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everyone gets a trophy

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by proudpittsburgher, Nov 15, 2010.

  1. Sorry if this is a db . . . didn't see it at quick glance.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/13/AR2010111304100.html?sid=ST2010111400180
     
  2. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Since No Child Left Behind, it is not about the grade, but it is about mastery.

    In fact, wouldn't make more sense to have the student receive a 10-page packet of each thing they are to have mastered when they graduate or finish a grade level?

    Little Billy got a C in Math, but I see that you have not mastered three by two multiplication. As a parent, it might be better to know the latter.

    Report cards are antequated. They are modeled for a teacher doing grades by hand and giving them on a piece of paper in an envelope. Now, every grade can be broken down so greatly using data that it would not be any extra effort to give mastery marks by educational learning strand than just compiling grades.

    Now what sucks with this is once a student has mastered a subject, it is more difficult to know if they are gifted or not. The A used to be for gifted students. Take away the A, and how to tell the best of the best?

    Seriously, I could talk about this all day, but moving away from the A, B, C, D, F format is a step in the right direction.
     
  3. nmmetsfan

    nmmetsfan Active Member

    It's too bad that 60 percent of parents wouldn't understand anything more complex.
     

  4. I don't necessarily argue with that, but buying kids time to do the work they were supposed to do in the first place isn't necessarily stepping in the right direction. And whether or not you agree with the grading system as it is . . . It just feels like this decision is more about the school system making itself look better than it is about teaching little bobby. Not the teachers, but the admisinstrators.
     
  5. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    But is a school teaching discipline or knowedge or both?

    Under NCLB, all you care about is knowledge - that a kid can answer the question correctly when asked.
     
  6. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    Schools teach students and schools sort students. The former is the formal task of the school. The latter is a largely unspoken societal expectation. What this school (and others similar to it) seems to be saying is that unless society makes its sorting demand explicit, sorting is going to be a much lower priority going forward.
     
  7. I know you and I are on totally different sides of the fence on issues like these, and that's OK, because in the end, there are no right or wrong answers with this, just opinions. For me, I want a kid to learn. But I do not want a kid to expect second chances on things where they didn't put the work in in the first place, and I feel we are rapidly headed down that road. "Oh, you didn't do your homework, so you can't take the test? That's OK, you can do it tomorrow, if that works with you." A child learns more in school, especially high school, than what's in the books.
     
  8. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    We are already there.

    Honestly, I do not like it.

    I do think we should rethink how we inform parents their childrens' progress in school.
     
  9. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    How do you feel about kids with learning disabilities - is it good that they get more time to complete their work instead of a "one size fits all " philosophy?
     
  10. Hank_Scorpio

    Hank_Scorpio Active Member

    It is a school's responsibility to get the student ready for adult life.

    If a school allows a student to master the subject late, that's not getting him/her ready.

    Do you think a company is going to allow a worker to miss an assignment and make it up or master it later?
     
  11. 21

    21 Well-Known Member

    Hank, a lot of those kids won't have to worry about a company or an assignment, because they won't be employable, having failed in high school with minimal to no chance of getting into a decent college.

    They have the rest of their lives to get fired for doing a poor job. Schools are the one place kids should be able to mess up, and still have a chance to get it right. That's the definition of learning....figuring out the right way. If a kid is genuinely failing, the school has failed as well.
     
  12. There is a difference between having a legitimate learning disability as opposed to just being lazy and not caring about school.
     
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