The other day I noticed the fun I experienced marking students’ work when I chose to remain open, relaxed and connected to what they were learning. I opened myself up to see beyond what the curriculum requirements were, and was instead assessing the level of connection I made with each student.
For as long as I can remember I had always thought marking needed to be done quickly and was a burden on my teaching time. The piles were never-ending and the pace with which marking was done was fast, with little regard for the student and their work. Darting around the classroom in order to mark the work before I began another set of teaching instructions felt like the norm.
The levels of exhaustion I experienced made me feel racy and there was no connection with the students or with their work. I gave little consideration to how I could support them to go to the next stage of learning, or to consolidate their current levels of learning.
The teaching phase was fun and by far the most enjoyable stage. I would introduce the topic and get the ball rolling with practical examples and engage the children in each step. The children would share and laugh whilst learning. Everyone was focused and the learning was meaningful, relevant and there was a sense of ease in which this was done. Every lesson was simple and the children were part of the teaching rather than doing all the learning. This unfortunately was lost once I moved to the marking mode. I could feel my relaxed and open body turn into a hard machine, ready to race through the assembly line of paper marking.
When I made the choice to stop and connect more to the steady pace in which I was teaching, I noticed there was no need to go into the overwhelm of what the idea of assessing and marking brings to teaching.
The playful interactions that took place with the simple daily over the shoulder marking made me realise how much the students enjoyed the ‘one to one’ connection they were receiving. Every interaction with a child was simple and varied, according to what they needed:
A supportive hand on the shoulder…
A playful gentle tap on the head …
A tender touch of the hand…
A knowing glance of ‘you’ve got it’…
A cheeky wink to say… yep! …. You’re on the right track.
With this way of marking their work came a deeper level of understanding about how the children crave this connection and wait patiently for their turn. I could feel them nuzzle into their chairs, brushing gently past my arms as I began to mark. Their eyes were open and engaged in what I had to share. They talked more and their voices had a giggling tone that invited more connection. They were not disappointed or hard on themselves if they didn’t fully understand the teaching concept, as they knew the support was always there.
Marking and assessing can be a task that overwhelms and overloads but with that comes a fall in the quality of connection that the children are clearly receptive and open to.
Assessing how to connect to a student is what true marking is about. When we assess what is needed at each moment the marking becomes simple, fun and straightforward.
By Anonymous, Teacher, Mentoring Teacher and Program Facilitator, Australia
Further Reading:
The power of relationship in the classroom
Circle time: an opportunity for connection and expression
Education, Schools & Teaching our Kids: ‘Quality of Presence’ in the Classroom
Teachers are Gold
477 Comments
I can see from your blog how powerfully this change in how you mark school work will reflect on these students lives. As they get older, there will be a new attitude about receiving feedback, making mistakes and the whole framework of learning itself. Thank you so much for taking the initiative with this.
What a microcosm the way we teach is for how we all are in the whole of life. Constantly rushing through, to push that deadline, to complete the task or tick the box, yet never stopping to feel or smile. Your sharing Anonymous takes me back to my school days and how underneath the blazer and tie what I yearned for the most was not the knowledge but a feeling of togetherness there. So how would it be if we made our schools, classrooms and universities, centres of connection first?
What you have said here Anonymous is such an important and key thing about the fact that it is the quality of our living that counts: ‘When I made the choice to stop and connect more to the steady pace in which I was teaching, I noticed there was no need to go into the overwhelm of what the idea of assessing and marking brings to teaching.’
Putting an ‘idea’ about assessing and marking first, before making a deep connection to our own being, brings us almost inevitably into overwhelm. If we stay connected and with our body a richness of life is there and overwhelm cannot enter.
“…understanding about how the children crave this connection and wait patiently for their turn…” your blog highlights how everything is about connection, about truly meeting another, and to do this we must first be meeting ourselves, so when we do meet another, there no trying to meet or engage, it all there already.
Many people seek recognition as a poor substitute to true connection, and excelling at school work and being a good student was the way I chose to do that, and it went down well with the direction the entire education system wanted to lead us to – total disconnection. And when we look at the whole system, to change it seems like an almost impossible task, but the teachers, who are the one that have the direct, daily contact with the children, have a possibility to bring a change in the way they teach and be with children, as you have shared so beautifully. The way we are makes up the way the world is, and that is the easiest point where we could start making changes.
Anon, this connection is so important with ‘everything’ we do and what a brilliant example to demonstrate this when it comes to education and marking and assessing work. Imagine if we applied this approach to every aspect of education and every aspect of life?!
