"Why would a homeschooler not make straight A's?"

[Rhonda in TX]

I was at a co-op meeting last night and they had a speaker talking about homeschooling the high school years. She had a transcript example, and one of the grades on the transcript was a B. A mom asked why there would be a B on the transcript. "If we do not allow our children to move forward without mastering the material, how can there be a B?" Others brought up outside classes and such, but I confess that I do not understand this mentality.

 

I do let my children make corrections on things like math papers, but they don't get full credit for corrections. I generally give half credit. If my children genuinely don't understand the material, then when will back up and go over it again. But a B? Also, I do not know if it teaches our children the right message. You don't always get a second chance to improve things. Your college professors (and bosses) will want it right the first time, not the second or third time. If you don't get it right, there are consequences, and a minor consequence at this age is a bad grade.

 

Am I missing something?

[Scarlett]

I was at a co-op meeting last night and they had a speaker talking about homeschooling the high school years. She had a transcript example, and one of the grades on the transcript was a B. A mom asked why there would be a B on the transcript. "If we do not allow our children to move forward without mastering the material, how can there be a B?" Others brought up outside classes and such, but I confess that I do not understand this mentality.

 

I do let my children make corrections on things like math papers, but they don't get full credit for corrections. I generally give half credit. If my children genuinely don't understand the material, then when will back up and go over it again. But a B? Also, I do not know if it teaches our children the right message. You don't always get a second chance to improve things. Your college professors (and bosses) will want it right the first time, not the second or third time. If you don't get it right, there are consequences, and a minor consequence at this age is a bad grade.

 

Am I missing something?

 

Different philosphies on education I think. K12 is a Mastery Program. Meaning you don't move foward until you know it. Of course, there is 'knowing' it and really KNOWING it. I mean, just because I turn around and let ds9 retake a test and he gets 100% because he now knows the questions doesn't REALLY mean he knows the material. However, if I review the material and make him take the same test a week later I get a much better feel for whether or not it 'took' the second time.

[SquirrellyMama]

I also have my kids redo their work but they don't get credit for the redo. I give them the grade based on their first try through. I want them to redo the mistakes to make sure we go over what they didn't understand but I agree that in college they won't get full credit if it isn't done right the first time. I see nothing wrong with giving a child a B. I'd hate for my kids to think they were straight A students and then hit reality in college.

[Carrie12345]

I don't have high schoolers, so I've only put a little thought into future grading plans.

 

As of right now, I think I do expect my children to reach A-level understanding in the majority of cases. But A-level understanding does not necessarily always translate to A-level execution, and execution has to count for something, right?!

 

I do see a scattering of B's in my dc's futures.

[freetobeme]

just wanted to say thanks for this post. i have my first high schooler and have gone back and forth on how this should all work regarding grades and mastery and redoing of work. can't wait to hear the different points of view. and i can see that it is not necessarily realistic that a homeschooler should make straight A's. hmm. . .

[Osmosis Mom]

I think it's in the nature of the beast that unless you have outside instructors grades given at home don't really count. Thus, only teaching (and grading) to mastery is what works out in the world. This is why homeschoolers are strongly encouraged to have outside classes and do SAT II's to show their actual level of work or to support their transcripts.

[Rhonda in TX]

I feel like grades are a form of communication in a school setting. I don't have use for them.

 

It's not my philosophy, but I understand why some feel that way. :)

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I don't grade till high school. I take these things into account when I give a final grade in a completed class: effort, execution, and standardized test scores. I have given B's and even C's.

 

I could not honestly give my daughter anything more than a C in any advanced math class because she struggled so to get through each course. In a school setting she would have been truly average compared to others taking the same course. I don't look at grades as rewards or punishments but evaluations, and that is what I tell my children.

[dlcricket]

Our ds is applying for a scholarship. The director of the committee wrote us in an email, " With homeschoolers the situation is always a little more difficult. In their case we usually add a little more weight to the test scores and the essay than to GPA."

 

It sounds like they don't completely trust homeschoolers' GPAs to be accurate compared to other students. The test scores need to validate the GPA. I know a homeschool family whose daughter has a 3.8 GPA, but her ACT was not high enough for college entrance.

