2018-03-12
Proficiency Based Learning V - A
Reflection
There is so much talk and chatter and protest about
Proficiency Based Learning, that I thought it important to write a more
light hearted and reflective post this week.
Having been an English
teacher for 40 years, it might be expected that I would teach
composition. And I did. And like any other teacher, the first
part of every year was taken up with reviewing and setting
expectations.
The conversation often went like this.
“You
may fail the class, but you will never fail a composition or writing
exercise.”
“Why is that, Mr. Fuller?”
“Because there is no
“F” on compositions.”
“How can that be?”
“Because there
are only four grades.”
“And… what are those?”
“Only four
grades - “A,” and “B” and “C” and “R.”
“R?” What’s “R?”
“R” is easy. R- is
“Re-do.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means that if you
don’t do an acceptable job on the piece of writing the first time, you
just do it again. And again, and again, and again - until it’s
done.”
“Wow! Mr. Fuller, that’s cool.”
“Not so fast.
You don’t know that. If you can’t do it right the first time,
you just re-do, and re-do, and re-do - for a very long time. A long
time. And the new essays just keep being developed. You could
be writing essays all year - but you will be anyway.”
And so it
was. And so it worked.
Students learned that doing an
unacceptable job only got them an additional assignment to do the job
correctly the first time. Yes, there were students who thought that
this was a gift - but they soon learned that this was a responsibility.
And yes, students did fail the class - but it was not
because they were denied the chance to meet the proficiency on
writing.