Reflections on Grading with Janet Taylor (Ep. 471)

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for art teachers. This show is produced by The Art of Education, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz. Today I am excited to welcome Janet Taylor back to the show. Been a while since Janet’s been on, but we have a lot to talk about today regarding grading and assessment. And I am looking forward to this conversation because Janet thinks deeply about assessment, about grading, about everything that goes along with it. And she’s been doing that for a long time. And there’s so many things happening with everything that’s going on with grading right now. And I want to just dive in, and this is going to be another one of those conversations that we maybe don’t have the answers. There are a lot of problems out there that are beyond our control, a lot of problems that we can’t solve. But I think we can talk about grading, we can talk about assessment in both practical ways and philosophical ways, just how we grade, why we grade, and what we value when it comes to our assessment practices.

And we are going to talk, I hope about the changing face of education, about how motivation and lack of motivation, I suppose, has really changed a lot of what we do, but also how we are continuing to deal with grading practices that we may or may not agree with, or that keep us from doing exactly what we want to do and how we can continue to come up with practices that support learning, support the experiences that we want our students to have in the art room. So again, we are not going to have all the answers today, but I think we do have some good topics to cover. So let me go ahead and bring on Janet now. Janet Taylor is joining me now. Janet, how are you?

I’m great. How are you Tim?

I am also great. It’s good to talk to you. I feel like it’s been months since you’ve been on the podcast, which is kind of weird, but you’ve also been incredibly busy with school. So you survived all of that though, you made it through the end of the year?

I have made it through the end of the year. I feel like I’m still somehow living day by day. It’s going to happen. We’re going to be, everything’s fine. Was that convincing?

Like the less we talk about this the better.

Let’s just move on.

Okay. Well, I wanted to have you on to talk about grading because I feel like you have all of these ideas that have been running through your head for years now about grading. You’ve tried so many different things, and I love just hearing what your thoughts are, what your reflections are, what you’ve tried. And so I don’t know how to phrase this, I guess, but being that you’ve been engaged with grading and assessment for so long, there’s so many things that you’re working on and it really brings up some, I guess, dilemmas, for lack of a better word, some things that you’re grappling with. So to kind of frame this discussion, can you share what you’ve been thinking about, what you’ve been worrying about, and just where our conversation might go today?

Well, I’m not sure our conversation will solve any of life’s problems. Let’s just start there. Okay. But yes, I really appreciate having this conversation with you because yeah, it’s been something that’s just really been on my mind obviously for a long time. But as our educational landscape shifts and changes and our students change and we’re getting older and whatnot, there’s been a lot of things that I am thinking about. And so basically, I’ve been in this deep world of assessment for a while and really mostly by chance. It’s been a really interesting journey that I think a lot of our listeners hopefully have heard before. But I’ve done a lot of thinking about art assessment in art education, but also zooming back out on our education system as a whole and really thinking about the what-ifs.

And prior to the pandemic, I really shifted my teaching practices pretty significantly over a decade. And in turn really felt that because of that, the students were starting to care less about the grades part day to day and more about the investment in learning, which was really exciting for me. And this was a very high achieving grade driven population of my school. And so I got to the point where I decided to, well, I asked to, I begged to do a pilot for a grades-free classroom basically. My administration gave me approval after I came with all this research. And they were like, whatever, Janet.

They’re like, hey, if we let you do this, will you go away?

Pretty much, pretty much. They’re like, I didn’t even look at this document, just do what you need to do. And so again, we’re very lucky in arts that we don’t have to worry. We can be on our own and do those kinds of things and have approval. But anyway, so I felt like it was a really successful pilot. And then I did it with one class, and then I expanded beyond. And I say, I will preface this. I know there’s an article that I wrote about grades free. It wasn’t really like grades free. You still have to do grades, the school system expects it, that kind of thing.

Yes.

But it was just different. I didn’t put in all those grades all the time. The letters were not the focus, it was the feedback, right? So students always knew where they were, and we always had this on track grade and whatever. Anyway, so I was able to expand it into multiple classes, and it was going really well. And then the pandemic hit. And I mean, that changes everything. So actually, I left that school. I’m at a new school. I’ve been there for about three years now. And so what I’m really curious about now, honestly is just still grappling with this whole point of grades. We still have to do it. My students are different. I mean, even though the populations were very similar that I was serving, we all know pandemic hit and our…

Things have changed.

