Rubrics: The double edged sword

Rubrics are a double edged sword. On one hand they are useful tools that give guidance to teachers and students alike; on the other, they standardize learning and expectations in a world where everyone's learning style is unique.

In his article, The Trouble With Rubrics, Alfie Kohn discusses the various problems with using rubrics as a means of assessment in the classroom. He argues that rubrics strip away a student's ability to be creative and both enjoy and understand the process of what they are learning. He states that "showing that students whose attention is relentlessly focused on how well they’re doing [the students] often become less engaged with what they’re doing" and therefore they become unable to function unless every requirement is spelt out for them. While I both understand and admittedly agree with the points being made, I'm not sure it's quite that simple.

Throughout my own education I have encountered rubrics at nearly every turn; even now as a graduate student I am frequently given a rubric as a means of understanding what I am being graded on. However, according to Kohn, rubrics, while being an easy tool to justify a grade, are actually more hurtful in education than they are helpful.
 
In his article he writes, "Rubrics are, above all, a tool to promote standardization, to turn teachers into grading machines or at least allow them to pretend that what they’re doing is exact and objective." I admittedly agree with this, but only to a degree. I think he's right in saying that rubrics are a way of setting standards in an attempt to give a fair grade that can be defended against something concrete. On the other hand, I don't believe than meaningful learning can be or should be something that is standardized or measurable. But then this begs the question:

How do we fairly assess students without measuring them up against a rubric?

Alfie Kohn's article, while factual and persuasive, fails to really answer that question. The truth is, I'm not so sure if there even is an answer.

With music especially, it's difficult to assign a grade to a student without knowing exactly what merits each grade. How do we put a letter or number grade on a persons effort, practice, enthusiasm, or interest? In a math class it's no big deal; did the student get the problem correct or not? It's all very neat and tidy but how do we know that a student isn't playing a passage well simply because they aren't trying (practicing)? Could the problem be that they don't fully understand how to play it and have been practicing it wrong? Are they distracted today by something else going on? Are the nervous about playing in front of us, or their peers, or an audience? I don't see the harm in letting students know what they are being graded on.

I have always thought rubrics were a good idea, and I think under the right circumstances, they still are. A rubric doesn't have to be as confining as Kuhn is making it out to be. If nothing else, it can serve as guidelines that allow both students and teachers to fully understand what is expect so that no bias can creep in unintentionally. As long a rubric of not the only form of criteria but one of several and doesn't drive the instruction, I think it's a tool that should be utilized; especially in the music classroom where assessment can be trickier than other academic settings.