 

 

 

I was at a co-op meeting last night and they had a speaker talking about homeschooling the high school years. She had a transcript example, and one of the grades on the transcript was a B. A mom asked why there would be a B on the transcript. "If we do not allow our children to move forward without mastering the material, how can there be a B?" Others brought up outside classes and such, but I confess that I do not understand this mentality.

 

I do let my children make corrections on things like math papers, but they don't get full credit for corrections. I generally give half credit. If my children genuinely don't understand the material, then when will back up and go over it again. But a B? Also, I do not know if it teaches our children the right message. You don't always get a second chance to improve things. Your college professors (and bosses) will want it right the first time, not the second or third time. If you don't get it right, there are consequences, and a minor consequence at this age is a bad grade.

 

Am I missing something?

[In The Great White North]

I'd hate for my kids to think they were straight A students and then hit reality in college.

 

This happens to lots of kids who go to school also, just because the workload triples and they're in with all the other "A" students, instead of being graded on a curve with all the kids in town.

[Rhonda in TX]

I think it's in the nature of the beast that unless you have outside instructors grades given at home don't really count. Thus, only teaching (and grading) to mastery is what works out in the world. This is why homeschoolers are strongly encouraged to have outside classes and do SAT II's to show their actual level of work or to support their transcripts.

 

I pretty much only give grades for subjects that have definite right or wrong answers. Math, science, grammar. I haven't ventured into grading papers and such (which is highly subjective even among PS teachers).

 

Are you referring to what colleges think of homeschool GPAs?

[asta]

I think it depends.

 

I don't sort through every single assignment and test, add up the points, and give DS a grade at the end. My rubric is more like this:

 

*What level he was working at ("grade level" "above grade level" etc.)

*How much effort he actually put into it, how much GRIEF he gave me while doing it (this is actually a huge part)

*How well he retained the subject matter (if I ask him about a concept weeks or months later, does he know what I'm talking about? Can he tie the concept into something else in an abstract manner?)

*If a standardized test (AP, SAT subject test) in the subject is going to be expected for application to uni, will this grade and that score remotely line up? (eg: it would seem silly to give a kid an "A" for "Advanced English" if they couldn't write an essay)

 

And, finally, I look at the rest of the world. Whether I like it or not, my kid is going to be competing against a whole bunch of kids from PS and pvt school who did not necessarily have teachers as nasty as I am. Or who graded as hard as I did. And a LOT of those kids will be applying to uni with 4.0 GPAs and extra-curriculars out the ying yang simply because they didn't have to spend as much time on their academics (I'm not saying this is always the case, but my niece is in 3 AP classes, and let me tell you, her classes are NOT college level - she has lots and lots of free time).

 

I don't want my kid to have unreasonable expectations, but neither do I want him to be at a disadvantage due to grade inflation in the rest of the academia.

 

That said, he most definitely got a B in Biology. He hated it, and he let everyone know it. He did exceptional work, don't get me wrong - but he was such a phenomenal jerk about it, it was painful. No reasonable teacher would have put up with him. :leaving:

 

 

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[Scarlett]

This happens to lots of kids who go to school also, just because the workload triples and they're in with all the other "A" students, instead of being graded on a curve with all the kids in town.

 

This exact thing happened to a friend of mine from high school. It was so discouraging to him he didn't finish college. He had always been an A student. The reality of college was brutal for him.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

This is pretty much how I handle it too. If it takes me a tremendous effort to keep a child on track, because of his/her attitude, they definitely won't be getting an A. A public school, or college, teacher isn't going to invest that much time and energy in each child.

[lionfamily1999]

We do quizzes on Mondays. I have to have grades for the year, so all his grades are based on those tests. We have Bs, Cs and even the occasional D. There are subjects that I don't test (grammar for instance), for those, I check his notebooks and give him a grade based in part on effort, handwriting, attitude, and mastery.

[Rhonda in TX]

I agree that being homeschooled does not automatically mean "A" quality work across the board. It is just that I like the luxury of not having to focus on the grade. In school I only cared about grades. I don't want my kids to care only about grades.

