The other day, I was engaging with one of the great works of 21st century art: season 9, episode 20 of Bob’s Burgers. The episode is titled The Gene Mile and in it, the Belcher siblings scheme to avoid running the mile for their middle school P.E. class. Well, Gene and Louise do. Tina has other things on her mind. 

Like any great work of art, this episode got me thinking. Not just about running, but about the ways we assess kids in schools. Does it make sense to assess every kid’s athleticism with the one-dimensional score of timing a mile-long race? In what ways does this paradigm find its way into mathematics classrooms? Let’s take a look at a few characters to see how this plays out for them. ⚠️Spoiler Alert⚠️

Tina

The eldest Belcher kid, Tina is not much of a runner, but she does really want to impress her crush, Jimmy Junior. With the power of grit and tween hormones, she is the only sibling to finish the mile on time.

Louise

Louise probably could run the mile if she wanted to. But it’s Free Ice Cream Day at Moo’s Clues, and she would much rather devise an elaborate scheme to get her hands on some of that cold, delicious goodness, and avoid the running part altogether.

Gene

Gene does not want to run the mile. Missing Free Ice Cream Day doesn’t help, but even worse is the fact that he does not see himself as a runner. This being an annual assessment, Gene has avoided the mile every year so far, and is happy to get in on Louise’s plot instead of actually running.

Naturally, the plan (which involves hiding bikes on the route and sneaking a GPS-enabled cat collar on the slowest kid in the class) goes haywire, and Gene ends up stuck running at the back of the pack, struggling alongside Large Tommy and Regular Sized Rudy.

When Mr. Frond realizes Gene tried to cheat, he chases Gene down. And in his flight… Gene completes the mile! And of course he ends up with some of that free ice cream, feeling better about himself than ever. While I doubt we’ll get The Gene Mile II: Electric Boogaloo, you better believe Gene will run the mile with pride next year.

The Point

And that’s the point of this entire post. An assessment like the mile measures one thing: speed. But so many things go into a kid running the mile, and the assessment is squashing multiple diverse factors into a single score:

• Time spent preparing – how much work has each kid put into succeeding in the time leading up to the assessment?
• Natural ability – what natural qualities help or hinder the student?
• Motivation – what does the student hope to gain from the experience (and is it better than free ice cream)?
• Mindset – does the student believe they can achieve success?
• External forces – is it free ice cream day?

One-dimensional scores usually tend to emphasize some of these factors and minimize others. So when creating an assessment, ask yourself:

• What factors contribute to student success?
• Which of those factors do I care most about?
• How does what I measure on the assessment reflect those priorities?

 For what it’s worth, here’s my take on the pros and cons of assessing each of these factors.

Factor	Pros	Cons
Time spent preparing	Hard work is a virtue we try to cultivate in school and contributes to success in all facets of life	Can be biased in favor of students with time and resources for things like tutoring
Natural Ability	This will impact many aspects of their life in and out of school	Cannot be changed through schooling and has an ableist bias
Motivation	We want students to develop intrinsic motivation and see value in achieving success	Wanting to do something is not the same as actually doing it
Mindset	We want students to see themselves as capable learners	Believing you can do something is not the same as actually doing it

So whether you are having students run a mile in P.E., or assessing a mathematics project, take care that what you’re measuring reflects your learning outcomes and priorities.

Back to Regular Sized Rudy for a moment…

I want to come back to Regular Sized Rudy for one second. His role in the episode is minor, but reflects something often overlooked. Rudy is with Gene in the back of the pack because he has asthma. At a minimum, it is critical that students have access to their accommodations when being assessed. Even better, though, is to leverage Universal Design for Learning to design assessments that meet the needs of all students. Obviously this was an episode of Bob’s Burgers, not a real test, but this felt necessary to call out.

Thanks for reading!

Hey this was my first ever blog post! Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.