The road to wisdom? --well, it’s plain,
And simple to express:
Err, and err, and err again,
But less and less and less.
-- Piet Hein
The first set of papers has been graded, and the first set of individual meetings with students asking what they can do to change the grade they received is well underway. In many courses, students have the opportunity to re-write a paper or do test corrections, which can aid their learning. As an incentive, they are often offered an improved grade on that assessment.
My courses tend to be survey courses, and I don’t offer that option because I don’t want students rewriting papers on one religion while we are well into our study of another. Instead, I need them to shift all of their attention to the new area of study. And so, when my students ask what they can do to improve their grade, the answer is to take what they’ve learned from my feedback on this paper or project and apply it to the next one. If they do this effectively, errors will decrease and grades will improve as the semester progresses.
I see a place for both teaching methods in high school, and not just because different courses are different, but also because each method teaches a valuable life lesson. Sometimes the wisest course is to work steadily on one project—say, a marriage or other relationship—adjusting and improving. Such projects demand (and deserve!) a lifetime of rewrites and test corrections. At other times, we simply don’t get a do-over. We need to accept that what happened happened, and figure out how to apply what we have learned from it to our next big challenge.
The nation’s COVID response, the murder of George Floyd, the insurrection of January 6th: we don’t get a do-over on any of these. We can’t change the past. Instead, we have to figure out how to use what we have learned to change the future.
--The Rev. Barbara Talcott
Spread the word!
Do you know someone in the St. Mark’s community who would enjoy these reflections?
