I feel I have had a stake in each side of this debate at various times in my career. In one situation my team partner and I had a class made up of students who failed the previous grade. Often the cause was their poor attendance and the number of incomplete assignments. We told them that zero was not an option and that we would bug them until we got the assignments. True to our word, we bugged them and over the course of the year we got a lot more work than if the conversation had been, "I'll take a zero." "Suit yourself." Chasing the kids for assignments was exhausting and frustrating. I remember being in my classroom after school the Friday before Spring Break started, looking at my watch, helping students finish assignments and wondering if I would make my flight out to the coast for a cycling trip.
My teaching partner and I were in an unusual situation with that particular class. The other teachers at our grade level had agreed to accept slightly larger classes so that we could work with these kids who were at risk of dropping out. We had the class for all the core subjects; they were only out of our room for options. It was one of the most rewarding years of my teaching career and I was fortunate enough to catch up with a handful of those students when I moved to a high school across the field four years later. They were hanging in. Good news.
Let me emphasize that we had only 40 students for whom we were primarily responsible. Numbers in most of the high school classes I taught ranged from 28 to 36, and I taught 3 classes each semester. I was fortunate because some of my colleagues taught 4. If, while dealing with a regular high school work load, I had I tried to bug every student who didn't hand in an assignment until it came in, I would have been frustrated that the kids who regularly completed their work were getting the leftovers of my time and attention.
Later on in my career I came into a setting where the policy of the department was to be firm on deadlines, down to the minute. I remember one student coming to the workroom door and handing a paper to another teacher because her teacher wasn't in the room. When the teacher who had given the assignment returned she was angry: she had specified that the student was to hand in the paper after school and this was noon hour. She declined to grade the paper and the student received a zero. She reasoned she was teaching the student the importance of following instructions, punctuality and responsibility. She was doing what was best for the students.
I had difficulty in that department. I couldn't bring myself to be as firm about deadlines as my department head wanted. I negotiated with kids when the deadline came and they hadn't handed in their assignments. I closed my door as much as I could and tried to keep my head down. It didn't work. In one situation a colleague came into my room when I was allowing a student who was terrified of public speaking to make up an assignment for me rather than having her present to the class. If a student didn't present to the class they were to receive a zero. The colleague told my department head and, I was in trouble - again. I was on the receiving end of an angry outburst that ended when I said, "So what would you like me to do? It's not the student's fault." I was doing exactly the same thing my department head was doing: what I considered best for the students.
In the light of Lynden Dorval's situation I'm lucky it was my department head and I who disagreed. I was deliberately going against the department's policy. She was my immediate 'supervisor.' I was doing what I felt was right.
I wish I had an answer to the 'to zero or not to zero' question but in 30 years of teaching I never found one. Some kids will play you. Some will get in over their heads and desperately want you to throw them a life preserver and you hope that if you do they will be grateful and learn the lesson. Some kids will come through if you trust them and show them that their work is important, and some kids will get discouraged and cease to try. Of course, all teachers want students to learn lessons that will help them become productive and thoughtful members of society. In addition, my wish for my students was always that they move in the world with compassion.
So when I read of Lynden Dorval's case I am torn. I put plenty of zeros in my mark book during my career. Did those zeros reflect a student's true capability? No. Sometimes the student would turn in very high quality work, once in a while. Should that student, because she can do high quality work receive a high grade based on 2 assignments out of the 30 the rest of the class has completed? Do you reflect the lack of a body of evidence by giving an incomplete in the course, that is, by withholding credit? What percentage of assignments is a student allowed to miss and still receive a grade?
And what about timing? Is it reasonable to expect a teacher to grade assignments at the end of June that were given in January? How much does a student learn by doing a whole lot of work as the course comes to a close? Reporting periods end; school years end and how do students and teachers fit themselves into this framework?
Part of the joy and the terror of teaching is to constantly answer the question, 'What is best for this student.' I admire those in classrooms who daily face this question and live with the ambiguity it engenders and I am sad when power struggles endanger the delicate balance that allows teachers to answer that question in good conscience and with compassion.
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The complexity of this process is always a challenge. Are we social moderators of behavior or are we evaluators of knowledge. We are both and so I go back and forth again and again (forgive the redundancy its a symptom of the issue)
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