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| Teachers.Net Gazette Vol.6 No.3 | March 2009 |
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 Old School Progress Reports | ||
| by Todd R. Nelson Continued from page 1 March 1, 2008 |
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What a role reversal. I was glad to see Dad’s progress from third grade music, when he got an I for “improving” in the “sings with pleasing quality” sub-category in music. The next year he took up trumpet, and avoided the whole singing issue. Back in kindergarten he had gotten a U (unsatisfactory) for “plays and works well with others,” and a U for “listens while others are talking, does not interrupt.” But by Third grade, he cleaned up his act and was getting all Hs, particularly noteworthy in the area of “volunteers and does his part in making school profitable and interesting.” All that emphasis on citizenship and civility was paying off. Some things never change. A progress report form is still an expression of a school community’s values and relationships, as well as individual achievement. Judging by the space allotted to it, citizenship had value equal to scholarship in Eggertsville. The community knew what it wanted, and had a system for accountability. Some things ought to change. My grandparents couldn’t tell what my dad was reading and writing in grade school, or how math concepts were taught. And I’d like to hear more of the voice of his teachers telling the story of those years—especially since he had his beloved Mrs. Shurgot for three years in a row. There should be a balance between data and eyewitness news; hindsight and foresight. In 1942, Bob won second-best in the Buffalo Evening News Spelling Bee. He was on the road to becoming Robert C. Nelson, a journalist. But I’m more amused to know him as the kindergartner who got a U in playing well with others. Family archives can be terrifying. Someone managed to save my tenth grade French teacher’s comment: “Very little effort expended in or out of class. C-.” Incomplete reporting! My own eyewitness news account would mention expending a lot of effort that year. Two years later I got a 750 on my French achievement test. Good data. And recently I’ve made a lot of new friends in France. “Ms. Hornbeak, would you revise my grade? I wasn’t done!” So it goes. Progress reports have transitory meaning, for some purposes, and remain priceless, if frozen in time, for others. I just hope mine don’t show up at the next Thanksgiving table.
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Todd R. Nelson has been a public and private school English teacher and administrator for 29 years, in schools in Cambridge, San Francisco, Chicago and Maine. He is principal at the Adams School in Castine, Maine, a 54 student K-8 school on the town common in a little town on the coast, where he gets to play four-square at recess, play his bagpipes, and write musicals for the all-school play.