college meeting waldorfska šola maribor 7 april 2022
General Intro:
the question about marks/grades is easily asked; the answer is rather more difficult!
grading is the world's oldest bad habit ...
of course as a Waldorf School we should avoid grades as much as possible.
Our motto: Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's give to God the things that are God's.
my talk is without knowing where the discussion is in SLO, MB or in this college
The children:
Let me begin with the children: Natural learners, curious, inherently creative
for them the Teacher-Pupil relationship is very important: it is one of trust, respect and friendliness
we do not want to risk poisoning it with grading (whether fractiona, percentges, words, lo numbers)
remember red mrkings mistakes I can bysensitive children be understood as ! (= "how stupid!")
The teacher:
is not only there to pass on information
has a basically creative profession
provokes, engages
allows children to be creative (if they want)
encourages chldren to take responsibility (for their own learning process)
doesn't ony teach, also gives support when and where necessary
example how doing MCQs /gap tests can be taught by getting students to make them up themselves!
Yang-YING (the teacher begins with reciting loudly, talking a lot and gradually talks less/more softly!
(And the children will recite more loudly and say more allowing children to find their own voices!)
ensures children keep their natural born enthusiasm, creativity and not successively lose them!
Positives and Negatives of Marks:
they presuppose a class norm where we compare students
students mostly want to know where they stand/howgood they are/ to show what they can do / a mark
of recognition from the teacher / a reward / to be noticed by the teacher/ to feel taken seriously
grading is an instument that most teachers find simple to use
most teachers' marks are on the whole reliable
they could be used prognostically (but often aren't)
they never tell the whole story
they are a blunt sort of feedback and so ack accuracy
most students know they coul have got a better grade if they had ...
grades JUDGE performance but son't say much about a student's real or other abilities
they do not take into account a student's social background, home conditions, fears, social competences
generally have discriminating effect
tempt minimalist students to work stategically ("I can afford a bad grade if I can compensate ...")
tend to undermine edcational goals (students judge subject for easy good marks)
Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment:
- Students are asked when they learn well (if teacher corrects homework/if teachers is consistent/if I can
work on my own/with a partner/with music/when teacher explains/when I can help classmates etc.)
- Or students can put crosses to what pplie to them (I often can't concentrate/I like tables and lists/I like
being corrected etc.)
- Students are asked to suggest criteria for judging oral presentations, for example (once a class came up
with 49 criteria! Had to agree on 4 or 5, judging was in groups. End grade was average of all groups).
- Grades can be formal and informal; relative importance can be discussed with students.
Different methods of assessment:
- Portfolio Method (see Rupert Vierlinger, Salzburg)
- Dialogue Method (peers judge essay: what was new to me? what moved me? a word of advice! (See
'Dialogisches Lernen', Urs Ruf, Zürich).
- Dialogue Learning: Students to become Masters (not Slaves) of tasks, execises!
What the older children cannot stand hearing:
"als ich so alt wie ihr war"/"when I was your age" ...
"ihr lernt das nicht für mich"/ "you're not learning this for my sake" ...
"du hättest auch in der Pause auf die Toilette gehen können"/"you could have used the loo in the break"
"das darf ich doch von einem Achtklässler erwarten"/"surely I can expect a class-eight student to"
"in the test everything we've done will be asked"
etc.!
Education:
is about children learning to observe, to discover, to think clearly, to weigh up before judging, to find
their footing, their roles in their lives ...
Grades can be part of keeping track of progress in competences as well as knowledge ...
Communication, Cooperation are College Responsibility:
Criteria, achievement goals, assessment procedures (especially how grades are arrived at) should always be clearly and repeatedly communicated to both parents (as 'critical friends' of the school) and students.
This means all teachers (try to) agree as much as at all possible on where the school should go strategically for its educational and social goals here and now (Maribor in 2022!), and work out/ work on a general framework of minimal goals, subject teachers agreeing on details for their respective subjects.
But: Grades should never become a school's dominant culture!!
