It would be nice to say this is only a problem in Canada, but we all know this is a US wide problem, too, what with standardized testing pressures and so on. Of course, US schools are just following their country’s leader’s lead. Just showing up for war (Iraq, drugs, etc) and waging it incompetently is the same as winning, right? Mission accomplished!
She has skipped 30 classes in a row and hasn’t handed in an assignment all term, but the principal wants her teacher to cut this Grade 12 student some slack.
“He told me, ‘Look, the student says she’s finally willing to hand in all her work, so I want you to mark it and don’t take off points for being late,'” sighs the English teacher at a west Toronto high school.
“Whatever happened to deadlines? We bend over so far for kids these days, it’s a joke.”
“No wonder kids come to school thinking they’re getting a free ride. There’s some sense that you just can’t fail,” said Pighin. “We hand out credits like tic tacs.”
Part of all this is if a student is failing, give them remedial help. Good idea if the kid takes the help. But not giving F’s to those who don’t try is a slap in the face to those who need and want help and do try. And then there’s this problem if that help is given:
Jon Cowans disagrees. The Pickering history teacher has called for the return of the F as an educational form of tough love, and says the theory that `failure is not an option’ produces students who simply aren’t prepared to move on.
“I call it Credits Lite, the whole byzantine apparatus teachers must go through before you’re allowed to fail a student.” Principals ask how often a teacher called parents before failing the student, he says, and whether the teacher modified the work enough.
“But I teach a class of students, not just one. I’m not a tutor. If I work only with some students, the others will be climbing the wall,” said Cowans.
Suggestion: Fail those who don’t try and provide funding for tutors to help those who want to. Yeah, I know. Too obvious.
That’s all right, it will make their assimilation by their soon to be Mandarin overlords that much easier.
When I taught high school in the 80’s, the principal repeated the age old line, “Teach the best and damn the rest”.
That was an extreme position, but more practical than social promotions. You can’t teach when there’s no willingness to learn. You teach a class, not individuals. You can’t be a personal motivator and cheerleader to every pupil. That was supposed to be a parents job.
What bullcrap !!!
We all know that it is the teachers to blame. How many times do the Right Wing Nut Neo-con Evangelical Conservative Republicans need to tell us that the teachers are only interested in their unions and are just too lazy to teach. The bosses can’t be wrong.
#3 Mr. Fusion, ,the teachers are only interested in their unions and are just too lazy to teach.
Your sarcasm is superb for this early on a Sunday morning. Had me going there for a minute. 🙂
“He told me, ‘Look, the student says she’s finally willing to hand in all her work, so I want you to mark it and don’t take off points for being late,’”
Sound like someone got a real got blowjob….
Darn… I can’t even spell this morning… it should have been good blowjob…
We see the fruits of that insane doctrine everyday in the workforce; high school graduates that can neither spell nor create coherent sentences, untrainable entry labor types, people who simply refuse to arrive, ready for work at a given time and those who cannot, and will not, read the directions, manuals, etc. But they still want a paycheck, and get cranky when they can’t get a job that enables them to be the cool folks like on the TV commercials.
But like many things in modern society, the educational system is beyond fixing, and is doomed to crash, along with the electrical grid, the transportion infrastructure, the economy and the governmental systems that are spinning out of control.
Damn, that was depressing, maybe I should be just a bit more up beat on a Sunday morning in paradise.
Parents are definitely to blame as well. Many will complain and threaten to sue if the school does not pass their brain dead, hop head child. The parents don’t care, so you really cant expect the child to care.
Well, I am in History 12 right now, and within one month left we had a couple hockey players finally join us. Turns out they where in the class the entire time, they where expected to read the textbook, and basically teach themselves up to the point they re-join. They did it, and are doing well in the class.
what ever happened to the idea that you learn more from your failures than your successes?
Maybe that is how the terrible schools are in your area Dvorak, I would love to see you run something by yourself. The school in my district are exceptional.
The school in my district are exceptional. Comment by Wayzata High
Cheese, I hope that’s a joke! 🙂
I think the real problem with education today is that everyone is distracted. Schools are distracted by budgeting problems (especially in my state which is running low on everything) and silly programs like nclb, Teachers are shackled by ridiculous rules and students that have little self-discipline, and students are distracted by everything but school (too much input from too many pointless places). I’d like to think the answer is something resembling boarding schools, where schools are basically walled off from the distractions of the outside world, but I doubt our society is disciplined enough to run enough of these institutions to make a difference.
I *do* believe that those who want to learn should be seperated from those who don’t. That is a fundamental flaw of public schools, since this is not practised.
I agree with all yeens!!!!!!!!