A Teacher's Journal: Bit of the Morosini in Me

Being the ultra-responsible, rule-following wonder-geek that I was as a child, I never struggled with grades in elementary school. My work was always completed with care and neatly stored in my binder to be turned in the next morning. Much of it was wrong (I've never been the world's smartest fella), but it sure looked good sitting on the teacher's paper pile.

You see, I learned early on that teachers loved a neat and colorful piece of paper almost as much as they loved a quiet kid who liked to raise his hand and read quietly. I rolled through first through fourth grade, racking up gold stars and candy bars at every turn by following two simple rules: 1. Add glitter to your paper whenever possible and 2. Be quiet and smile a lot when the teacher is talking. I had every teacher hoodwinked, that's for sure. "Billy is a model student," my weekly memos would say. "If only every child were like him."

My bubble of perfection was popped by Mrs. Morosini, my fifth grade teacher, who was a legend in our building, having made students cry for generations. Being assigned to Morosini's room was a curse you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy because she was quick with the criticism and brutal with the marking pen. You were almost always guaranteed to end up with your first D or F on an assignment, project or report card no matter how hard you worked---or colorful your papers were.

The woman seemed purely "glitter-resistant." Time and again, I'd pretty up my papers real good and they'd still come back covered with corrections. Morosini had this uncanny knack for finding errors, and took a great measure of satisfaction in pointing them out to me!

"Billy, your sentence structure is unacceptable in this paragraph. Please redo it and submit it again," she'd write. "Billy, please correct all nineteen words circled in red, writing them ten times each and turning them in by Friday." The most painful barb: "Billy, this paper is beautiful, but it is horribly written. It must be redone."

By the end of the first quarter, I realized that passing Morosini's class wasn't going to be easy. Rather than run and hide from the challenge, the rebel in me somehow found its way to the surface. I started spending dozens and dozens of hours working on homework, thriving on the challenge of turning in error free papers. Something registered in the back of my mind that perfect schoolwork was Morosini's worst nightmare, and that's what I aimed to give her.

I'd like to play the role of conquering hero and say that I made straight As by the end of the year...but I didn't. I always seemed to be tottering on the line between Bs and Cs. "This work is average," Mrs. Morosini would say to me time and again, "and average is a C." The few papers that did earn me an A in fifth grade remain in my "cherished things" box stored under my bed. My wife thinks I'm crazy because I read one of my essays over every now and then, remembering the day that it was passed back mark-less!

For probably twenty years, I cursed Morosini at every turn. "Meanest woman who ever walked the planet," I would tell people. The only good part of that year in purgatory was the hero status that went to survivors of her classroom in our town. "That guy had Morosini," people would say when they introduced me to new friends in middle school.

Looking back, however, Mrs. Morosini was probably the only teacher during my entire school career brave enough to tell me (and more importantly my parents) exactly what my strengths and weaknesses were. That feedback, however callously delivered, allowed me to focus on areas for improvement. At no point did I have to wonder what I needed to work on, that's for sure!

And while there were moments of discouragement for me during my year in her classroom, there was also a real sense of accomplishment each time that I met her incredible expectations. Self esteem in Morosini's room didn't come from an artifically inflated grade given to me because of who I was. It came from knowing that I was learning new skills and getting smarter as a person.

As a classroom teacher, I've got a bit of Morosini in me. My students know that As require superior work and often earn their first Bs or Cs in my room. I'm quick to point out where they can improve and refuse to let crayons replace content while assessing ability. The grades that I deliver cause a few tears and a bit of heartache each year, but I stand by them as accurate reflections of a child's true ability compared to their peers.

Isn't that what "grading" should be all about?

Posted by William Ferriter at 04:12 PM on March 29, 2007 | Leave Feedback

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