At what stage of the abolish grading game are you?
Last year, I was a teacher-librarian. I was in a situation where I still taught daily, but did not have my own students. I was able to focus just on helping them learn without having to worry about grading them. This was immensely liberating.  A few days ago, after conversations with like minded educators Chad Sansing and Alfonso Gonzalez I approached my administrators. I am blessed to have a very supportive administration in my current school and after I explained my reasoning, I was given permission to stop using grades. So, compared to Joe’s six years, I am a relative novice. I do, though, believe strongly that it will be for the betterment of my students.

Why do you want to or why did you abolish grading?
My first two years of teaching were miserable. If I hadn’t been rejuvenated through both my PLN on Twitter and through becoming a library media specialist, there is a good chance that I would not be in education.

A large part of that is due to the ridiculous amount of paperwork I had to do to document and justify grades, fighting with students to improve their grades (or else), and arguing with parents over how their child could have possibly achieved the grade they did. To top it all off, it never reflected what my kids really knew. I had smart but lazy kids who failed because they didn’t do the work (Which, if I can assess that they already know it, they should not have it.). I had kids who never demonstrated mastery barely passing by turning in a giant stack of work they did not try on the day grades were do. The system was a mess; beyond that, I was a mess because I was abiding by a broken system.
Also, I noticed that grades had almost completely overtaken learning as a primary motivator of students. It was much worse with my juniors than my freshman, which reflects my belief that the longer a person is in the system of school, the more he/she is affected by it. I was the students to learn because they want to learn. I cannot inspire them to do so when I am setting a grade on a pedestal as what is most important in my class.

What do you do in replace of grading?
There is a slight but important difference to me between grading and assessing. Grading is the process of documenting and symbolically representing what students know. Assessing is determining what students currently know and taking action based on that information to help them grow.
I still very much assess. I assess by giving individual feedback. I differentiate for my students. I differentiate instruction because they are not all doing the same assignment. Often, 30 kids will be doing 30 different but related things. This is time-consuming, but very worthwhile. If we differentiate our assessment, then we also need to differentiate our assessment.
My current plan (which may change in the details, but not in the vision) is to use Google Spreadsheets. Each student will have his or her own spreadsheet, which I will share with the student, the student’s guardians, the guidance counselor, and the administration. We are all a team and all need access to best help the students. In the spreadsheet, I will include a standard (For example: Students will be able to write a basic website in HTML.) and a narrative explanation that includes what the student has learned, how the student has or has not demonstrated mastery of the standard, and where the student needs to grow. I believe this will be infinitely more useful to everyone, especially the students, than a B- or a 78.

How do you establish a grade if you have no grades?
The short answer is that I don’t. My class is going to be setup as a pass/fail class. I will be teaching 6th graders for the first time and an elective class for the first time. GPA is not nearly as vital for these students as it is for high school juniors and seniors.
The long answer is slightly more involved. When you get in the habit of giving individual feedback, you are constantly having discussions and conferences with the students. This is a two-way street where you also are listening to the student and attending to the student’s needs. During the course of the year, you should have built a good rapport and a trusting relationship. Therefore, when that trust is in place, it is perfectly reasonable to have another conference with the student and discuss his/her work and what he/she deserves. In my experience, students almost universally give themselves lower grades than teachers when they are being honest and if you have invested time in building trust, there is no reason that they will no be honest.

What fears did you have about abolishing grading?
Honestly, I did not have any once I really realized that it was best for the students. I did address some common fears here, but my personality tends to be one that enjoys risk. I thrive in that environment. That does not mean that I take unnecessary risks with my students; I am more responsible than that.
What is does signify is that I would rather take a risk to do something great with my students than settle for mediocrity. There is so much mediocrity in education because we don’t take the time to reflect on what we are doing. To do things as they have always been done, without thought, is to accept mediocrity. I did that for the better part of two years and I vowed that I would never do so again when I started my third year. I have not looked back from that decision. I have failed and made mistakes, but more importantly, I have made strides with students that I did not know were possible in my first two years of education.

What challenges did you encounter with abolishing grading?
The biggest challenge for me was coming to the realization that this was even possible. I had been advocating standards-based grading, which is a very important movement in its own right, but it took a push from some great educators to make me realize that if I wanted to focus my assessment around authentic feedback, then I should just abandon grades altogether.

Are you willing to speak with others who are interested in abolishing grading?
Of course. I feel that dialogue between educators is one of the most important methods that we all can grow. You can contact me on my blog (Make sure you check out the summer guest blog series on assessment. It is relevant to this conversation.), by email, by phone (Just leave a message and I’ll call you back.), on Skype, or on Twitter.

