Grades, grades, grades!  In school, we are obsessed by grades.  In my day, we got graded on everything:  homework done, check; reading at grade level, check; shoes tied, check; (and the most offensive…) showered after P.E., check.  The endless system of checks awarded and withheld is as ancient as school itself.  When I was in school, the checks counted as part of my overall grade for the class.  If I didn’t shower after P.E., it didn’t matter how well I had played basketball, I would not get a good grade for the day.  If I stood on the sidelines and let the ball bounce right off of me, but took a shower, I got a good grade. 

Times have changed, but the check system has not.  We still use a system of checks awarded and withheld in order to let children know how well they are meeting standards, most especially in regards to behavior.  The good news is that the checks don’t influence the grade a student gets in class anymore.  We use checks to determine disciplinary consequences, but not to lower someone’s grade.  The question poses itself: why have we made that change?

About twenty years ago, educational research started to take off.  Researchers began asking why we did the things we did, and when there wasn’t a compelling reason, change was suggested.  One of the hot topics in educational research has been assessment and grading.  The questions posed were many, among them: why do we assess what we do the way we do?  How do we determine what to assess and how best to assess it?  How do we grade what we assess?  How do we make sure that grade is a valid representation of what a student has learned?  These questions have challenged our essential notions about what a grade really represents.

Through research, we have determined that for grades to be valid, they must reflect what a student has learned.  It must not be impacted by things such as timeliness of assignment submission or student behavior.  In fact, any part of a grade that is subjective rather than objective should be eliminated in order to best reflect student learning.  In this way, when we look at a grade, we can accurately know what a student has learned and take action to improve that learning. 

This brings us to the question of grading homework.  Homework is generally designed to give students an opportunity to practice new skills.  If a student is “practicing,” it stands to reason that he or she has not yet learned the skill.  Counting homework in the grade is thus unfair, since we can’t expect practice to demonstrate the end result of learning.  Certainly, using a grade to make sure homework gets done is an improper use of a student’s grade, as well, since it gives us no information about what the student knows.  When the practice is over, the student is assessed, either by test, quiz, paper, or project.  That assessment lets us know what the student has learned.  When we calculate a grade now, we use only the evidence from assessments; we do not include the steps students take to practice.  This allows them the opportunity to make mistakes, correct them, and grow in understanding prior to being graded.

In the lower grades, we don’t even use grades anymore.  We focus on how well a student is mastering the skills being learned.  To do this, we use descriptors like “mastered,” which is the highest level and “non-emergent,” which means we don’t see evidence of this skill yet.  This system provides valuable information to parents about how well their children are progressing.  More and more schools are moving toward this type of report card, and next year, all reports of student learning in grades Pre-K through 4 will follow this format.  We will keep the traditional A-F scale in grades 5-8 for ease in transitioning to high school, but the A-F scale now truly represents what a student has proven she or he has learned. 

Grades, grades, grades!  Don’t we want our children to be so much more than a grade?  I do.

I remember being in church with my grandmother when I was a small child.  It was an old church, probably built in the 1920’s to serve a Portuguese immigrant community.  By the 1970’s, the school attached to the church community had closed, and it was simply St. Joseph’s Church.  I recall sitting in the pew with my grandmother and playing with the hot-water heating pipes that ran the length of the building.  After a certain age, I knew all of the prayers and the creed and could participate with everyone else.  I had not been through CCD, though, had not had my first communion, and was never confirmed.  In fact, I didn’t officially become Catholic until I was 29… but that’s beside the point.

Though I knew the prayers and could participate, I never really felt like the act of prayer worked for me.  The only way I knew to pray was to get on my knees, clasp my hands, and ask God for favors.  “Please give me bionics so I can run fast.”  “Please make me an adult so I don’t have to put up with the kid who teases me.”  And so on.  A very child-like prayer system, to be sure, but it’s all I knew.

One day as an adult, my friend asked me if I wanted to go to church with him.  I initially said no, as I had not been to church in many years.  Somehow he convinced me, though, and I went to the Life Teen mass at Annunciation in Longwood.  I was blown away!  I had never experienced worship and prayer like that before.  The music was loud and contemporary, people’s hands were in the air, teens were doing sign language in front of the congregation, and there was clapping and the thunder of “Amen” in the air.  I was enthralled.  Fr. Joe did the homily that day, and when it was over, I had tears in my eyes.  Within a year, I had completed RCIA (the process adults go through to become Catholic) and was confirmed. 

As a new Catholic, I developed a rather deep prayer life.  I started praying the rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours (the prayer used by priests and religious around the world).  I still loved the loud Life Teen mass, but I settled into some quiet and reflective prayer for a while.  That didn’t last long… I like my high energy praise and worship!  I also liked how well teens took to the more “modern” version of mass.  They were truly involved and were coming to mass on their own!  When I moved to Daytona, I found Our Lady of Lourdes and the Ruah mass.  I was instantly hooked and have been a parishioner here ever since.