 

My thought is that for a transcript the grade won't be all that interesting. I imagine a college would want to know what was worked on, what are the strengths, etc.

 

There was a discussion about how to apply for college without grades as well. It's definitely do-able.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I agree that being homeschooled does not automatically mean "A" quality work across the board. It is just that I like the luxury of not having to focus on the grade. In school I only cared about grades. I don't want my kids to care only about grades.

 

My thought is that for a transcript the grade won't be all that interesting. I imagine a college would want to know what was worked on, what are the strengths, etc.

 

In my experience, after sending two to college, the colleges don't want to have to wade through a lot of information. They want to know which courses were taken and whether their test scores support the grades they have recieved. Any kind of outside courses not given by homeschoolers are a gauge that they really prefer to use.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

Ah, but see you are grading attitude and effort then. That is something else altogether in my mind. I often comment on my son's effort/attitude. He sometimes asks "what's my grade". I unofficially grade him on attitude and effort.

 

I don't know that it is all that different. In a school setting, a poor attitude and little effort will definitely affect your grade, unless you are brilliant. ;)

 

So, my kid may turn out an exceptional product, but if it took more than one attempt and lots of cajoling, should I evaluate him as an "A" student? Let's face it "A" students are usually self-motivated, get their work done in a timely manner, and meet expectations. They may not necessarily turn out an truly exceptional product, but they have dotted all their i's and crossed all their t's. If a child can't learn to just knuckle down and do the work, he probably won't succeed in an institutional setting.

Edited October 28, 2009 by Virginia Dawn

[kamom]

I'm not sure what you're getting at but my dd just made a B in Math for the first quarter of school. She usually gets about 6 wrong and has to go over and correct and see why she got it wrong. Often it's careless mistakes and I know if she was more careful she could average an A.

 

So that's why my homeschooler doesn't make a strait A.

[Rhonda in TX]

I'm not sure what you're getting at but my dd just made a B in Math for the first quarter of school. She usually gets about 6 wrong and has to go over and correct and see why she got it wrong. Often it's careless mistakes and I know if she was more careful she could average an A.

 

So that's why my homeschooler doesn't make a strait A.

 

I was quoting someone else. This particular homeschooler meant that she would give the grade for the final mastery which would, in her eyes, be "A" quality work. She doesn't take into account the B level work (or lower) that it took to get her there. So, you make a B the first time you take the chapter test, so you re-do the chapter until you get an A on the test, then give an A as a grade. Or, you don't test until you're confident they will make an A, stretching out the study as long as needed.

 

(Wait. I don't think I was quoting someone else. I WAS quoting someone else. My post doesn't like up with my title anymore.)

Edited October 28, 2009 by Rhonda in TX
clarification

[Hikin' Mama]

My middle child consistently achieved a high B average (87, 88) in his math courses through 8th grade. I did make him re-do any he missed, not for a better grade, but so that he could see where he was making the mistakes. I used it as a learning tool.

 

When he decided he wanted to try the public high school for 9th, I called the high school to see if he could test out of Algebra 1 and Geometry, as he had already taken them, and was finishing up Geo in 8th grade. They let him do that, and he is now the only freshman they have ever had in Algebra 2. He currently has a 93 average in math and a 100 average in everything else. He never got all 100's in my classes. :D

 

He has always been good at math and understood it easily. I saw the high B grade as an indication that I was sufficiently challenging him.

 

My youngest, who is dyslexic, may not ever see an A. (And at this point, I don't do grades for her.) She works very hard. For some children, like her, I think trying to get them to mastery (or all A's) would burn her out. She tries very hard, but things just do not come as easily as they do to her brothers.

 

I think it is realistic that some children, maybe many children will have a fair amount of B's.

 

My two coppers, FWIW! ;)

[OhM]

K12 is a Mastery Program. Meaning you don't move foward until you know it.

 

This is true for at least K-6; I'm not sure about middle school. I do know that the high school grades more like a traditional public school.