I don’t value compliance. I never follow directions that don’t make sense. Yes, it has gotten me into hot water more than a few times, but I would much rather make a well-informed decision and accept the consequences, than just accept things the way they are because that is how they have always been.

What does this say about teachers?

Fear of change is normal. I understand that. I also understand that for true progress to occur, we cannot let our fears dictate our actions, especially when our hearts and minds reflect something different than our current practice. To not act out of fear of being unable to motivate students without grades, shows a few things.

1. We have lost our way. No one goes into teaching saying, “I’m so excited to get kids to behave.” There are two primary motivations that drive people into the teaching profession: love of children and love of content. Remember your first love and keep that in the front of your mind as you design your class for this upcoming year.
2. We have no real idea of what our students know. The current grading model, whether you give a certain point value to each assignment or a percentage to each category (i.e. Homework is 20%.), does not show any student’s current level of proficiency on any standard. It shows how many assignments they have done (If we are lucky, some teachers have correlated those assignments to standards somewhere.) and what score they received, but how can we know what they have really learned and what they can do with it?
3. There is little opportunity for authentic learning in our classrooms. It is not impossible, but it is difficult to make authentic learning happen regularly when what we are assessing and telling the students we care about is the final grade, not the learning, not the doing, not the service.
4. We need to retire. This line is going to sound much more harsh than I mean it to. The most important part of my job is inspiring children to want to learn. If I can’t do that anymore, or if I never could, then I really need to step aside because I am then hindering the children in my classes.

What does this say about students?

If students care about the work only because of the grade or some other reward, then they do not really care about the work. This is a system of reward and punish that is really not that much different that dangling a carrot in front of a horse; then, if the horse still does not walk, we have to hit it with a stick. This, to me, is dangerous. For the record, I graded this way for my first two years teaching. They were also my two most miserable years in the profession. We cannot blame students because the system is acting upon them. However, we can look at what kind of effects our grading system does have on them.

1. Most students care more about their grade than the content itself. When I was teaching junior English (16 and 17 year olds), I handed back their first mini-research paper with a lot of feedback and no grade. They were angry. They would ask. “How did I do?” I would respond by telling them what they did well and what needed work. Then, they looked like they were thinking for a moment, and said, “But what did I get? It is hard to break students of that model.
2. The longer that students have been a part of the system, the more work you as the teacher will have to do to change their outlook. Many of my juniors were consumed by GPA concerns because they needed a certain number to get into college or to get a scholarship. That problem still remains, but it we can change their focus to learning, they will probably do even better and they will get scores that reflect their levels of proficiency and what they have learned.

What are our options?

There are two viable options that I can see.

1. Stop grading. This will depend somewhat on your position. Non-core classes can often achieve this more easily. You building administrator, contract, or state may prevent you from going completely gradeless. However, I do recommend that you talk to Alfonso Gonzalez, who has some really great ideas in this area and only gives proficiency grades at the last moment he is required to, and Joe Bower, who is a great advocate of abolishing grades and will be presenting on it at the online Reform Symposium next weekend. We need to focus on giving individual, constructive feedback to all of our students. Numbers and letters are just extra distractions that get in the way.
2. Look into standards-based grading. I was going to utilize standards-based grading before I got permission to not grade. It involves grading based on how well the students understand a standard or achieve an objective. It is not grading based on assignment or compliance. I have written about it recently here, here (under Evaluation), and here. I also recommend you talk to Matt Townsley. While he doesn’t want to be the poster child for standards-based grading, he is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable proponents; his blog is also a wealth of resources.

My resolution

So after all this, what am I actually going to do? I have the luxury of having a supportive administration, so I received permission to abolish grades for my class. You can view the first draft of my syllabus if you are curious. I am teaching 6^th grade computer science, which is wonderful because they are old enough to be skilled with computers while being young enough that they are not yet jaded by the system. I am going to do a couple of things that I think will help motivate the students:

1. Each student is going to have a public blog on my WordPress MU. It uses BuddyPress, so it is also a social network where students can support each other and leave comments. I will be relying on #comments4kids to help give my students an authentic, worldwide audience for their work.
2. I will be emphasizing community a lot, even if it appears as though it is to the detriment of learning time at first. For students to really do assignments without grades, they have to trust me. We have to have a relationship where they believe that I will only do what is best for them. Furthermore, for them to help and work with each other, they have to have trusting relationships with each other. Community will be vital.
3. I will be giving the students choice in terms of what they want to learn and how to apply it to their own passions. They will be able to learn concepts and skills very deeply, and then both publish to a worldwide audience and use it to help their peers and their community.
4. Authentic projects will be the norm. Students need a base of skills, then they will use those skills to help others. The impact that they make will be more motivation than any grade.
5. I will continue to blog about the experience and see feedback and help.

This is my grading manifesto. What do you think? What would you change?