Peachy Assessment

One morning last week my department chair met with a few of us to talk about assessment outcomes, something previously referred to as performance objectives. I’ve been hearing about the importance of clear course competencies and proper assessment for many years. What made this session a little different, however, was the recollection of an encounter I had experienced the previous day.

It had been my birthday, and some friends of mine were celebrating with me at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. One of the celebrants had even provided rubber band bracelets in various shore shapes like a shell, a crab, and a sailboat. Everyone got one, and I, the birthday girl, received one of each. We were all laughing at the fun party favors when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to see a former student who said something like, “Hi, Mrs. Bowers, you might not remember me, but I’ll never forget you because of something you said in class one day.”

Tiffany had my full attention by now. She continued, “I saw you walk in, and there was no way I was going to leave without saying hello.”

“I do remember your face,” I said, “but you’ll need to tell me a little more so that I can place you in the right class and on the right campus. Were you in a Sumter class?”

“Yes Ma’am. And here’s what happened. You told us the peach story, and it changed my life forever. I had been feeling sort of down and like my life was going nowhere, but that story instantly changed the way I felt about myself.”

I knew exactly what Tiffany was referring to, a situation described by Dr. Leo Buscaglia about something that happened in one of his classes. Known by some as the “love doctor,” Buscaglia related a situation in which one of his students announced that she had finally figured out why she felt so despairing.  She was a peach, and yet somehow she had allowed herself to become a messy fruit salad. One person would want her to be more like an apple, and she would. Another preferred bananas, and she attempted to accommodate their taste too. Still another favored something a little more exotic, like perhaps a kiwi. You get the picture? In her attempts to please others, she’d lost her peachiness until that one day in love class when she announced that from then on, no matter who wanted her to be a watermelon, grape, or mango, she was going to stay a peach, confident in the knowledge that there were peach lovers out there.

 “So are you a peach?” I asked Tiffany.

She grinned and said,“YES. And I’ve found a lot of peach lovers since that day in class.”

“Thanks for telling me this. I’m going to be sure to find a way to slide it into my classes next year.”

“I hope you will. Well, bye. I just wanted to tell you that.”

“I’m glad you did. That was one of the best birthday gifts I could receive.”

And it was. Before Tiffany completed PSY 201 successfully, there were dozens of competencies and/or objectives she had to master. The terms, definitions, and theories in the introductory class can be a bit overwhelming. At the same time, what good does it do to know all of the definitions of the humanistic perspective if you can’t apply them to your own life? Free will, personal choice, and unconditional positive regard are nice concepts, but until you can use them in your own growth and “becoming,” they’re just textbook terms.

Making good grades is important. It’s a way of demonstrating mastery of concepts and readiness to tackle the next course. At the same time, I absolutely love it when a student sees the link between the text and her life, between terms and applications. I just wish I knew a way to assess such learning.