[MP-Ryan]

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Ross%20Sheppard%20teacher%20kicked%20out%20of%20class%20for%20giving%20students%20zeros/6709514/story.html

I am ashamed to admit I live in this province.

[Flipside]

That's ridiculous. I would have thought that the risk of getting an embarrassing '0' would be far more of a motivator than kid-gloves techniques. The schools are teaching kids attitudes that simply do not exist in the real world.

[Wobble73]

Pfffft! This is the problem with kids today!

*old man rant over*

[headdie]

Reminds me of the deferred success bull**** we get in the UK, the same rewording of a negative so it dont look so bad

[LHN91]

I know I've seen studies that basically show with very little uncertainty that this kind of hand-holding is actively harmful to children's development, among other things; though I can't find them at the moment. Need to spend some time looking it up again.

The problem with this mentality and methodology is that you end up with a bunch of narcissistic kids/teens/young adults who believe that they are perfect and have no desire for self-improvement, despite the fact that the real world will demand it of them eventually.

As a side note, the Canadian Soccer Association will shortly be making all soccer for youth under IIRC somewhere between 10 and 13 completely non-competitive. No organized games, no keeping scores. Don't hold me to this as a hard fact, my memory is vague and I only heard it from a contact of mine in a small town soccer corporation; but the point remains that this kind of mentality is slowly taking over.

[redsniper]

Sounds like they need a...



Zero Tolerance Policy

[StarSlayer]

Sounds like they need a...



Zero Tolerance Policy

Win

[Kolgena]

Such feedback [given via an "Incomplete"] is much more motivating than a zero, Schmidt said. “Simply taking them off the hook with a zero that says they don’t have to do it anymore is actually not helping kids get to the learning.”

wat. Since when was a risk of failing a class no longer a motivation? Oh, right. Since it was decided that teachers are not allowed to fail high school students.

I also find it so very ridiculous that when kids get bad marks, some parents get furious and take it out on the teachers. How come they don't ever think to look at what their kid is doing, and what their parenting is doing, that might have led to the poor academic performance?

[Flipside]

Thing is, "Incomplete" does not mean "didn't do any work". It implies that they did a bit, but didn't finish it. If these kids had handed in half-complete homework, then it would be incomplete but still could be marked on what they had done,  the phrase they are looking for is "didn't try." or "didn't bother". Marks like that might motivate them more if kids thought they would appear on the report cards, however "Incomplete" is a soft-sell.

[Pred the Penguin]

Mixed opinions on stuff like this. Educational institutions and teachers where I was repeatedly abused grading systems...

[Polpolion]

bah, high school is high school. As long as you "do" the work it's really kinda hard to **** it up, honestly. I say "do" because 99% of the work you do in high school is either A) not graded for accuracy, B) subjective, or C) trivial. If people aren't willing to even pretend to make an effort to learn then by all means teachers should give them back what they put in.

[General Battuta]

bah, high school is high school. As long as you "do" the work it's really kinda hard to **** it up, honestly. I say "do" because 99% of the work you do in high school is either A) not graded for accuracy, B) subjective, or C) trivial. If people aren't willing to even pretend to make an effort to learn then by all means teachers should give them back what they put in.

[mjn.mixael]

Hmm...

Well regardless of what I think of the no-zero policy at that school district, the article states that it made that change more than a year ago. The teacher who was suspended clearly and simply chose not to follow that policy. Suspension may be a bit harsh, especially in the middle of the class term (as one student was quoted as saying), but some form of punishment is likely necessary. Otherwise any teacher could ignore any policy.

Like the ATA is quoted as saying in that article.. "The ATA believes teachers should primarily be responsible for assessing and evaluating students, ATA spokesman Jonathan Teghtmeyer said. However, teachers are ultimately accountable to their employer, he said."

As a further thought, there was probably a better way for a teacher with a 30+ year career at the school to fight the policy than to outright ignore it.

[Polpolion]

My best guess is that they wanted this guy gone and the whole Zero-Zero-Tolerance policy is just an excuse. Something similar happened to one of my high school band directors, except instead of getting fired she was moved to a middle school choir director. The official explanation was that she said 'bastard' while making a joke in Wind Ensemble, and it suffices to say that everyone knew the decision was bull****. Also I'd like to point out that teachers violating school policy isn't really all that uncommon, nor is it usually a big deal.