Changed significantly, not just a little bit. Just a lot. And so it’s funny because I’m still grappling with it when I constantly still talk about how I just don’t care about grades, and nobody should care about grades. Grades are still on my mind. So can I just shout out real quick? I’m currently finishing up my master’s through Art of Ed.

Yes.

And I’m in the capstone phase. And of course, can you guess what my topic is about?

Oh, I’m going to guess it’s either assessment or choice or maybe both.

All of the above. Can you believe? So my capstone is all about assessment being kind of the driving force for student voice and engagement.

Oh, perfect.

Which is also, of course, when I was redoing all this research, it’s brought up research around grades, the perception of grades on learning and really also intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and grades are that, right? That’s about learning and grades and how that impacts our students. So it’s been a really fascinating journey so far.

Yeah, I don’t know. I love hearing about those things. I love, I don’t know you summarizing research for me so I don’t have to read it, but I appreciate all of that stuff. But I do want to talk about, you talked about with the pandemic things have changed so much, and I feel like we’re still consistently evolving. And so I would love to get your perspective on just how grading and behavior and just school systems in general have been changing over the past few years. And I guess how those changes are affecting grading and assessment and just where we are now with all of those things.

And it’s interesting you talk about summarizing the research or whatever, but it’s interesting there’s not a ton of research on in art education on grades and assessment. There’s a lot of research about student voice and choice and how that impacts student learning, but not on the other side of it. What about the assessment part? So when we look at that, when we’re talking about grades and our school systems across the board, I will say what I teach and what I talk about on the podcast or in my articles or whatever, wherever I am, it’s not always the same. I guarantee it’s not the same as what’s happening across our country in every classroom.

So it’s hard sometimes because what I talk about, I try to teach people about assessment and focus on that to help them take the grading out of it in a way. But in terms of our school systems, that has been a really interesting shift. So pre-pandemic, we started off with a lot of points-based letter grades, like the 90, 80, 70, that kind of thing. And then there was a huge shift, and again, not all schools, but a huge shift into standards-based learning. And that seemed to be picking up a lot of speed before the pandemic.

You read a lot of research, there was a lot of stuff out there, schools were changing to this. And I think the idea behind that was to make the feedback specific to the standards. Instead of a grade that is an A, B, or C that doesn’t really give any information as to what the student’s actually learning because it’s all bundled. Everything they’re learning is bundled into a grade that doesn’t really mean anything.

Right.

So there was a lot of back and forth that. And then we’re starting to see schools trying to provide more accurate or equitable grading practices. So we’re starting to hear more of that. And then post pandemic, then schools are just kind of trying to figure it out. I think they’re trying to go back to the status quo. I mean that is really what happened, right? And in my school’s case though, trying to take some of these equitable practices, it was really interesting because they moved to a Z four is what it’s called. Well, what we call it.

I was going to say tell me more about a Z four.

Yeah, Z four, Z five. So Z four, we no longer have zeros in the grade book. So if a kid doesn’t do anything, doesn’t turn something in, they cannot get lower than a 40%. And then if they try something and they fail at it, they can’t get lower than a 50%. So you’d put in this code Z five, and it would be 50% and they could try again and get higher or whatever. So yeah, that’s been really interesting.

Yeah, I would love to just see everyone who’s had experience with these sort of concepts. When they hear you bring them up, I would love to see just their physical reaction to it as teachers, or you just immediately feel defeated as soon as you hear about this concept. I want to say 2009, maybe a long time ago, a couple teachers from my school had gone to this conference that was talking all about getting 50% for doing nothing basically, and all of the ideas behind it. They presented to our whole staff, and there was just such an outcry, such an uproar from our teachers about why we can’t do this, why we don’t need to do this. And now, I feel like it’s been gaining steam and then losing it and then gaining steam again. And now I guess you’re living it.

I still, I guess want to remain open-minded about the possibility, but still in my heart, I know I don’t like this. So anyway, I would love to know just what your thoughts are, what your experiences are with it. And I don’t know, I guess filling in people with a little bit of background if you could as well. So just I’ll give you the floor, any of your thoughts on forties and 50 percents from kids doing very little or doing nothing?

Oh my gosh, I have so many thoughts on this. I just want to first address how you said that visceral reaction or the feeling like you don’t know why, but this doesn’t sound like a good idea, right?

Yes.

