Reflections on Tony's presentation

As always, I love the the conversation Tony's presentation generates. My only regret is that we began with the "O Alternatives" article we chose to start our meeting with. Although it prompted great discussion to begin with , it may have clouded Tony's message:" What are grades intended to communicate and what should they measure?". We also appeared to to get stuck on how could we make his grading system work within Infinite Campus.
Let's go back to his premise that grades should be a reflection of what, and how well, students are learning. All he is suggesting is that for the sake of communication we make a distinction between the knowledge and skills we want all students to know and learn, and those non-academic things we choose to look at as well. We should simply put those two concepts under different headings and give them a weighted value based on our best judgment. When you have a conversaton with a parent or student, you are able to change the focus to "this part is about what you have or have not learned, and this is about how well you have or have not met your non-academic responsibility. It is about changing the conversation away from "what do I have to do to get an 'A'?" to "how well have I learned something." This also leads us to explore what essential learnings all students should leave AHS with and how do we assess it? It is the journey we are about to embark on at AHS,if we haven't already begun it in some departments. These are excitng and difficult challenges for all of you/us.
I'd like to leave you with this thought:
"When we no longer know what to do, we come to our real work and when we know which way to go we have begun our real Journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings."
Wendell Berry
Thanks for all the hard thinking you've begun to do.

Ray