I was under the idealistic impression that grading would be an opportunity for great reflection and development in student thought. I was wrong. I found that students weren’t reading my comments, just looking for final grades to either solidify their writing process or make small adjustments to get the grade they’d like. I also found that some students, usually those with the most potential were dealing with external challenges. Over the course of the semester I heard about the death of a grandparent, an overbearing mom, juggling of two jobs, and a car getting broken into! So when Bloom asks if grades should reflect factors external to the papers, like outside responsibilities my first thought is I have no idea. I would love to have a rigid standard by which I could easily grade my students. Despite my dislike of the grading for credit process, because I have to do it, it’d be great if that could happen easily.
It would be great to view each paper fairly, and objectively but with so much going on in my students lives, it feels impossible. She says “as graders we can be fair, but as human beings, we can never be objective.” i don’t really know that we can be fair. I mean, can I grade a student dealing with the loss of a loved one in the same way as a student who is not. Should I? Is it my place to assume that their work will suffer under the circumstances? I have more questions than answers obviously but that’s because I wasn’t prepared to deal with these types of dilemmas. I don’t know if you ever truly can be. I decided to offer additional time to students dealing with issues, if they asked it of me. Any suggestions, or similar dilemmas?