 

This discussion is interesting because I've been fighting the "second chance" attitude for several years now. And I've wondered if I could dispassionately evaluate a high schooler! I the mom want her to succeed, but I the teacher need to be objective. This is one reason I'm glad she chose the VA when she decided to come back home this year!

[SquirrellyMama]

This happens to lots of kids who go to school also, just because the workload triples and they're in with all the other "A" students, instead of being graded on a curve with all the kids in town.

 

I agree it does happen in school all the time. I've heard of kids who were the top of their class who couldn't get through freshman year of college.

[StartingOver]

I never used grades with my olders. We did a portfolio type record, to show accomplishments to prospective colleges. Anyone can give a child straight A's.

[babysparkler]

I also have my kids redo their work but they don't get credit for the redo. I give them the grade based on their first try through. I want them to redo the mistakes to make sure we go over what they didn't understand but I agree that in college they won't get full credit if it isn't done right the first time. I see nothing wrong with giving a child a B. I'd hate for my kids to think they were straight A students and then hit reality in college.

:iagree:

[Heather in WI]

I must confess I don't understand this mentality, either. I'm a perfectionist, and my oldest son is a perfectionist. It was hard for him, at first, to deal with getting a B. And, the first time he failed a math lesson? Quelle horreur! LOL! But, I'm glad that we were able to work through it. I think it was a real character lesson for him, a lesson in following directions, and a lesson on asking questions when something wasn't clear. I certainly don't want to give him the idea that he is a 4.0 student if in reality he isn't. I think this would be a grave disservice to him when it comes to college.

 

I like this grading scale. It helped me to understand how his work should line up:

 

 

 

A = Excellent: outstanding performance with minor errors

 

 

 

B = Very good; above the average standard but with some errors

 

 

 

C = Good; generally sound work with a number of notable errors

 

 

 

D = Below average in work with significant shortcomings

 

 

 

F = Considerable further work is required

 

 

I usually count the first grade earned only, but if he fails something (which doesn't happen often, but has happened), I will let him earn 1/2 of the re-do grade.

[lionfamily1999]

That's mind boggling to me.

It happened to me :p

 

Straight As until college. Everything up to that point had been so easy. I never studied, I wrote my papers the morning they were due, I hardly ever read the chapters we worked on, and if I didn't know it, I could usually bs my way through. That changed with college. There, I had to pander to different attitudes, something I'd never had to do before, there the material was not something I'd come across in other books that I read for enjoyment, and there the work was much harder.

 

If you can sleep through high school and still pull As, then college will be an ugly surprise.

[Pip]

DH and I have had this conversation. He is adamantly opposed to giving credit for corrections. He says it is not real world and give the kids false expectations of the way things work. He says he would love it if his boss let him keep working until he got it mastered!

 

As for mastery, I honestly believe there are some things the kids just can't master. Mental maturity and experience play a part. Apprehend, yes, comprehend, no. Because of that, getting all A's is not possible. There were things I learned in school (I was an A student) that I reviewed as an adult in my twenties and I suddenly went, "Now I know what I was doing!"

 

All this aside, we haven't really worried about "grades" until this year with my oldest.

[johnandtinagilbert]

We correct, but not for points. I've already started keeping grades for high school and he won't be making straight A's. Almost, but not quite.

 

There are too many considerations, many ya'll have mentioned. It's tough to do a comparison based on a totally different approach and curricula. The grading scales are different. A child can get higher than a 4.0 now b/c many classes are weighted.

 

In the end, from what my RL friends with college students tell me, colleges heavily weigh test scores. Once school, that was offering scholarship, even made her dc take additional tests. They care, but far less, about GPA.

 

For us, that will be an added benefit to dual enrollment for high school/college at our local school. He'll have 2 years of transcripts instantly and I really won't have to provide them (although I'll keep them) b/c once he has his AA and high school diploma at the same time, it really won't matter.

 

Whoever the woman was that asked the question at the OP's meeting, is either in denial or simply inexperienced. Straight A's are not the measure of mastery.

