Continual Evaluation
Most of you don't notice it. You don't even know it's happening, and you're probably too busy to care. But it's part of my job to care, and despite the way I sometimes act in class, I take my job fairly seriously. I am talking about evaluation. As students, you are being constantly evaluated. Of course there are the tests you take every week, but you probably think of them in terms of getting a good grade, not in terms of what they say about you and your abilities. And recently we've been experimenting with the online essay scoring programs that the district purchased (at massive expense) to help students improve their writing. Does being evaluated by a computer bother you at all? What about in the hallways at school when the Clipboard Lady (often referred to in other, less savory, terms) eyes your clothing too see if it meets our dress code standard? Does that bug you? Or when Mr. Gordon stops to shake your hand and offers you the friendly reminder that whatever behavior you were just involved in is somehow inappropriate? He's evaluating you, too! And parents? Don't even get me started! They watch every move you make, whether you know it or not. (The good ones do, anyway.) Do you realize that you are being evaluated all the time?!
Maybe you have never considered it in these terms, but at this point in your life there is always someone checking up on you in one way or another, and while it may seem bothersome at times, it is probably good. Evaluation is the key to improvement. Consider this: How does anyone become great at something? It doesn't matter if it is sports, music, writing, math, dancing, performing magic tricks, cooking, programming computers or anything else; the way we improve is with practice. Now consider what practice includes: If a basketball player is practicing her free throws and she discovers that only half of them go in, does she keep practicing them in the same way? No, she changes something--maybe the position of her feet at the free throw line or the placement of her hands on the ball or the trajectory of her shot--and she practices some more. She evaluates her performance in order to improve it. Why do musicians and performers often record their performances? Why do good writers keep copies of their old work and do many drafts? Why do computer programmers keep logs of the lines of code they write? To evaluate and improve.
Let's go a step further: One point about evaluation that I'd like to hammer home is that not only are you being evaluated all the time, but you are constantly evaluating the people and things around you. Sometimes your evaluations may not have as much power as those "from above," but as you age, your sphere of influence will increase, and your evaluations will take on more meaning to more people. So, here's what you might consider doing now: Get good at self-evaluation. It sounds simple, but it is something that 90% of high school students cannot do. They are so accustomed to having parents, teachers, and coaches tell them when their work is good, that they get lazy and expect that sort of outside evaluation all the time. They never learn to look at their own work and make a value judgement. Are you such a person? When you turn in an essay, do you just feel relief at having it off your desk so you don't have to think about it anymore? Do you often say to yourself upon handing in an assignment that may not reflect your best work, "At least it's something!" Do you often find yourself hoping desperately (praying?) that an assignment will get a good grade because you aren't sure that it was good or correct? If so, your self-evaluation skills may need some work.
Since I am a writing teacher, I'll tackle this from my area of expertise. Writing is a recursive process. This means that a good writer goes back and re-reads many times the lines that come before the ones s/he is writing now. This is a form of self-evaluation. By the time a good writer gets to the end of an essay, s/he knows exactly what the point was, exactly how that point was developed and supported, and exactly what conclusions were drawn. (In fact, a very good writer can often reproduce, verbatim, passages s/he has written without even looking at the original passage.) A poor writer is one who spills his/her guts onto the page (or computer screen), never goes back to re-read any part of it, and then lets others do all the evaluation. Such writers never get past the "rough draft" stage. Their essays are boring; their e-mails are incomprehensible; and their reports are meaningless. Strangely, these are most often the people who resent having their writing evaluated. It is as if they believe that just doing it is enough and quality matters for nothing. Certainly you all recognize someone you know in that description because most high school students are that way.
Self-evaluation is really just a form of caring. If you are willing to evaluate (and improve) your work (and your play and your ideas and everything else about your existence), then you are making the most of Life. You care. You will have a richer experience than those who don't. Does this mean that we have time to evaluate and improve everything in our lives? Nope. We have to prioritize. What's worth caring about? That question I can't answer for you. But if you can answer it for yourself, you are on the right track.
Don't be too scared or lazy to care!
Maybe you have never considered it in these terms, but at this point in your life there is always someone checking up on you in one way or another, and while it may seem bothersome at times, it is probably good. Evaluation is the key to improvement. Consider this: How does anyone become great at something? It doesn't matter if it is sports, music, writing, math, dancing, performing magic tricks, cooking, programming computers or anything else; the way we improve is with practice. Now consider what practice includes: If a basketball player is practicing her free throws and she discovers that only half of them go in, does she keep practicing them in the same way? No, she changes something--maybe the position of her feet at the free throw line or the placement of her hands on the ball or the trajectory of her shot--and she practices some more. She evaluates her performance in order to improve it. Why do musicians and performers often record their performances? Why do good writers keep copies of their old work and do many drafts? Why do computer programmers keep logs of the lines of code they write? To evaluate and improve.
Let's go a step further: One point about evaluation that I'd like to hammer home is that not only are you being evaluated all the time, but you are constantly evaluating the people and things around you. Sometimes your evaluations may not have as much power as those "from above," but as you age, your sphere of influence will increase, and your evaluations will take on more meaning to more people. So, here's what you might consider doing now: Get good at self-evaluation. It sounds simple, but it is something that 90% of high school students cannot do. They are so accustomed to having parents, teachers, and coaches tell them when their work is good, that they get lazy and expect that sort of outside evaluation all the time. They never learn to look at their own work and make a value judgement. Are you such a person? When you turn in an essay, do you just feel relief at having it off your desk so you don't have to think about it anymore? Do you often say to yourself upon handing in an assignment that may not reflect your best work, "At least it's something!" Do you often find yourself hoping desperately (praying?) that an assignment will get a good grade because you aren't sure that it was good or correct? If so, your self-evaluation skills may need some work.
Since I am a writing teacher, I'll tackle this from my area of expertise. Writing is a recursive process. This means that a good writer goes back and re-reads many times the lines that come before the ones s/he is writing now. This is a form of self-evaluation. By the time a good writer gets to the end of an essay, s/he knows exactly what the point was, exactly how that point was developed and supported, and exactly what conclusions were drawn. (In fact, a very good writer can often reproduce, verbatim, passages s/he has written without even looking at the original passage.) A poor writer is one who spills his/her guts onto the page (or computer screen), never goes back to re-read any part of it, and then lets others do all the evaluation. Such writers never get past the "rough draft" stage. Their essays are boring; their e-mails are incomprehensible; and their reports are meaningless. Strangely, these are most often the people who resent having their writing evaluated. It is as if they believe that just doing it is enough and quality matters for nothing. Certainly you all recognize someone you know in that description because most high school students are that way.
Self-evaluation is really just a form of caring. If you are willing to evaluate (and improve) your work (and your play and your ideas and everything else about your existence), then you are making the most of Life. You care. You will have a richer experience than those who don't. Does this mean that we have time to evaluate and improve everything in our lives? Nope. We have to prioritize. What's worth caring about? That question I can't answer for you. But if you can answer it for yourself, you are on the right track.
Don't be too scared or lazy to care!
posted by MRT at 7:48 AM
1 Comments:
You have a very good point Mr. Thompson. I know that I'm really bad at self-evaluation. I'm always worrying about what everyone else thinks, not if I'm pleasing myself, or doing something to the best of my ability. Reading this is going to make me try harder!
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