Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy "best" is NOT a good goal-- explaining

But children are little balls of clay that have to be shaped into modernity so that they don't end up back on the farms!

Many of the richest people around where I live ARE farmers! Which reminds me of the farmer who walked into a sales office with knee high boots, overalls, and grain cap. The first desk didn't even say, "Can I help you sir?"....he proceeded on to the next booth, where he purchased two twin engine planes. I think the sales people at the first booth learned a lesson that day (laffin)

This was my perspective, too.

In their defense, teachers see children every day whose parents are, literally and/or figuratively, falling down on the job. A genuinely concerned teacher will naturally fall into the habit of overstepping his bounds, for purely altruistic reasons.

And the path that's paved with good intentions leads to... where?

This is where it's appropriate to bring him up short. "Hey. I'm her mom. I'm on the job. I've got this. You just worry about teaching her government."

Unfortunately, I did not have the "neutral" grading experience in college or graduate school. Maybe in my very large survey classes...but I also was in a lot of more intimate classes where there is a lot of interaction with teacher or assistant profs. Even in a HUGE philosophy class on death and dying (maybe 300 students?), I recall the papers were graded by a set of teaching assistants. It was luck of the draw if you might get a C or an A depending on the TA. But I also took a series of subjective classes (was a dual fine arts and pyschololgy major). I once had a friend scoff at my college GPA (behind my back)because of my art classes...but I assure you, at least with an objective subject you can STUDY to increase your odds of demonstrating competency. If you just happen to stink at sculptural bronze casting or oxyacetaline welding - well, you're pretty much hosed.

Anyway,the best thing that ever happend to cure me of my acheivement anorexia was having my first prof in graduate school announce that she refused to give A's in her class, because, as first year graduate students, there was no way that we would be able to be proficient enough at clinical assessments to deserve one. It was the best relief one could ask for as a perfectionist. And then I didn't have to worry about maintaining an expectation of perfection for myself any longer...relief!

I don't think that's unusual for a perfectionist. The first time they don't get an A on something they break down and cry, often not out of grief but out of relief, they no longer have to worry about being perfect.

Oh, good heavens. I missed the Barracuda's phone call while I was running a twenty minute errand first thing... AUGH!!

Now I have to try to persuade her to call me again.




Hmmm, well, I think that depends on the perfectionist in question. DD sometimes takes it pretty well if she doesn't get 100%. It depends ENTIRELY on whether or not she interprets the situation as one in which her "best" should legitimately guarantee her 100% or not. In any situation in which she feels that is so, this becomes problematic. In this instance, her best is VERY definitely "100%" in any estimate, and considerably less than her best should be... but now she's been placed into a scenario where because of the teacher's desire (which was altruistic, but misplaced) to teach her a larger lesson, she now MUST earn 100% to achieve the 'reasonable' outcome. Bottom line, the teacher opted to use a high-value, summative assessment in a formative manner, but he was too heavy-handed and missed the mark.

The reason we're not having ANY problems like this with AP Lit is that any one writing assignment is only 1% of the course grade. Those are formative assessments, and therefore more tailored/subjective grading is fine there. Those are intended to 'shape' the student, and they are pretty relentless in terms of demand. This has been an IDEAL course for my DD, and probably one of the single healthiest experiences of her school career with this educational entity.

That's a much, much better situation for a perfectionist, as it forces them to actually work toward a goal OTHER than perfection, and to regard the learning process-- not the results-- as important.

Similarly, in college coursework, while it is true that grading may be subjective... subjective grading TENDS to be on formative low-value or high-frequency student work. Homework, weekly work, etc. There is a chance for the student to learn what sort of responses are expected.

I would NEVER have graded a midterm exam this harshly without the six to seven in-class quizzes, five weekly problem sets, and four lab reports leading up to it, which should give students LOADS of feedback about all of the little things that I looked for on extended answers (showing your work, explaining thought process logically, focusing on "why" not just "how," etc.). I also didn't grade EXAM answers with the same sort of rigor that I did outside-of-class writing in terms of usage/conventions or clarity/flow. Basically, exam answers are about that overall "does the student have a great, good, mediocre, or poor grasp on the principles behind this question?" I certainly DID demand good written English on lab reports and term papers. But to do so with exams and quizzes was unfair to students who struggled with those things, and frankly, it wasn't an English course. (It was chemistry.) Communication on those things simply had to be good enough to let me see the student's understanding (or lack thereof). In other words, if I could SEE that the student had sophisticatd and thorough understanding of the concept... I might dock 10-20% for not explaining it well... but I wasn't going to punish form over substance with a student who had mastery.

So while I quite thoroughly understand where this teacher is coming from, and to some extent I support those pedagogical preferences myself, I think that this model doesn't support that pedagogy very well-- and he's being grossly internally inconsistent and doesn't even see it, and he doesn't 'know' the students well enough to be doing what he's doing. AND he's running smack into some major roadblocks created by my daughter's asynchronous maturity and her GT perfectionism.

:SIGH: Hopefully I can talk to Ms. Barracuda about our concerns over tweaking DD's hard-won voice as a writer for the purpose of one idiosyncratic teacher. That part is a maturity thing-- I'm just not sure that DD is ready to alter her writing style THAT radically to suit different teachers and not have it impact her natural core voice as a writer.

When I realized that I could never get a 4.0 in college, I gave up and retreated to my mausoleum.

After all, I knew that my future was over...

If only took me about 6 years to get over that.

Jon, you and my DD tend to regard such things in a similar light, quite honestly.

A single bad experience on a geometry midterm, coupled with an extracurricular "fail" the same week was what sent our DD on the road to hell the first time.

Frankly, those two failures were the result of poor preparation and lack of understanding. I didn't argue about either one of them, and both were fairly objective evaluations, IMO-- even in retrospect and knowing how that wound up.

I'm really not happy if that kind of spiral gets going as a result of fairly idiosyncratic or subjective input, however-- unless it is clear that it IS idiosyncratic/subjective. (Artistic merit, for example.)

Eventually I started destroying my academic life on purpose.

In hindsight, this was not the most productive or beneficial use of my time.

All or nothing thinking is certainly a mark of perfectionism. Do it right or don't do it at all. As is extreme procrastination. I seem to suffer from a prolonged procrastination phase of this disease since grad school. Which is exactly why I have come to peak back to these boards instead of learning the new billing software program that I must use within the week. Sigh.