And I just want to acknowledge that I think as people, we also as teachers, we want to hold our kids accountable for what they’re learning. And I think the ultimate is like, well, why would you not give them a zero if they turned in zero? That makes sense. And you need to hold them accountable for doing the work. So I think I just want to acknowledge that piece right off the bat because I think this is still, and I will come back to it, this is what I’m grappling with myself. Why do I care about this if I don’t care about grades? It’s still in me, it’s kind of the system that we know. So let me give you a little background about this. So this 40, 50% really comes back to grading for equity.

And so many people probably had to do this reading in their undergrad or grad school when they were going through their teaching. But the case against the Zero was, is still a pretty interesting article talking about the weight of a zero. And there’s articles out there too that, what do I want to say? Give the other side. They’re like, no, this is a terrible article and whatever. And this is why. So I can give you my experience. So I live in Chicago area. I lived in Chicago for a long time, and Chicago is a highly segregated city. In the city, outside the city. It’s a very segregated for a lot of really historically interesting reasons, not good reasons, but interesting.

And so because of that, for example, I taught in Chicago public schools with a predominantly Black and brown community in a school that had very little funding. My class sizes were 40 very large kids in a very small place. I had a $400 budget. We had a school nurse, part-time. I had a kid that had a seizure disorder, and I was so freaked out that it would be the day that the nurse was not there.

Didn’t know she’d be there, yeah.

And then I go and teach in the suburbs. This one suburb that I taught at for a long time is 20 miles away, not even that far. And I mean, resource out the wazoo.

Just a different world.

I was like, what is this craziness? So just to see those discrepancies, right? Okay. So I’m teaching in CPS, Chicago Public Schools. And in art, this was early in my teaching career, but I would give a lot of small points for everything. You do this, you get points, you do this, you get five points, you do that. It’s like all practice. Supposed to be low risk, no big deal, just complete it and you’re going to get the A. It’s no big deal. But instead, kids would maybe not complete that and then they would not even start to do any of the work, even these easy things because they were already failing, right?

They feel like it’s too big of a hole to dig out of.

Well, exactly. They would just give up. And it wasn’t just my class. Or maybe it was happening in other classes, and then when they started to slip in my class, then it was like, well, what’s the point? I’m already failing six other classes. Why do I even bother? And so the whole point of the 40, 50% is that when you look at that hole, they’re starting from a 0% to the 60%. I mean, that’s a large percentage. That’s such as you say, a deep hole. And it doesn’t seem to matter whatever they did, even if they did these little things to make up these points, they could just never pass. Right? Or just feel success. Because even when they were getting 10 out of 10 points for this thing, they were still at a 40%.

I was going to say, it’s not moving their grade much at all.

It’s not. Correct. So the idea now of the 40, 50% is that if you make that zero now a 40%, they’re still not passing, but they don’t have to dig out as far. And so the idea in theory, it sounds so great.

Yeah.

It’s leveling the playing field. It’s giving disadvantaged students really is what it is. Students who don’t have the resources, students that have other things in their lives that are keeping them from learning and accessing success, that’s leveling that playing field for them. So fast-forward, now I’m at this other school, the pandemic hits. Now I’m at a new school, I’m in the Z four Z five situation. My population at my new school is very, I say new. I’ve been there a couple of years now, but it’s a very diverse population.

And both culturally, economically, they’re just very diverse population, which is wonderful. And now we’re seeing what happened when the pandemic hit is that people were freaking out because states were like, well, here’s this time period where the kids aren’t going to school. This was the end from March to May or May, June, that whole period. So states were like, you cannot give them a failing grade. And I don’t know about all states, I can only speak I guess on Illinois. But they were like, nope, everybody’s passing, whatever. Or if the kid doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t matter kind of situation. And people were freaking out. Do you remember that?

I do.

They were like, “How could you do that? How could you let a kid pass?” And I’m sitting here going, we’re in a global pandemic. The trauma, you don’t know what kids are going through. You don’t know if their parents are home. You don’t know if they have access to internet. Okay, that’s the human in me that is just like, come on people, let’s just be realistic for a little bit. But that kind of continued.

So at the same time, our public schools are serving this purpose is to kind of give this equitable access to learning. And I say equitable loosely, because we have to start somewhere in this conversation. We know it’s not equitable. So now during the pandemic, we have this opportunity, I think I talked to you about this. I think I was on the podcast talking about this opportunity to change large systemic issues in education. I’m like, wait, let’s change how we do this. And then we didn’t, right?

We just didn’t do it.