 

Just my 2 cents

[lgm]

I was at a co-op meeting last night and they had a speaker talking about homeschooling the high school years. She had a transcript example, and one of the grades on the transcript was a B. A mom asked why there would be a B on the transcript. "If we do not allow our children to move forward without mastering the material, how can there be a B?" Others brought up outside classes and such, but I confess that I do not understand this mentality.

 

I do let my children make corrections on things like math papers, but they don't get full credit for corrections. I generally give half credit. If my children genuinely don't understand the material, then when will back up and go over it again. But a B? Also, I do not know if it teaches our children the right message. You don't always get a second chance to improve things. Your college professors (and bosses) will want it right the first time, not the second or third time. If you don't get it right, there are consequences, and a minor consequence at this age is a bad grade.

 

Am I missing something?

 

I had the experience of having to take math independently in a small rural public school in grade 7 & 8. Grades were all mastery based - no subjective contribution such as 'class participation' or 'timely homework completion' - the grade was determined by the average of the chapter test scores. The grade one could earn was dependent on the material covered...if a student did the minimum chapters over the course of the year, the top possible grade was a 'C' if 90% or above was earned. An average number of chapters had a top possible grade of 'B'. The max number of chapters had the top possible grade of 'A'. No honors designations...doing the work for the A back then was the honors path. I did not have to sit a test until I was ready..but I had to complete a certain amount of material in the quarter to earn the grade. This influenced my thinking about course content and grades and I have the philosophy that Heather in WI shared.

 

The way I look at it, the course has to cover an appropriate amount of material at a certain depth in order to earn the A. However, this conflicts with what the public high school is doing with its tracks. I'd award a C if it took two years to master Algebra I. The high school though, will rename it to Algebra IA and Algebra IB and award an A that is based more on effort in art projects and completing homework rather than proficiency - but they will still only award one credit even though it took 2 years. They will also rename the class and award one credit for students taking the class with 2 periods of daily instruction rather than the normal one. This is a red flag to the colleges and it indicates that the student is not going to be prepared to succeed if admitted.

[Quiver0f10]

My kids have gotten A's, B's and some C's. I do have them correct their work and work towards mastery but in the end they get the grade they deserve.

 

The thing about all straight A's like that is on ACT and SAT they can't redo it. The score they get is the score they get. Nothing could be worse than an all straight A report card and then not so stellar ACT/SAT scores. KWIM.

[TammyinTN]

DS has been getting grades since 2nd grade. What he earns is what he gets, be it an A or F. If he doesn't master at least 90% of the material we go over it and I will retest, but he doesn't get the new grade. I feel like I would be setting him up to fail by giving him an A even if he didn't earn it until he was retested...kwim?

[Jean in Newcastle]

I am just now starting to grade for junior high. (Grades for my elementary student would be meaningless because we do most of the work together until she really masters it.) But for jr. high, my ds is more independent. He does the reading and the assignments. For most subjects, there is a weekly test. I do grade his daily assignments as well as his tests. But for his "report card" I will only count his test scores. I don't think it is fair to grade him for while he is still learning the material. Once he's gone through the material and has a chance to study for his test, then it's fair game.

[Joy at Home]

I feel like grades are a form of communication in a school setting. I don't have use for them.

 

 

 

:lol::lol::lol: Just have to say I LOVE the avatar!

 

Blessings,

Lisa

[Kelli in TN]

In my experience, after sending two to college, the colleges don't want to have to wade through a lot of information. They want to know which courses were taken and whether their test scores support the grades they have recieved. Any kind of outside courses not given by homeschoolers are a gauge that they really prefer to use.

 

But there can be situations where all that extra info is appreciated. I turned in a letter outlining my educational philosophy with an attached scope and sequence. The college already had a transcript, but my scope and sequence went into a great deal of detail.

 

We believe that because the heads of the various depts understood what our homeschooling goals had been and because her test scores backed up what we were saying, she was accepted into a program that has not accepted very many homeschoolers in the past.

 

It did not hurt that the director of the program is a homeschool dad who uses Peace Hill Press curriculum! He knew what I meant when I said I was inspired by WTM.

