Welcome to my Blog...Here is My First Post

I am the technology specialist at Baker Demonstration School where we have a no grades policy. We do our progress reports with long narratives instead of the tradition grade assessments. Our school is progressive and my tech lab is a project based learning environment. One of the problems I’m trying to work with is the lack of accountability by our middle school students. Our seventh grade is particularly difficult this year. Keeping twenty two hormonal teenagers who have no fear of grade based repercussions, on task is proving to be almost impossible. The same thing is happening in all the specials classes such as Art and Music. We as a team have been frustrated about the waste of time and resources and lack of ability to teach our curriculum.

This issue is pretty huge and affects all the specials classes and the middle school teachers as well. I plan on trying to have a deep discussion with the seventh graders about their behavior. I can have them do some roll play with me as a student and them as teachers or try the same thing with them playing all the roles and me facilitating. I would like to get the other specials teachers and middle school teachers involved in the process. I also think it would be a good idea to include our Head of School and our Curriculum Director. It would be wonderful if all the people that are affected by this problem, including the students themselves, worked together to find a solution.

I believe that part of the problem is the size of the class, twenty two students, and their lack of respect. I feel that we don’t have enough measures put in place to help them understand the consequences of their behavior. I also feel hampered by the unspoken idea that the specials classes are not as valuable as others and therefore less attention is given to our need for guidance.

My thought for this group of students is to find out what the seventh graders are really into. What would catch their attention and keep it. I need to scaffold projects around those interests and make sure they understand that there will be consequences for inappropriate behavior. We need to have a warning system in place and maybe a reflection paper for those who do not heed the warning. Anything past the reflection piece could include being sent to the office and a letter to the parents explaining the issue. At the very least splitting the seventh grade into two groups alternating with the other specials teachers would help. We could control which students we together keeping the more disruptive ones from feeding on each other.

As I mentioned above we don’t get a lot of support in this area. The middle school teachers are often too busy to meet with me or any of my colleagues in the specials team. Administration seems to think this is not a very important issue. The specials team has difficulty being heard by those who could make change. We could instill a system that is better than just the narratives…maybe…I can’t believe I’m saying this…grades! They could go hand in hand. I just feel that not having letter grades to assess students does not mean that there are not repercussions for bad behavior.