Even though Mr. Senior 2013 went to public school for a very short time in Kindergarten, when I brought him home, he wanted grades on his paper. It made perfect sense to me because I was modeling a public school by grading papers. I thought grades were needed then.
My thinking has changed and been tweaked quite a bit since my start up in homeschooling. I had to rethink the whole purpose of grades and grading. Why was I just following what public school did? Who were the grades for anyway?
Mr. Senior 2013 was wanting some way to measure his understanding of the papers and that is very normal. Too, he wanted my approval and to know that he was doing things correct. Again, that makes sense and it is a natural way to make progress.
Taking a closer look at my feelings and experience so far, I understood then that there is a fine, but significant difference between grading and giving a grade. The two concepts have to be separated.