[Kelli in TN]

My kids have gotten A's, B's and some C's. I do have them correct their work and work towards mastery but in the end they get the grade they deserve.

 

The thing about all straight A's like that is on ACT and SAT they can't redo it. The score they get is the score they get. Nothing could be worse than an all straight A report card and then not so stellar ACT/SAT scores. KWIM.

 

Right!:iagree:

 

The other thing is if you do dual enrollment, you hope the college grades will match what you've been giving. Fortunately for my daughter they did.

[Kelli in TN]

My daughter barely had the GPA needed to compete for the upper honors program at her school. I mean barely. She also was just over the lower limit for the ACT score, mostly because of her math score.

 

She got in to the program, beating out kids with much higher GPA's and ACT's.

 

A few weeks ago the director of the program, who happens to be a homeschool dad, asked Sarah to stay after Honors seminar for a moment and talk to him.

 

He asked her why her GPA was so low even though her dual credit classes at the community college were all A's except for B in math. He wanted to know why the grades I gave her were so low. She explained my willy-nilly grading procedures in such a way to make it sound more organized than it actually is. He told her that the majority of the faculty believe that mom-grades are meaningless and that what I had done by not grading her more generously proved this to not always be true. Then he said that he felt that my tough grading was the right way to do.

 

Then he told her that she is an asset to the program but that has nothing to do with how I graded her or this thread but I am simply boasting because I am gosh-darned proud of that girl. Just ignore me.:D

 

I don't think being a straight A student would have been to her advantage in this situation.

[johnandtinagilbert]

My daughter barely had the GPA needed to compete for the upper honors program at her school. I mean barely. She also was just over the lower limit for the ACT score, mostly because of her math score.

 

She got in to the program, beating out kids with much higher GPA's and ACT's.

 

A few weeks ago the director of the program, who happens to be a homeschool dad, asked Sarah to stay after Honors seminar for a moment and talk to him.

 

He asked her why her GPA was so low even though her dual credit classes at the community college were all A's except for B in math. He wanted to know why the grades I gave her were so low. She explained my willy-nilly grading procedures in such a way to make it sound more organized than it actually is. He told her that the majority of the faculty believe that mom-grades are meaningless and that what I had done by not grading her more generously proved this to not always be true. Then he said that he felt that my tough grading was the right way to do.

 

Then he told her that she is an asset to the program but that has nothing to do with how I graded her or this thread but I am simply boasting because I am gosh-darned proud of that girl. Just ignore me.:D

 

I don't think being a straight A student would have been to her advantage in this situation.

BE PROUD! Thank you for sharing that. You have inspired me to make sure I develop a strong willy nilly grading system. I'll be thinking on that.

[Kelli in TN]

BE PROUD! Thank you for sharing that. You have inspired me to make sure I develop a strong willy nilly grading system. I'll be thinking on that.

 

If it helps any, she is making straight A's now, with the college's much less willy-nilly grading system. We don't expect a 4.0 every year, she took a fairly easy course load for her first semester, with our blessing since she entered college with several credits already. But we believe a 4.0 her first semester, as of midterms, is a pretty good indicator of what sort of student she is shaping up to be.

[DesertDweller]

I grade homework and tests. Any answers that are wrong on the homework are marked wrong. We go over it in class, but I don't change the grade she received. If she has difficulty, she knows she can ask me a question while she's working on completing her homework, but otherwise, I expect her to do her best and she receives a grade accordingly. We do go over every answer that is wrong in class. She is expected to understand what she did wrong and make any necessary corrections, but I don't change the grade on her homework because of it.

 

As far as tests go, we study the material until I know she's ready to take the test. If extra time is needed or additional problems and studying need to be done, they're done before the test. Once she takes the test, she receives the grade that she gets the first time. If for some reason she scores so poorly that I know she really didn't understand the material then we go back over it until she does. However, normally I can already tell this before the test by the homework and review that we've already done.

 

If I know she's not understanding the material, I would slow things down and spend more time, but at some point, I would give the test and take the grade.