No, we didn’t do it. Everybody wanted to go back to status quo, even for three years where it was hybrid and home and weird stuff happening all the time. Okay, all right. So now we’re back in school full time for a while, and we are so shocked that our students have no motivation. Where did this come from? I’m giving grades. I’m holding them to high standards. Why do they not care about this? Right?

Yes.

Okay. So now you have students who are struggling with apathy, with motivation, a sense of purpose. You have kids who used to maybe be all maybe driven by the grades, that extrinsic motivation, will this get me an A? Which is what I still talk about that. I hate that, right?

I say I still hate that question, but yes.

But now I’m getting kids who are like, will this get me? Will this just pass me? And you’re like, okay, okay. Bare minimum anything, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

First, the zero, the 40 50, the Z four, 50%, whatever you want to call it. Okay. It’s just standardized tests in my opinion. It’s any sort of one size fits all approach. These are band-aids attempting to solve a large, deep systemic problem.

Yeah. Exactly right.

And I think it is essential as educators though. It’s our job to reflect on what’s happening, how it’s actually working in our classrooms, and be advocates for change because we know that what we teach and how we teach is so much larger than just the content. So at minimum, it’s our job as educators to really critically analyze these things and question, really question what’s happening to do this? So now come back to the crux of what I said, I’m grappling with grades, I’m sitting in this. So like I said, we’re stuck in the system with grades for now. We have to enter grades, we’re expected to give points or letters. And our schools are typically set up with protocols with how much you can weigh summatives and formatives, how much you…

70% for this and 30% for this, yes.

Real, right? Or how often you record, you have to put in three grades per week or that you can and cannot grade certain things.

So now what’s happening is we saw in our school that we were struggling with this chronic absenteeism issue. This is a big thing across the nation too, and whether they’re not coming to school or they’re in school, but they’re not coming to class. And I do give my school credit, we’re working at the end of the school year. We were talking about, it was so funny. We’re sitting in the Institute Day and they’re like, we are going to crack down on X, and Z, and people just were standing up applauding, thank God you’re addressing this issue. So here’s the situation. So I can have a kid that comes to my class at the beginning of the semester, and they start off really strong and they’re doing all this easy stuff. I like to front load, easy fun, get them engaged.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you get kids in your class, you get them excited about things. You let them find some success early. Yeah.

Success early. So I’m like, we’ll do a little name tag. You get a summative, small summative grade for that. Okay. We’re making a sketchbook cover. Okay, great. You get a larger because that’s a bigger. Okay, now we’re starting off with a solid A in the class. Then the semester goes on, and I’m teaching topics and tools. Now, mind you, I didn’t say this, but I mostly teach jewelry and metalsmithing right now. And so all of those tools, techniques, everything is scaffolded to build on one another. So now a kid stops showing up to class or they’re coming sporadically to class. So maybe I get them to complete one more artwork before the end of the semester. They’re showing up here and there. And Tim, I’m a real sucker for helping this kid out.

Same.

Oh, my God.

I know where you’re coming from.

And I know there are teachers who are like, I’m not going to help this kid. They’re not. And I’m just like, come on, I just need you. You’re here. We’re going to do something. We’re going to make it. Okay. So I realize that there’s bigger fish to fry than my class, but it is also I want to acknowledge very ridiculous, it’s exhausting. It’s often unfair to others. And sometimes in my class especially, it’s dangerous. They’re coming in, they’re using tools.

They’re using these tools that they don’t have any experience with.

And maybe this is why I’m grappling because it’s my own personal frustrations versus what’s better. So they come and they do, and they make this one project, and still they get, let’s say maybe three out of six summatives complete. Let’s just say. I’m making this up. Okay.

Yeah.

They still pass my class. They haven’t done more than half of the work, but they’re usually getting even a high D now or sometimes a low C at this point. So then for a student, what’s the purpose of coming?

I was going to say, if they are one of those kids who’s just saying, will this pass me? Will this give me enough to get me the credit? What is the point of showing up 90% of the time if you can show up 40% of the time and still get that grade that you’re looking for.

And I know that Mrs. Taylor is such a sucker, like I said, and she’s going to always help me and make it happen. So the problem for us, and obviously this is not just arts, this is across all content areas, but I’m not going to sit there and compare. It’s not my place to do that. But we’re a performance-based classroom. So I like to say that we’re performance based. You can’t just take a book home and read it, and then come and take a test or write a paper and pass the standards.

Yeah.

