Examining Our Personal Classroom Ideologies

The September, 2020 issue of Educational Leadership (ASCD) contained a very thought-provoking interview of Columbia University’s Cornelius Minor by Sarah McKibben regarding grading policies.  The part that stuck out to me the most was the last section, which re-stated the goal (more equitable grading) and posed a question (where can teachers start?)  Minor’s answer focused on three key ideologies that we have all brought into our classroom’s at one point or another.  These ideologies follow, with some quick thoughts from yours truly.

The Ideology of Should Know

According to Minor, this is the ideology in which we hold beliefs about what students “should know” when they enter a particular grade level.  For example, when I was teaching 10th grade U.S. History, I often made assumptions about what pre-Reconstruction history students “should know” from their 8th grade year.  Minor reminds us that we shouldn’t rely on what students “should know” so much as working to meet them where they are.

I agree.  I can’t remember in what professional development seminar I was sitting, but I recall someone making the comment that every school always wants to blame the previous school for what students “should know” but don’t (or don’t remember).  “If that’s how we talk in our school culture” I remember her saying, “we could just keep that going all the way back to the cradle, couldn’t we?”  And while some people might want to do just that, her point was that we shouldn’t do that.  We demonstrate professional efficacy and we meet kids where they are.  Perhaps we should replace the ideology of “should know” with the ideology of “should do to help the student know,” which includes comprehensive, meaningful assessment of prior knowledge.

The Ideology of Transactional Gratitude

This ideology struck me as a “playing school”-related ideology.  In other words, many of us that went into education as a profession were good at “playing school” when we were younger.  We were (mostly!) rule-followers, got along with our teachers, and demonstrated a healthy respect for school as an institution.  Thus, as we took our place within the system, we perpetuated the norms and mores of that system and now expect others to exhibit the same behavior and attitudes that we do.

Where the transactional part comes in is that we then develop what Minor called a “silent pact” with students, to wit: “I will agree to teach you well if you demonstrate to me that you are thankful for it.  And if you do not demonstrate to me that you are thankful for it, I will withhold quality teaching from you.”  This is such an easy - and pernicious - trap to fall into.  Perhaps if we were to replace our ingrained expectation of transactional gratitude with the educator-driven ideology of, say, transformational service, this could be avoided.  Our new mantra could be: “I must do everything in my power to help this student, even (especially?) when they are not thankful.”  We can all be less transactional and more transformational in our interactions with students.

The Ideology of Deservedness

Going along with transactional gratitude, this ideology requires students to show that they deserve quality teaching before they receive it.  Minor describes the practical outcome of this ideology in familiar terms: The student who is tardy to class or other discipline problem finds themselves graded lower, not based on class performance and mastery of content standards, but due to behavior.

Like a Johari window situation where our behavior might not even be known to us, or willfully hidden, we can combat this ideology by first winning the battle within ourselves.  We can separate behavior from grades in our minds and in our grade books.  We can keep tardies to class in a separate bucket from student performance on assignments, quizzes, and tests.  We can develop rubrics that help us assess all students fairly, eliminating as much subjective criteria as possible.

Student Centeredness - the Only Ideology We Need

The good news is that when we live in the spirit of student centeredness, it’s the only ideology we really need.  Being student centered doesn’t mean letting students do whatever they want, ignoring best practices for classroom management, but it does mean involving students in the building of classroom and school culture.

Starting with student centeredness is an attitude that guides our daily approach.  Starting with student centeredness leads us to John Dewey instead of Edward Thorndike.  Starting with student centeredness gives us our best chance to develop and implement more equitable, and actively anti-racist, grading practices.  Student centeredness is the ideology that rejects ideology in favor of just doing the right thing for kids.

Cornelius Minor is the author of We Got This.  Equity, Access, and the Quest to be Who Our Students Need Us to Be.