Kids love to be included and engaged and with connection we are open to receive and discover more. Your classes sound like fun and your loving connection with your students is inspiring to feel.
“Assessing how to connect to a student is what true marking is about.” I agree anon, the teachers I remember from school are the ones who made an effort to connect, that is what is important. The whole assessment and grading system can separate and divide us.
There are so many ways and yet a simplicity to how we can connect with another. When reading this the list of different ways you know you have connected with the children Anon I could really feel it is about the quality of the connection and not so much what it looks like.
What you write here is very lovely and can be applied to all areas of life not just at school. For example, as an employer I regularly give feedback (mark) the work of my staff as they do of my work. We are all forever learning and we all learn from each other and share with each other. It is another beautiful way we connect.
It feels very important that you have nominated the exhaustion and raciness that you felt as a teacher, working against the clock and with huge demands from the curriculum. It is so draining to be ahead of yourself, always trying to get the current job done in the pressure of getting to the next. I find this is in nursing too. It has made as profound difference to how I feel nursing to not get caught in the next tasks and stay with what I am doing and not let myself become stressed about all I have to do. Staying with my body and being gentle with myself have been key, but also knowing the importance of each connection I make. I am not just giving pills or doing a task, there is a connection however brief to be made with a person. Knowing that makes my work so valuable and stops me from trashing my body in raciness.
When I think of how most teachers would mark assignments, this is completely different to what has been presented. At uni the tutors are given a tight time limit for marking each paper. This ensures that the tutor is constantly tense and racing the clock, seeing how quickly they can get through the enormous pile of marking they have to complete by a certain deadline. This completely takes away any joy in connecting with the students expression.
It is so great Mary to hear of someone who has experienced this kind of connection and support at school. Assessments and exams were originally intended to be there to help the student – to see where the bits were that they hadn’t understood and then being able to help them by explaining it in another way or going over it step by step. But exams turned into a combative war with student pitted against student. No wonder marking became a drag. If we keep it simple, factual and loving, amazing connection plus learning can happen.
This was such an awesome blog to read about marking children’s work as a teacher, and how inspiring a teacher can be. Children are blessed to have a teacher that is all about connection. This way of approaching the teaching role would produce far better results and children would be more confident in their ability to understand the world.
Your choice anonymous to stop and connect more to the steady pace in which you were teaching, goes far deeper than just a change of pace, it entirely changes the feeling in the room, that now we come to correction we have to get serious and go fast and hard. What does this say to the children on an energetic level and what do they feel….. You are about to be judged as an individual and you are no longer part of the group that was having fun, but singled out as passing or failing the exercise and that’s a serious matter, adding to the emotional ups and downs, disconnection and separation from the group, which I know as a child was very traumatic.
Bringing such a tenderness to yourself and your class feels like the true connection we all crave, rather than feel the burden of the fast paced dash around to correct work. I feel every moment you are now in connection with the children you are teaching more than the class plan, they are learning to trust, accept, appreciate and stay fun and light.
It is beautiful how we can just stop and connect to what our body is feeling, when we connect like this the body does not feel any overwhelm, it is open and allowing. I am fishing the more and more I connect to my body, my day and daily tasks just flow by smoothly. When I am not connected to my body, my mind can take over, leaving me in overwhelm and disconnected.
What a joy it would be to have you as a teacher Anonymous, this way of participating and forming relationships with your students will be an invaluable way forward for them in not only their schooling, but as in students of life.
Beautiful Anonymous you can feel how this approach to marking and assessing offers so much more to the teacher and children as they are gifted a true moment of connection.
Just reading the first couple of paragraphs anonymous I felt the hurt by the children of not having a moment of connection with you and their work seen as their unique expression. As a teacher you have changed this connection and that is Gold for a child.
As a teacher I loved reading this as I could relate to sometimes feeling overwhelmed with the amount of marking that is required, however like you share when the same level of care is put into this component it is very valuable for the students and it confirms their efforts and supports them to appreciate this too.
What I got so clearly is that when we naturally allow ourselves to do something, there is a flow, harmony and joy but when we get in the way by deeming it a chore, for example. we lose this flow as it feels cumbersome and a chore. And when we do that we harden our bodies. Thank you for highlighting how this choice has such an effect on our bodies and in a way that people can relate to.
Love your words Anonymous – ‘Assessing how to connect to a student is what true marking is about. When we assess what is needed at each moment the marking becomes simple, fun and straightforward.’
