Making the Grade

I promised myself that I would get back into the habit of adding something new to my blog every day. I didn't promise myself what I would write in terms of either quantity or quality.

It's the end of the first quarter, and I have to turn in my grades tomorrow. I teach only part-time. Piece of cake, right?

Not for someone like me, who is challenged in terms of both organizational skills and mathematical prowess. Organization and number are what it's all about at report card time.

So I'm up late trying to decipher a quarter's worth of work, transforming each student's efforts into a single letter.

I do not like grading. I wish there was a better way.

In my fantasy world, I would return to a Socratic method of education. I am touching on that with my homeschooled high schooler. But it will never work in a classroom setting.

So I do my best to calculate the grades, knowing that a few points here or there make a world of difference to the student, and his or her parents.

There must be a better way!