This seems to me to be another case of a parent getting out of hand over
what was probably a very minor incident. The parent failed to mention how
many times her child might have ridiculed another student for doing poorly
on an assignment, but I forget that, ". . . my child would never do that . .
." The point is this a very useful tool for both teachers and students to
learn from each other and to assist the teacher in getting grades back
quickly so the students can make correction on weak areas.
I think it is really inappropriate to compare middle/elementary school
practices with those conducted in a university setting. I would expect a
university professor to go to great lengths discussing ethics and
confidentiality with teaching assistants since they are, in many cases,
responsible for compiling and determining overall grades in a course and
they deal with material that is much deeper and intricate than a weekly
quiz. Kids can be very mean at times. This woman's child could have been
just as easily ridiculed because his mother made him a home lunch! I don't
expect that sort of behavior from university level students. This may have
been an opportunity for the teachers to give the students a lesson in their
behavior towards classmates (regardless of the situation) but that will
probably be lost due to the hoopla over the court case and the teacher being
restricted from talking about it due to litigation.
A big part of the problem is that some parents don't face the fact that
their children could be guilty of this sort of ridicule so the teachers have
a difficult task teaching the kids about their behavior along with the
subject matter. In many cases, the parents whose children are perfect angels
are also the ones who demand that their children's progress be reported
immediately so they can make sure their child gets all 'A's' on their report
card. So the classroom teacher is caught in the middle. we will probably
never know what the teacher might have done to correct student behavior in
this case due to the problem with litigation. But, I guess the Supreme Court
saw through the issue.
By the way, I am a parent of two children who are in the same age groups and
they are taught both at school and at home about this sort of behavior. I
also have a child who is a high school senior that experienced the same type
of ridicule over the years for everything from her hair color to the the of
shoes she wore. I have taught those grade levels and I presently sit on a
school board and deal with these issues all the time. Making the school
conform to a parent's view of how things should be is not always the right
thing to do because many students do learn from grading other's quizzes and
the like for a variety of reasons.
Ken Rossi, Ed.D.
Asst. Professor of Information Systems
Hawaii Pacific University
Honolulu, Hawaii
(808) 544-1412
rossik001@hawaii.rr.com
krossi@hpu.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Friedman" <
ken.friedman@bi.no>
To: <
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 11:40 PM
Subject: Peer grading is not the point
> Friends,
>
> It seems to me that peer grading is not the point in this
> case.
>
> It seems to me that the problem here involves the
> inappropriate use of grades to ridicule a learning disabled
> student.
>
> The nature of Norwegian university law requiring
> anonymous numbered examinations at the end of a semester
> means that we do not use peer grading at the Norwegian
> School of Management. We do use teaching assistants for
> projects and assignments. Each of these teaching assistants
> signs a confidentiality agreement.
>
> If my teaching assistants are any indication, many students
> are sensitive to the ethical implications of working with
> another student's work. Even in cases where students
> do demonstrate difficulties and problems, they work carefully
> to help students learn rather than to create discomfort.
>
> It seems to me that this problem could have been solved
> by a discussion of the responsibilities inherent in grading.
>
> The article also fails to make clear who ridiculed the
> youngster. This act raises another series of issues that
> ought to have been addressed immediately at the local
> level, and it should have been addressed immediately
> by the teacher or -- if the teacher was the person who did
> it -- by the principal.
>
> The one aspect of peer grading that seems often to go
> unconsidered is the fact that when students grade or
> criticize each other, they take on a specific share of the
> responsibility that properly belongs to the teacher. In so
> doing, they become temporary deputies. The teacher is
> responsible.
>
> In deputizing students for this limited but important task,
> teachers should also discuss the ethical implications.
>
> One reason my teaching assistants work so well is that
> we are all of us deeply aware of the ethical and leadership
> implications of the teaching process. Because the teaching
> group operates with a chair, and because they have over
> five years developed a robust knowledge transfer system,
> I tend not to discuss ethics unless people bring questions
> to me. The members of the teaching group consider these
> kinds of issues among themselves -- and they have all
> signed the agreement of confidentiality. The nature of
> the questions that come my way each year demonstrates
> to me that these people are keenly aware of ethics and
> they they consider important and often subtle distinctions
> in the work they do.
>
> Since the course involves organization and leadership, and
> since all teaching assistants have themselves taken the
> course and done well, this may be a natural consequence
> of our view on ethics. Every action of one human being
> towards another human being involves ethical issues. All
> leadership involves ethics. Since a teaching assistant takes
> on a leadership function -- just as a peer grader does --
> his or her actions require an explicit awareness of ethics.
> One reason I have never had to take this up with the
> teaching assistants is that we go over these kinds of issues
> in the class they all take before being invited to work as
> teaching assistants.
>
> My view is that an explicit discussion of ethics and the
> learning context is what is needed when asking students
> to become involved in peer grading. From my knowledge
> of American classroom practice, the session that should
> be devoted to this issue rarely takes place.
>
> Thus a minor issue of potentially valuable pedagogical
> practice rises to the Supreme Court of the United States.
>
> The Court is right on legal grounds.
>
> These issues require a different kind of approach. The
> problem here is not peer grading, but irresponsible
> delegation of authority.
>
> That is covered under a different body of law, and in
> theory, it requires no Supreme Court decision to sort
> out delegation issues arising from single instances of
> abuse.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Ken Friedman
>
>
>
>
> --snip--
>
> Krisja J. Falvo, a mother of three, had filed the lawsuit
> against the Owasso, Okla., school district after her
> learning-disabled son was ridiculed as a "dummy" when
> his poor grades were read aloud to sixth-grade classmates.
> A federal district court ruled for the school district in 1998.
> However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit
> sided with Ms. Falvo in 1999.
>
> Ms. Falvo said last week that she and her supporters
> would turn from the courts to Congress, and try to persuade
> lawmakers to change the law. While most critics of peer
> grading are parents of children in elementary and secondary
> school, Ms. Falvo said that she has friends who are in college,
> "and they certainly don't want their grades posted on
> [professors'] doors" or read aloud to the class.
>
> --snip--
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
> Department of Leadership and Organization
> Norwegian School of Management
>
> Visiting Professor
> Advanced Research Institute
> School of Art and Design
> Staffordshire University