You really need to be in the classroom to do the work.

You have to be in the studio.

Yes. And especially for metals, I’m like, if you’re not going to come to class. The first week, I’m like, if you’re a kid who struggles with coming to class, this is not the class for you. You can’t take a saw and a torch home. Just saying. So if you’re not here, I think in a performance-based class, how is it okay to pass period? The work is here, you’re not here. So now it’s at the end of the semester, and I’m looking at maybe a few kids in this situation, like really? I sit there and I go, okay, so this kid is supposed to be graduating and this kid still needs to get his credit or whatever. And I’m sitting there going, am I really the gatekeeper of this kid graduating? If they just need my class to graduate, but they never came or they came enough just to get a D-minus, or F-plus, whatever you want to say. I’m like, this is just not a hill I really want to die on. They clearly have so much more going on in life, and I don’t know, life can be hard.

Yeah. Do you want your two jewelry projects to be what keeps that kid from graduating? It really puts a lot of pressure on you as a teacher.

It does.

Again, that doesn’t feel fair to you as an educator to have to be that gatekeeper, to have to be that decider. It’s a lot.

Yes. But it also doesn’t feel fair to me as a teacher for the integrity of my curriculum and what I teach and the amount of time and effort and patience and passion, clearly, that I’m putting into each and every student. Does that not warrant something? This is where I go back and forth.

No, you’re absolutely right. What does that say about your curriculum? If a kid shows up, like we said, 30 to 40% of the time, but still does enough to pass, it’s a lot to grapple with.

It is. Grapple is our word of the day. So I will say, remember I said it’s important that we critically analyze and are advocates. So I have to say, I’m not quiet. I do talk to my administration about things when I’m frustrated, but I also look to seek for solutions, right?

So I’m not just like, this is a terrible policy. I’m sitting here going, okay, these are some of the things that I’m grappling with and this is what needs to change. And what if we try this? So one of the conversations I’m having with my principal currently is specifically around performance-based situation. So maybe we adjust this to say a kid cannot pass. Maybe this needs to be a set in stone. A kid cannot pass a class if they’ve not completed five out of six summatives. Or I don’t know, I’m making this up. I don’t know. But maybe that protects some of that integrity, but also incentivizes students to attend class.

Yeah. But then on the flip side, if they get three or four months into the semester and then they have only completed one of the summatives, and then they’re four more just to pass, you’re never going to see that kid again. And what is the incentive for them to come at this point?

Then maybe that’s a good time. I mean, I’m talking phase school, but maybe that’s a good time to say, Hey, maybe you need to drop this class and take something else or take a study hall, or maybe that’s the time to, I mean, obviously you should be talking to your team anyway if a kid’s showing up, right? You’re not just like, oh, well.

Yeah. No, it’s a lot. It’s a lot to figure out. And like you said, it’s good to keep pushing that conversation forward, but like you said, we are not the ones that have all the solutions, nor should we be expected to. I don’t think so. It makes it tough. We can’t solve all those problems.

Okay. So bigger picture though, I still keep thinking about students passing courses, getting credit with just minimal engagement. And so just thinking about what you said about the integrity of what you’re doing, how do we reconcile that tension between upholding the standards that we have, but also recognizing everything else that’s going on in kids’ life, all of the systemic issues that we might be dealing with, all of those extra things that affect student performance that are outside of our control. How do we uphold the standards of our class while still recognizing that there are so many other issues going into student performance?

Right. I mean, I think I just told you that I’m still grappling with this, Tim. Okay, I’m just kidding. So I’ll tell you, this is what I’ve come to terms with, because I swear this comes up every semester and I’m like, why am I still milling about this? I should be, here are some steps that I can take. So first I take a deep breath, and I do realize that I’m not solving the problems of the world even though I keep trying to little by little. But like you said, it’s the circle of control. It’s out of my control. I am doing the best I can with what I have and the systems that are in place. And so I consistently try to focus on making my grading practices as equitable as possible and really also accessible as possible so focusing on essential concepts, trying to round out my teaching using the standards. But at the end of the day, I really want my students to have a unique and meaningful experience making art. That’s my goal, and that’s the best I can do with that.

And just do what you can in your little corner of the world.

Right. And so part of that is also taking a moment to recognize and remind myself that grades and our grading system is inequitable. It’s inaccurate. And honestly, it’s really arbitrary from teacher to teacher, school to school.

I feel like you used to write about this all the time.

