This weekend, we put up our Christmas tree. We revelled in our work, turned up the music, ate mince pies and drank mulled wine (and blackcurrant juice!)—one of my favourite days of the year.
We always put the lights on first. Two sets of lights were untangled, bulbs checked, and batteries replaced. Tinsel is no longer in vogue (so say the kids), but all the old trinkets collected over the years – kid’s pottery, National Trust gift shop pieces, and knitted items from random church bazaars – all find their usual places back on the tree.
As per our tradition, something new can be placed on the tree each year, and the Star is always put on last (currently a wooden thing one of the kids knocked up in kindergarten) at the top of the tree. Done.
Sitting around our resplendent Christmas tree, we felt well-pleased with ourselves. We gave ourselves an ‘A’ grade – this was (by far) our best Christmas tree ever.
But our hubris only lasted about 30 minutes. Across the street, some lights flickered on another Christmas tree. It was double the size, double the lights, and doubly impressive.
A family meeting ensued. What to do? How can we still be an ‘A’ grade? Did we need to get a new tree? Did we need to get more lights?
My daughter, bless her, ended up being the one who helped us out of the little emotional pit we found ourselves in. Our tree is superior, she argued, because it is better decorated (subjectively true), more authentic (maybe true), and more sustainable (absolutely true).
So we kept our ‘A’ grade. Then, we enjoyed the rest of our weekend without giving it another thought.
That is, of course, until I gave it another thought…
Thomas Guskey suggests that the problem with awarding grades is that they are only a one-dimensional performance ranking:
“If someone proposed combining measures of height, weight, diet, and exercise into a single number or mark to represent a person’s physical condition, we would consider it laughable…
…Yet every day, teachers combine aspects of students’ achievement, attitude, responsibility, effort, and behaviour into a single grade that’s recorded on a report card and no one questions it.”
So how do you grade a Christmas Tree?
You don’t.
Thomas R Guskey, “Five Obstacles to Grading Reform,” Educational Leadership 69, no 3 (2011): 16-21.
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