person's life, what is the point if they aren't concerned with their output?

Wow, that's an awesome picture. He really captured a lot of energy and expressiveness there. I can see you as a superwoman, a whirlwind of Mom-competence, dealing with everything at once!

If his teacher thinks that stick figures show little effort, it's clear that she isn't familiar with XKCD , one of the most popular comics on the Web.

What's her problem with abstract art? If he regularly drew more representational pieces, and just wanted to use stick figures on this assignment because he didn't want to bother making an effort, I could see her point, but that's not the case here: this really is his preferred form of artistic expression. I wonder if she realizes how painful it is for a child, or for anyone, for that matter, to be told that their vision, personal expression, and way of being is wrong and worthless? I think this goes way beyond a question of grades.

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.

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.