I did. I did, yeah. So it’s okay for me. I give myself grace or permission. It’s okay for me to give a kid the benefit of the doubt. If I have contacted home, if I’ve worked with my school staff and done everything in my power to help this kid succeed, that is in my realms. Your boundaries might be different than my boundaries. Maybe you’re not as much of a sucker for the kids as I am. That’s fine. That’s why teaching is such a human experience. We’re dealing with these conversations. This is not just us dealing with it. Every teacher out there at some point, or if you’re me, it’s all the time.

Yeah, I do all of the points.

All of the time. But that’s what makes the system so imperfect, and that’s what we just need to recognize. So I also just really focus on connections. So I feel like if I can make connections with my students, then they typically want to be there and they want to learn. They want to try to learn. And that will provide them those opportunities to actually not fail my class.

Yeah.

It’s like I always say, if you’re here and you’re doing something, you’re going to do well also because of how I teach and how I grade or how I assess, whatever. But lastly, just also be okay with recognizing that you’re human, so you can’t do the work for the kid. Ultimately, some of this are life lessons for this kid that needs to be learned here. They’re failing or struggling in a safety net of school with a lot of resources. And sometimes that can be a really important or powerful life-saving tool for some of these kids. In others, unfortunately, it does reinforce their own negative narratives, but it’s okay for not every kid to do the school thing. It’s okay that they don’t pass. It’s okay. They can still be amazing, successful individuals, and you’re not the keeper of that success, right?

Yeah. Well, and I don’t know. That’s something that I think about a lot, just kids kind of internalizing their failures and having that stick with them, or just same thing. Kids have bad art experiences in elementary school and then you get them in high school, and they’ve internalized this so much and they have such negative self-talk when it comes to creativity or making art or anything like that. And so I guess I worry about that. I worry about kids failing my class and then just carrying that throughout their lives. And so I’d love to know what you think about that and how do we encourage kids to be creative and to grow as artists and to do the work with all of the realities that come with that. How do we balance that encouragement on our side, but still have to deal with the realities of grading an assessment and maybe kids not passing or not doing as well if they aren’t there to do everything we need them to do.

So obviously, this is a big one for me, and this is why I really don’t want to focus on the grades in my classroom. I want them to know it’s okay to try and fail. And that’s part of art making. How many times have I tried something as what I would consider, I don’t want to say professional artists, but professional artists. How many times have I tried something and failed and I am not like, whoa, that’s an F for me. I guess that’s the end of my life. I can’t graduate and move on. But there are not very many other classrooms in the school that allow safety for them to experience failure and have a positive response without a grade impacting them in that way.

I mean, I keep saying the problem is. The purpose of grades, originally was supposed to be feedback. It’s just a data point, a measurement of your ability to master the standards. But instead, we’ve really focused on this inflation of grades, the pressure that kids have to have all A’s in order to go to a good college or even have success in life at all. And you don’t get A’s, then you’re going to be living on the streets. Okay. Or also, do you remember when we were growing up too, a C, at least in my head, maybe I internalize this. I mean, I was all like, I have to get A’s too, and I don’t know where that came from, but a C was considered average. It was like, you were proficient, you did the thing.

You’re doing fine. Let’s keep moving. You got this done. Let’s keep moving.

Exactly. And now really an A is that level. A kid expects an A if they meet a standard. And I’ll be honest, even I do that. I’m like, well, if you’ve met the standard, great. If you go above and beyond, then you get 100% on this. Way to go. So we’re in this place that we have to kind of reprogram the importance of the outcome and allow our students space to really sit in the mess in the art room.

But that’s so hard when nobody else is doing that. You know what I mean? That’s the only space for them to think and process in that way. It is, really.

Well, I think also that’s a really good point because back to the integrity of what we do, we oftentimes have kids that say like, well, I just put forth effort, so I should get an A. And you’re like, well, that’s not the purpose of art class either. You get an A, obviously, it doesn’t matter what you do. For me at least that’s not the case.

So I think it’s the deprogramming really is focusing on the importance of the value of critical thinking, the problem solving, the failing and trying again, that resilience and perseverance. Not just a failure, and that’s it. But those are the spaces where innovation and creativity really lie is in the mess. And so learning how to manage time, collaborating with others, giving and receiving feedback, really looking just at bare minimum, looking at art, thinking about how we consume it, what’s being told to them through imagery because they’re so inundated with imagery, that’s where it’s at. So coming full circle, I guess we again, have this unique opportunity to support our students through these incredible life skills. And so to me, again, in our grading practices or in our, I don’t know, assessment… The way that I want to make sure that I’m coming across my students is that I’m holding them to these high standards. My expectations are that they’re trying these things, that it’s okay to not have the perfect outcome. We’re still aiming for that perfect outcome, but it’s all these other things that will build to get you there.