[Dark Hunter]

I also find it so very ridiculous that when kids get bad marks, some parents get furious and take it out on the teachers. How come they don't ever think to look at what their kid is doing, and what their parenting is doing, that might have led to the poor academic performance?

Because that would require them to admit that they or their child had made a mistake.

No way they or their perfect child would ever do that. How dare you assume that they are in any way fallible![/biting sarcasm]

[deathfun]

A excerpt from a book I came across which relates to this
Linchpin: Are you indispensable?

Does School Work? If I drill and practice and grade and reward you for years on doing math with fractions, what are the chances that you'll learn fractions? School does a great job of teaching students to do what we set out to teach them. It works. The problem is that what we're teaching is the wrong stuff.
Here's what we're teaching kids to do (with various levels of success):
Fit in
Follow instructions
Use #2 pencils
Take good notes
Show up every day Cram for tests and don't miss deadlines
Have good handwriting
Punctuate
Buy the things the other kids are buying
Don't ask questions
Don't challenge authority
Do the minimum amount required so you'll have time to work on another subject
Get into college
Have a good resume
Don't fail
Don't say anything that might embarrass you
Be passably good at sports, or perhaps extremely good at being a quarterback
Participate in a large number of extracurricular activities
Be a generalist
Try not to have the other kids talk about you
Once you learn a topic, move on

Now, the key questions: Which of these attributes are the keys to being indispensable? Are we building the sort of people our society needs? The problem doesn't lie with the great teachers. Great teachers strive to create linchpins. The problem lies with the system that punishes artists and rewards bureaucrats instead. Here's what Woodrow Wilson said about public education: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." After retaining brutal Pinkerton men, trainloads of strikebreakers, and even the National Guard to violently put down strikes, Andrew Carnegie decided that the answer to worker unrest was a limited amount of education. "Just see, wherever we peer into the first tiny springs of the national life, how this true panacea for all the ills of the body politic bubbles forth--education, education, education." The model is simple. Capitalists need compliant workers, workers who will be productive and willing to work for less than the value that their productivity creates. The gap between what they are paid and what the capitalist receives is profit. The best way to increase profit was to increase both the productivity and the compliance of factory workers. And as Carnegie saw, the best way to do that was to build a huge educational-industrial complex designed to teach workers just enough to get them to cooperate. It's not an accident that school is like a job, not an accident that there are supervisors and rules and tests and quality control. You do well, you get another job (the next grade), and continue to do well and you get a real job. Do poorly, don't fit in, rebel--and you are kicked out of the system.
"I Am Good at School"
This is a fundamentally different statement from, "I did well in school and therefore I will do a great job working for you." The essential thing measured by school is whether or not you are good at school. Being good at school is a fine skill if you intend to do school forever. For the rest of us, being good at school is a little like being good at Frisbee. It's nice, but it's not relevant unless your career involves homework assignments, looking through textbooks for answers that are already known to your supervisors, complying with instructions and then, in high-pressure settings, regurgitating those facts with limited processing on your part. Or, in the latter case, if your job involves throwing 165 grams of round plastic as far as you can. The contributions of school are often superfluous. On the other hand, the best schools are great selectors of people with attitude and talent. Getting in and getting out is a testament to who you were before you got there. Many successful people got that way despite their advanced schooling, not because of it.

What They Should Teach in School
Only two things: 1. Solve interesting problems 2. Lead

Honestly, failing a student to me is the best idea there is. Nobody wants to be that guy... the guy who failed a course and has to take it again until he passes it

[Pred the Penguin]

That's not what the article you just quoted is really about though, which actually hits on a very serious issue, and what I had the most problems with in high school.

[z64555]

What made the school choose the no zero-tolerance policy in the first place?

Do they have any statistical data that shows this policy works better than the more traditional policy?

More importantly, does the material covered by the schools completely qualify them for college? Entry level jobs?

[deathfun]

That's not what the article you just quoted is really about though, which actually hits on a very serious issue, and what I had the most problems with in high school.

Book, not article

And I know it wasn't, it was just an interesting read which related to what's wrong with High School teaching methods (to which I find this No Zero policy to fall in line with those issues)

[redsniper]

Do they have any statistical data that shows this policy works better than the more traditional policy?

Uh, son? We're educational professionals here. We don't need your science and numbers telling us how to do our jobs. Thank you very much.