[Audrey]

I was at a co-op meeting last night and they had a speaker talking about homeschooling the high school years. She had a transcript example, and one of the grades on the transcript was a B. A mom asked why there would be a B on the transcript. "If we do not allow our children to move forward without mastering the material, how can there be a B?" Others brought up outside classes and such, but I confess that I do not understand this mentality.

 

I do let my children make corrections on things like math papers, but they don't get full credit for corrections. I generally give half credit. If my children genuinely don't understand the material, then when will back up and go over it again. But a B? Also, I do not know if it teaches our children the right message. You don't always get a second chance to improve things. Your college professors (and bosses) will want it right the first time, not the second or third time. If you don't get it right, there are consequences, and a minor consequence at this age is a bad grade.

 

Am I missing something?

 

 

I agree. Do-overs are just one way to learn the material that was missed the first time. The grade is still the grade. Over the course of a year, the weaker grades average out with the fabulous ones.

[TravelingChris]

I do grade my high schoolers and I think I will start grading my jr High student too since she will soon be doing high school credit work. Neither my son nor my older daughter had straight A's. They both had/have high GPAs. But that is a true indication of them. In outside classes, they were always top students. My son had high SAT/ACT scores. My daughter has done more outside classes and has received A's in all of them. A few were honor classes and she still received an A. Does she get an A in everything- no. Her geometry grade was a B. Why, well she would get A's on the test but it took her so much longer to get the course done and she knew she didn't grok geometry and we just didn't think her work was up to an A.

 

I am not grading in a vacuum. I compare them to my dh and myself, other students in their outside classes (especially now that I am teaching one of those classes) and other students I meet which is through church or soccer or something like that. My son was a good student and his GPA in college confirms that. My daughter is probably the hardest working student I have ever met and I went to a very tough college. This girl has the work gene in her- it was like my dh's and my strong work habits were not just passed on to her but added up and passed on.Currently she is taking 7 classes plus on a debate team, soccer team and two choirs and she is doing very well. Why should I punish her in her college chances by not accurately reflecting the amount and quality of work she does?

 

I have met others who only give As or Fs. The one mom I knew who did this was still very realistic. It meant she wanted work done to a certain standard. However, she made sure her children attended colleges that were suitable to their abilities and interests. That meant her hard working, quick, book learning dd when to a high level college and is now in law school (or may have graduated already). It meant that her dd who wanted to be a childcare worker went to CC. Her son who had dyslexia and was much more interested in music than in books, went to a Christian college to pursue church music production degree. In the talks woman gave to homeschoolers, she stressed that while she gave only A's, it wouldn't be a good idea to do that if test scores, CC class grades, and any other indicators didn't show commiserate ability and you would be sending it in to a selective college.

[WTMCassandra]

I think mastery is the best approach for the lower grades. I don't give grades at all in those years. My plan is to give some grades in middle school, in transition to high school. I believe that high school grades measure what a person has mastered in a given amount of time, to help transition to deadlines in college and the outside world. So, I will give grades then.

 

So I don't think it's a case of grades or mastery, full stop, but that each is appropriate at different stages in the educational journey.

 

This reminds me of the debate between parent-directed learning and delight-directed learning. Again, I don't think it's a case of one or the other, full stop, but WHEN each is appropriate. (I think delight-directed learning is most appropriate in high-school as specialties start to emerge.)

Edited October 28, 2009 by WTMCassandra

[Sara R]

Here are the other two in the series:

 

http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com/2006/10/unclear-on-concept-day-two.html

http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com/2006/10/unclear-on-concept-day-three.html (my favorite)

[gardening momma]

It happened to me :p

 

Straight As until college. Everything up to that point had been so easy. I never studied, I wrote my papers the morning they were due, I hardly ever read the chapters we worked on, and if I didn't know it, I could usually bs my way through. ... If you can sleep through high school and still pull As, then college will be an ugly surprise.

:iagree: Me too. I always had at least one study hall in high school, and 2 study halls in my senior year. I always did my homework and studying during class and in study hall. In the 6 years I attended that school (jr. high through sr. high), I took home books maybe 6 times. And out of those 6 times I think I cracked a book open once. I was used to doing all my work at school, and having after school time as free time. I continued that attitude in college, where I still wanted my free time to be free time. I had to drop some classes because I wasn't keeping up and still hadn't gotten myself turned around sufficiently.