I was going to say, there’s so many things to learn along the way to that, and that’s the message that we need to keep communicating, I think.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So I don’t know. I always like to wrap up with advice at the end of the podcast, but there’s nothing here because we’re kind of sitting and reflecting. I guess I would encourage people to sit with these thoughts and process these thoughts and think about what they’re communicating to their students through their grades, through their assessment, their feedback, through all of their communications with them, and what you’re trying to do with all of that, what you are doing with all of that. But Janet, just any closing thoughts that you want to share? I mean, like I said, I don’t think there’s a clean way to wrap all this up, but just some final thoughts that you’re considering.

Well, I would love to hear from our audience and what they think about this too, because I’m so curious and interested in their experiences too. But I mean, truly when you come down to it, like you said, there’s just really no right or wrong answer to this. And that’s the thing that I think we’re fitting in these boxes of this is how you’re supposed to teach. This is the standardized test that we’re doing. This is how you’re grading, because we’re kind of lumped as a school, but we’re not. Teaching, like I said, it’s such a human thing. And it’s really easy for us to get frustrated about a student’s maybe negative behavior or performance or any of that kind of thing, and then be like, well, they didn’t try and then penalize them and these grades.

And so I guess when it comes down to it, like I said, it’s just really important to keep thinking about your own practices and your own biases and keep leading with high standards, but also compassion and empathy. That everyone’s situation, my situation is not the same as rural Utah. I don’t know. You know what I mean? Or elementary to middle school, it’s just everybody’s situation is so different and unique. And I guess I’d always err on against the one size fits all approach because I just don’t feel like that is solving anybody’s problems, right? It’s like you just have to do the best you can with what you have to serve your population. And in the meantime, hopefully some of the things that we’re doing and addressing or working through as an art ed community can have further reach out to have these conversations and to try to affect change in a more global aspect.

No, I think that’s, I don’t know, a really good way to look at things, a really good call to action to keep talking about these things, to keep sharing these things. And who knows what ideas are going to resonate with people. Like you said, everyone knows their situation best and they have to teach, they have to grade for their own individual situation. But the more we talk about what is being done, what has been successful, I think the more those ideas can get shared and the more people can find things that work for them and work for their students. All right, well Janet, thank you for coming on and processing all of this with me, discussing all of these things with me. I really appreciate your perspective. I really appreciate how deeply you think about these things. And like I said, hopefully some of this discussion can be helpful for everyone who’s listening. So thank you.

Thanks, Tim. Hey, one quick question for you. Maybe when I’m done with my capstone and I get all this research done, I can come back and tell you what happened.

I would love that actually.

All right, sounds good.

Okay. Thanks, Janet.

Thanks, Tim.

Thank you to Janet for coming on, for sharing her thoughts, for being vulnerable and just talking about some of the things that we don’t really have the answer to. So as we wrap up this episode, I just hope that our reflections and our conversation today gave you some space as you’re listening to this, to consider your own practices and your own experiences with grading and assessment. As so often, we’re expected to have clear-cut policies and perfect systems, and that obviously is not always the case, and it’s okay to be figuring it out. It’s okay to still be grappling, our word of the day. But the real work is in what we do in the day to day. It’s in the questions that we keep asking.

So keep reflecting, keep thinking, keep improving, and as Janet talked about repeatedly today, keep advocating for yourself. So I love Janet’s dedication and her commitment to her students and hearing her talk through these ideas and share her stories and share her own reflections and offering that perspective can remind us that we can still lead with expectations, but we can also make space for our students to be human. We know that motivation and attendance and engagement all look different than they did before, and we know that we need to keep adapting and changing, but I think it’s a good reminder that there are always ways to keep adjusting, keep advocating, and keep growing.

Art Ed Radio is produced by The Art of Education with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you as always for listening. We would love for you to share this episode if you think it may help someone. We also appreciate all of the ratings and reviews that people leave for us. So if you have a few seconds to give us a five-star rating or even leave review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, we would love to see it. Thank you again for listening. We’ll talk to you next week.