A few weeks back, I left a bunch of folks more than a little riled when I posted this message in the Twitters:
Go read through the replies. It was a wild conversation to say the least.
The responses that leave me the most frustrated are the ones that argue that giving zeros or refusing to accept late work are essential for teaching responsibility because “there are deadlines in the real world.”
Here’s an example:
That’s a common refrain that you hear from proponents of traditional grading practices, right?
But here’s the hitch: There are flexible deadlines in EVERY SINGLE ONE of these “real world” circumstances.
- The IRS allows anyone to automatically apply for an extension.
- Workers — in schools AND in “the real world” — ask for extensions (and miss deadlines) all the time.
- Credit card companies and other businesses that send us bills give 15-30 days after a deadline before they consider a payment late.
Need proof?
Here’s my credit card bill. I received it on May 13th. It wasn’t due until June 7th.
And note that if I miss my three week deadline, I MIGHT have to pay a late fee.
Let’s look at my power bill:
Again, this bill arrived in early May. I had three weeks to get the bill paid.
And take a look again at the consequences for late payment to my power company: There are none.
Interesting, right?
In fact, if we wanted to have deadlines that reflected “the real world” in our schools, those deadlines would:
- Give students opportunities to ask for extensions without penalty.
- Give students several weeks to complete tasks.
- Acknowledge that sometimes folks need a little more time to get everything done.
But what bugs me the most are statements like, “Let’s teach kids in a safe space how to handle deadlines.”
The fact of the matter is that refusing to accept or giving point penalties for late work are an ineffective strategy for “teaching students how to handle deadlines.”
Need proof?
Open the gradebook of the colleague with the most rigid late work policies in your school.
If giving zeros or point penalties for late work is an effective strategy for “teaching students how to handle deadlines,” that colleague — the one who refuses to accept work after the deadline or who takes ten points off for every day that work is late — shouldn’t have ANY students earning zeros or turning in work late after the first few weeks of school, right?
After all, if giving zeros or having late penalties was an effective strategy, as soon as a student earned a zero or took a point penalty for late work, they would never do it again. They would have “learned their lesson.”
But that never happens, does it?
Sure, students who have already mastered work behaviors will respond to zeros or late work penalties.
But the kids who struggle the most with work behaviors continue to turn work in late no matter how many zeros they are given.
That’s because they are struggling with organization or planning or managing their workload or prioritizing — executive functioning skills that students are still developing through middle and high school.
Now don’t get me wrong: We SHOULD be “teaching responsibility.”
In fact, I would argue that the MOST important skills that we teach in middle/high school are things like organization, planning, managing workload and prioritizing. Those ARE real world skills and student DO need to master them in order to have a successful life. We SHOULD be teaching them to our students systematically — and providing intervention to students who struggle with them.
But don’t fool yourself: Giving zeros or point penalties isn’t an effective strategy for teaching responsibility.
Those practices demoralize students, disincentivize effort past the deadline, send the message that our work wasn’t all that important to begin with, and result in grades that are not an accurate reflection of a student’s real levels of mastery.
There’s nothing responsible about that.
