C4T #1

In my assigned teacher's post, Pernille Ripp, How About a Little Change?, she wrote about change in the classroom. She is a fan of big changes in the classroom, but she realizes that big changes are sometimes hard for students and even the teachers. For that reason, Pernille gives several ideas on how you can still bring change into the classroom, but in smaller intervals and situations. For example (One of the things I found most appealing), she made the statement that instead of getting rid of grades all together, that you can let your students help with rubrics and defend their grades. I also found that appealing since we do this in EDM 310! All in all, Pernille Ripp gave many great ideas on how to bring about change in the classroom, if you cannot do big change. I plan on using some of these ideas when I finally become a teacher!

In Pernille's newest post, My Five Year Old Schools Me On Grades, she writes about the effects of report card grades on students and parents. Pernille is a 5th grade teacher, but also a mom to a five year old. She was distraught to know that her daughter's grades were not up to the class standards. She felt as if she had failed as a mom, and could have done something differently. She only focused on the negative, instead of the postive, which is what most parents do in this situation. Her teacher side then kicked in, and she remembered how much she hated grades. She remembered that her child will be fine and will learn what she needs to learn in her own time, and the grades did not matter as much to her. She asks, "Why do we give grades so much power?" Why do we? I totally agree with her. Grades are letters, they do not define your self-worth, even though people let them all the time. Everyone is different, and not everyone learns as fast as others.