There are two things here for me – one the mindset of dread and loathing that persists about marking, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and the other, equally if not more important, being the connection between teacher and child, teacher and class. It would be curious to research the correlation between a teacher’s level of connection with their pupils and their individual and overall class marks over time. I’m convinced we’d see some mind-blowing results for the positive. But in a world of education which requires metrics, hoops and hurdles from its teachers, marks and grades have become the be-all and end-all in the leaderboard stakes that schools have to contend with – very often at the expense of real teaching and real connection.
I agree Cathy, ‘marks and grades have become the be-all and end-all in the leaderboard stakes that schools have to contend with – very often at the expense of real teaching and real connection.’ This skewers and warps every day interactions with children as teachers face pressure to get marks for league table results and performance related pay.
Children have been reduced to mark producing units, used to promote the school’s performance, thus build its reputation through metrics. What of the children themselves?
Is this assessment too harsh? Look to the young people struggling with university and college, indifferent about work, and lacking in purpose and commitment to developing a career and the answer to the question of harshness is revealed. The children and young people are the perfect expose of a flawed system. We an blame them, or we can look at the system.
What a gorgeous sharing Anonymous on the power of true connection in our everyday lives. Teachers like you are very valuable and needed in the school environment to support children to feel safe to remain open and to express themselves freely.
As a primary teacher I can relate to everything you share about marking Anonymous. I often feel the weight of having to get through a few set of books and if for some reason I don’t stay on top of it the pressure in my body mounts. Of course the children will feel this and it will affect them. I feel inspired to go into work tomorrow with a different slant and make sure that each time I am with a child, (or not) that it is a moment to connect whether verbally, or through a written comment. Connection is the key to all learning!
I love that you kept it about connecting to the children the whole time and by the sounds of it they loved it too.
Shouldn’t this be what school, and life in general, is about? Connecting to others – making life about people rather than achievements and things? A gorgeous example of how we choose to be can make such a difference in the life of others.
When we don’t appreciate what we are bringing to whatever we are doing we immediately go into ‘function’. It’s no wonder the raciness, overwhelm and nervous tension is there as we are not there to feel how much is taking place in that one single moment.
I love the appreciation you have of the children you teach and can feel how open and relaxed this way of teaching / marking is. There is no pressure then to get things ‘right’ only an opportunity to connect and from there learn. I would have loved being in your classroom as a child and remember teachers who had a similar gentle approach with me when I was growing up. I remember loving the one on one connection I got then as a student in the same way I that connection with people now.
I feel this connection is not only needed in the classroom but everywhere in life. The whole earth is a classroom. We all want this connection and from there, we can do any kind of work or job.
We often get overwhelmed by the pressure of the systems’ requirements particularly in education, but as you show it does not have to be like this, there is loads of room to teach and be in a way that brings the human connection first.
What a beautiful revelation that marking does not need to be done in a certain one way but can be playful and in the same quality of teaching and engaging with the students in equality.
I would love to have had a teacher that was not so worried about the marks but more interested in connecting with the students. I used to dread getting my papers or exercise books back with all the red marks on it. I can remember how I wanted to do things perfectly and wanted to please so I wouldn’t get the corrections.
Anon you have lightened the load for many teachers who would be feeling the pressures and burdens of marking in this current education system world wide which only add more tension and ill ease to marking and assessments.
I can feel from my own experience and observing others how those early years at school influence much if not most of the rest of your life and the importance of being met by your teachers/s are so vital as part of the growing up process. As you share anonymous those playful interactions and connecting to each and every child – all equally so, can only build a stronger foundation and build confidence for them to openly express with even more enthusiasm that’s just bubbling to be shared. This blog is definitely one for each and every staff room in all schools.
How irresistible is love in the end. How beautiful the love merges from one area of your teaching into others.
Dear Anonymous, I love what you have shared here. You are bringing back to the world the true concept of learning, assessing where a child is at academically and applying what is needed for each individual child to support them to continue to learn. My heart sings as I read the practical real way you make this happen through the marking process of your lessons.
What a delightful teacher you are Anonymous.
What a role model you are for not only your students but teachers alike. When what we do is done with spaciousness then we allow ourselves to get the most we can from it, when it isn’t it becomes burdensome and devoid of the fun that comes with being engaged in it.
So even if the child is not involved in the marking of their work, they still feel the quality and care in which it was marked. The teaching relationship extends to all that you do with them and away from them with them in mind. It’s just gorgeous to have that awareness of that connection and that level of connection.