[gardening momma]

DH and I have had this conversation. He is adamantly opposed to giving credit for corrections. He says it is not real world and give the kids false expectations of the way things work. He says he would love it if his boss let him keep working until he got it mastered!

That's a good point. Even in college there aren't redos. (rarely, anyway--I suppose some sympathetic professors might allow some)

[myfatherslily]

Do you think that sometimes homeschooling moms try to hard to make sure their children have high grades because of their own fear of failure and desire to prove that homeschooling is best? I mean, if your child flunked one class and barely scraped through as another, then the mother may perceive that as a failure on her part. OR perhaps fear that OTHERS will think she failed. There is a strong feeling among homeschoolers that teaching at home is THE BEST way to learn, that you practically CAN'T get a quality education in public school, and that homeschooled students end up smarter than public schooled students (in spite of the fact that most of the homeschooling parents went to public school themselves). Straight A's "prove" that this is true, whereas B's and C's... well, that's only average work.

 

What do you think?

 

(P.S. My DD is only in kindergarten, but I was homeschooled myself K through 12, so I've been in the homeschool clique all my life)

[inactive]

It happened to me :p

 

Straight As until college. Everything up to that point had been so easy. I never studied, I wrote my papers the morning they were due, I hardly ever read the chapters we worked on, and if I didn't know it, I could usually bs my way through. That changed with college. There, I had to pander to different attitudes, something I'd never had to do before, there the material was not something I'd come across in other books that I read for enjoyment, and there the work was much harder.

 

If you can sleep through high school and still pull As, then college will be an ugly surprise.

 

:iagree: It happened to me also...I graduated 8th in a class of over 200 students and couldn't pull a "C" in Western Civ:confused:

[gardening momma]

Do you think that sometimes homeschooling moms try to hard to make sure their children have high grades because of their own fear of failure and desire to prove that homeschooling is best? I mean, if your child flunked one class and barely scraped through as another, then the mother may perceive that as a failure on her part. OR perhaps fear that OTHERS will think she failed. There is a strong feeling among homeschoolers that teaching at home is THE BEST way to learn, that you practically CAN'T get a quality education in public school, and that homeschooled students end up smarter than public schooled students (in spite of the fact that most of the homeschooling parents went to public school themselves).

I don't know if I can effectively compare ps vs. homeschooled students, as I didn't go to ps, except for K and a few weeks of 1st grade--the remaining years were spent at 3 different Christian schools (a move several hours away accounted for one of those changes in schools).

Straight A's "prove" that this is true, whereas B's and C's... well, that's only average work.

 

What do you think?

I want my kids to have high grades (when we get to the point of grading, which might be jr. high--it's hard to know for sure at this point. Like you, my oldest is in K) because 1) I want them to do well and know the material they're studying, 2) I want people to know that homeschooling works (not sure if you could say there's a fear involved there--I'm not afraid, since I don't anticipate "failure"), 3) if my child flunks or barely scrapes by, I think that *could* be a valid reflection on my teaching, deserved or not.

 

I want my children to learn to work hard to earn their grades (unlike I, who really only needed to put a minimum amount of work into good grades) so they can do well with the demands of college. Somehow the idea of doing school work at home was alien to me, so doing college work at "home" was alien too. But since we're homeschooling, all homework is done at home anyway, so hopefully they'll grow up used to having school work cut into their free time.

[justamouse]

I agree it does happen in school all the time. I've heard of kids who were the top of their class who couldn't get through freshman year of college.

 

 

I'm not understanding this--why would the workload triple? I mean, I make my kids work. They hate me some days. If you are getting As and not even working for them, then you aren't being challenged and you NEED to be. I would say that's the fault of the school, not the student. No?

 

And I have a problem with grades too, because we go over and over it until it's GOTTEN. This isn't a job and they get an evaluation, this is me training them to go out into the world. You work hard, and you do the job until it's done.

Edited October 28, 2009 by justamouse