When I became principal of Lourdes Academy, one of my jobs was to lead prayer every day, sometimes twice a day.  Each day, I go to the Liturgy of the Hours (online on my iPhone, now!) and pull up the reading of the day.  We then follow the format of the Hours as we pray as a community.  I also do a talk right after the reading where I try to apply the Word of God to the children’s lives.  Sometimes, we get a little carried away and the “Amens!” get a little loud.  But I can’t think of another sound I like more than the sound of children worshipping and praising our Lord.  Some children will gravitate toward quiet and reflective prayer, while some will take to a high energy approach.  My job is to balance the two.

Psalm 97:6 and says "Make a joyful noise before the Lord our King."  While the definition of joyful noise can be debated, the idea of true joy in the Lord cannot.  Peace!

I don’t consider myself to be creative at all.  I can’t draw a stick figure that doesn’t look like it’s been mangled in a car wreck, I can’t compose music, and I tend to decorate my house in a very neutral way.  Once, I was selected for the gifted art program, but by the end of fourth grade, it was evident that my selection had been a mistake.  Yet, people in my life have told me that I actually am creative.  To see that creativity in myself, I have to move beyond the bounds of the typical “artistic” definition of the word, and look toward thinking styles.

I think around things.  In other words, when I am presented with an idea, I try to think of all of the roadblocks between the idea and its implementation: Who will this affect?  How will those involved respond?  Does this bring good value to what we do?  Who’s going to do the leg work?  How much is this going to cost?  How much time will this take?  I attack a problem from all sides, and I do this immediately.  Once I am satisfied that I have good answers to my questions, I begin to think of how best to make the idea happen.  This is where the creativity seems to come into play.  I toss ideas around with colleagues, I make notes and diagrams, and I continue to ask hard questions about how things might go wrong, in an effort to avoid problems.

As I grow older and realize how much more I have to learn in my life, I think about our children and how best to teach them to attack the problems they will encounter in life.  Sometimes, I don’t have to do much.  The other day, I was working with the Constitutional Convention representatives in MicroSociety, and I observed two fifth graders develop a plan to get feedback on a name for the society.  I didn’t have to coach them at all; they simply came up with a solid plan and then implemented it.  I was duly impressed!  It’s amazing what kids can do when their imaginations are engaged.

At other times, I know that my intervention is needed.  When I meet with a student who is having trouble interacting with her or his teachers or with peers in class, I have to take a step-by-step approach to helping the child solve the problem: What happened right before your less-than-perfect interaction with your peer?  How did what happened before play into how things turned out?  Is there another way that interaction could have gone?  Role-play a new version of that interaction with me… what might you say in this case?  Why do you think your peer reacted the way he or she did?  By starting with problem-identification questions and then moving into creative thinking and role-play, students can sometimes see how different actions can produce different results from those around them. 

I suppose in the end, creativity is about how you see the world.  The most creative people I know are the ones who take the time to try to view things from different perspectives.  When St. Paul was teaching the Jews about why it was okay for Gentiles to be Christians without having to obey Jewish ritual and dietary laws, he had to engage the minds of the Jews to help them understand a completely new perspective.  As educators, we have the obligation to teach our children how to see things from all sides.  This will make them better citizens and better Christians.  It will also make them creative in their own right.

One week down, thirty-five to go!  We got off to a great start at Lourdes Academy this year.  With over two hundred and sixty students, we are blessed to be at capacity in several classrooms.  Keeping a school running in this economy is no easy feat, but with your love and support we are thriving!  Thanks be to God.

Our new school lunch program is off to a good start.  There have been some bumps in the road, as we are serving almost 75% more student lunches this year over last.  I thank you for your kindness as we work out our new systems.  Providing free and reduced price lunches to our children is an amazing benefit, and your patience is allowing it to happen.

We have school pictures on Monday!  Please make sure that your child dresses in the regular school uniform rather than the P.E. uniform (grades 1-8).  We want everyone to look his or her best.

This morning, I was reading the bible and came across this line in the letter to the Ephesians:  “You are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizens like all the saints, and part of God’s household.”  As I read these words, I thought about our school community.  Most of our children were here last year, but a good number are new to us, and must feel a bit like aliens visiting a new land.  Everyone dresses the same, we are in the church for prayer every day, all of the faces are new, etc.  A change of school can be very stressful!

I like to think of our school community as a family; I spend much more time with my school family than I do with my actual family back in New England!  That being said, the new children who have joined us may not feel like family yet.  My goal is for the entire Lourdes community to reach out to our new family members in welcome.  I want everyone to feel like Lourdes is where they belong… like everyone is part of God’s household here in Daytona.

To this end, I have enlisted help in assigning parent ambassadors to our new families.  The ambassadors should have made contact by now to help our new families with questions they may have about our school.  There is a lot of information to take in when you move to a new school, and the ambassadors can help our new members sort it all out. 

I enjoyed seeing some of our new families at the Back to School Pizza Party last Saturday.  We ate well and were entertained by an amazing group of singers.  The idea was to get people together to create bonds in our community. 

Finally, stay in touch by looking frequently at our website, www.lourdesacademy.net.  There, you will find all kinds of helpful information.  If you don’t see something there, and you think it would be helpful, just let me know.

We have all felt like visitors in a foreign land, my hope is that Lourdes Academy will soon feel like home to you.  Blessings…