 So I've been thinking, I've been doing a lot of metaphorical thinking lately, you know how grad school kind of does that too. So I've been framing my thinking around two metaphors, seeds and bridges. Because I've been thinking about that idea of seeds in terms of the seeds that we plant. And I've been thinking about bridges because they represent this journey, this journey that we journeys between one thing and another and transitions and in teaching we're so often in that space. So seeds and bridges and also because I started thinking about bridges also because of this Dylan William quote from embedded formative assessment The bridge between teaching and learning. It's had me thinking a lot trying to make sense of that so I'm calling this A narrative journey of seeds planted and bridges crossed so I'd like to tell you that story of my first report cards My first year of teaching was in a grade six seven classroom in the city The experience was transformative to say the least I graduated from teachers college with honors and I had abundant confidence in my abilities I was hired partway through the school year and walked into an established classroom that taught me how little I knew The reality of my responsibility to this group of skewed students scared the hell out of me I set to work implementing all the strategies I'd learned in university as I struggled to make sense of the complexities of classroom life I reassured myself that I had all of the latest instructional theory to rely on and the students would benefit from my expertise Alice stood out right away It was obvious within the first hour that she was shunned by the other students She was quiet mosey and withdrawn Set apart by a refusal of the others to acknowledge her presence Academically, she was a below average student Her face was often hidden behind her long bangs as she toiled quietly at her desk She was never invited to participate in group projects for fear that she wouldn't contribute or she'd bring down the marks for the group I made up my mind to do what I could to increase her self-esteem and to help her obtain some status in the classroom I created group projects that allowed for a variety of representations of learning I encouraged her to submit a drawing and a poem to the student newspaper and to share her ideas with others She began to respond to this encouragement and I was hopeful I'd see an increase in her confidence I can still see myself sitting in that first classroom preparing to write my first report cards It's late at night the empty desks in the darkened classroom were arranged in neat rows silent without their inhabitants I'm bathed in a pool of light at my desk, which is covered with books and papers They're stacked up and they're falling off the edges and I've surrounded myself with all the notebooks and assignments I can find for each student. So I have my marks book full of nice neat rows of black and red numbers I have a file folder and I have notes So my attention is constantly shifting from the marks book to the notebook to the file folders to the scraps of paper As I'm desperately trying to review the evidence in front of me I start with the easy ones first the top students And my desperation calms as I fall into a comfortable pattern of calculating and averaging scores in my record book Then entering marks and comments on the official form I begin to feel confident in my ability to complete this process I have the data required to justify my grades My administrator and the parents will have no doubts about the validity of my judgment. I tell myself The students will recognize that their efforts have earned them their grades and they'll have no justification to question them As part of my teacher training at the university I was taught all about accurate scoring the science of test construction and the bell curve My mentors and fellow teachers admonished me to mark absolutely everything This way they said I can be sure of my ability to justify the letter grades. I give my students So I've created and marked exams quizzes projects and assignments all for the purpose of gathering evidence for this moment writing the report cards When I look along the row of marks I have for alice I see them neatly laid out five out of 10 12 out of 20 four out of 10 13 out of 30 No matter how many times I add and divide with my calculator. I end up with the same dismal averages 52 in math 55 in language arts 48 in social studies I have to reassure myself that the numbers in the book don't lie If I've kept faithful records and I have then she's earned these marks Even though I've spent all term encouraging her Helping her to see the things that she's learning to do I'm forced to record c minus D and f into my book The marks don't lie my colleagues would tell me to rely on my judgment. The student is below average That's all there is to it. I have to fail her Although I tell myself these things I can't help but feel sick about the whole process and my palms are sweating and my stomach's churning And I feel hot right up through the roots of my hair Reluctantly, I write the marks on the front of the report card and try to write some encouraging comments on the back But I can't get her face out of my mind that look of disbelief. I expect I'll see when she looks at her report card Or will it be a look of resignation? I sigh deeply put the books away and gather the materials to calculate grades for the next student So this may this story may have connected for you in some way And this is all just my own story But I think that there are many points of connection between all of our careers that I'm hopeful will will cause you To reflect in some interesting ways And this really in many ways I felt was a story about those tensions that we feel When we have to try and work enact those roles as a coach and as a judge You know assessment's been used as such a big umbrella term But really there's so many different facets of it So I had to learn to separate assessment and evaluation so that I could think about those supporting coaching things In a different way in a different space in a different time than these evaluation judgment things So that's really what I was thinking about as I wrote that story and what I learned about myself when I decided to write it and of course I was Had more questions and I really kept coming back to this. What is this impact? I'm having on my students. What was that impact on Alice? I can imagine it Am I hurting my students when I evaluate them? Do I have a choice about that? Can it be different? Well, it's been a long journey to try and figure out what that might be I couldn't believe it because I hadn't opened it for years I found this card in there. This was two days ago. I found this little card That first year was very stressful. My learning assistance teacher knew it was really stressful She gave me this card. I don't know if you can see on the left side It's a farsight cartoon the institute for the study of emotional stress And the guy's not flying out the window and the guy inside says hey, I feel better already So in the inside it says feel better. I'm going to try to read this. I don't know if you can you probably can't see it very well This will be hard to read just a second Page I know the students. Oh, this is going to be hard to read I know the students in your class feel better having spent this past year with you I've seen great change in them both as a class and individually. Here's what kicked me. She says Alice Who now thinks of herself as capable? And the rest but I can't read it I'll show it to you if you want to see it But that was from the learning assistance teacher and I found that three days ago I just couldn't believe it who knew how you know, Alice has been in my head for a lot of years now The other really weird thing that happened Is Alice the only person who's ever gotten in touch with me from that first year Alice facebooked me A year ago I won't be able to read this one either. So I will have to let you read it. Thank you very much You can read it if you want linda. I don't think I can do it Alice works in a daycare with a toddler group. She got married in 2004 Um, I also have one daughter who is two and working. She's working on a second child. Hopefully Hopefully not the two-year-old You were the first teacher to take the time with each child to really get to know them That meant so much to me that you are the reason I work with young children Thank you so much for coming into my life when you did