I don't dread grading for the reasons that most of you do. I don't have papers to read or exams to mark. My class sizes are small. I don' t have a lot of grades to enter, anyhow.

It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Before you get too jealous, read on.

At the beginning of each term, I pass out the syllabi. It includes a list of required events (kazoo studio class, off-campus concert attendance), assignments, and criteria for grading. The criteria include statements like this: "To earn a C, the student will attend all required events, class meetings, etc..." I have examples listed for each possible grade.

Then, at the end of the term, I email these statements to my class and ask them to participate in the grading. I don't promise that the grade they receive will be the grade they give themselves, but it keeps us commicating and makes them do some reflecting.

Still sounds great, right? Yet I struggle mightily with grading.

Here's the catch: I see each of these students once a week for 1-2 hours of private or small-group instruction. Some of them will have 1-2 classes with me every term for four years. We work hard in class, but there are always a few moments for informal conversation. We chat as they enter the studio, sit down, and assemble their kazoos. I give them rides to the off-campus required events. They cluster around me at concert intermissions. (And that, dear readers, is pretty darned cute.) Such moments provide great opportunities for conversation. They tell me about their non-kazoo lives, without my asking. They ask for advice about how to deal with boyfriends, parents, and other profs. (Yes, I tread very carefully, especially with the third topic, and I do try to maintain some distance.) Over the course of a few terms, I really get to know a lot of my students as people. This is the nature of private lessons, and it's one reason is why I love teaching privately. Most of my colleagues who teach privately have similar experiences with their own students. This is part of our job.

Disclosure: I have tweaked some of the stories below so that the students would never recognize themselves.

I've heard some amazing stories. Students have cried, laughed, gotten angry, and shown great excitement and happiness. (There's something about making music that brings emotions to the surface. But that's a post for another day.) Student A experienced a horrible tragedy right before classes started. She has no support at home, so she packed up everything and left home, telling almost no one about her "previous life." She tells me that kazoo class keeps her sane during some very stressful times. Student B is horribly insecure, trying to meet parental expectations, and has a hard time making decisions. Student C keeps up a hard shell, scowls through lessons, and does that one-eyebrow-raised-I-don't-really-believe-you look.

And I am supposed to grade them?

This is hard, because it's nearly impossible to separate the person from their grade. And it's hard not to compare them with each other, although I try very hard to see each one as an individual learner. Student C, the scowler, did all of the assignments, but with no curiosity, no enthusiasm, and really, no improvement. On paper, he earned an A for attendance, required practice time, and his jury. He sullenly played almost all the right notes at the recital and in each lesson. But you'd never leave one of his performances touched by his generous music-making. My stressed-out student didn't get enough practice time this term due to some other complications, but she grew tremendously as a performer. Her final performance wasn't polished, but it was the hardest thing she'd ever tackled, and she showed a lot of growth.

But how can one put a grade on growth? Not all semesters are "successes." Another student feels he didn't earn a high grade because he didn't really improve this term. I agree that he didn't improve in easily measurable ways, because he's hit one of those technical "plateaus" that all musicians reach at some point, in which progress and improvement simply "stall." If he keeps practicing and keeps performing, he'll work his way out of it and be a better musician for it. But he put in the time in the practice room, worked his little heart out, and showed some excitement and curiosity that will pay off soon. I'm having a hard time convincing him of this, but his grade will be higher this term than he feels it should be. (I didn't realize he was so discouraged until I got his self-assessment, so we'll bring it up at a lesson next term. This is another good reason for me to have students self-assess on a regular basis. They DO tell me things in writing that they don't always say out loud.)

I will (reluctantly) give one of my students a higher grade than I truly think they earned, for the reason that if they contested it, I'd have nothing but a "gut feeling" about attitude and a lack of desire-to-improve to back me up. (And yes, I document every student's weekly lesson.) And I'll have to give another student a slightly lower grade because of the limited time they were able to put into practicing. But I can't give grades based on a student's musicality, openness to instruction, or passion.

Sometimes I wish for a spreadsheet with grades and percentages. Then I could say for sure that student A played 64% of the notes correctly at lesson #3, for example, but completed 90% of her required practice time for the week, averaging out to a 77% for the week. But performance isn't about percentages, or, really, even about right notes. It's about something else that can't quite be defined. That's what makes it special. And that's what makes it so hard to grade.

Labels: teaching