Discussions
Should Students be Allowed to Fail?
Posted by ender • 8/15/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: dallas, education, grades, insanity, school, teachers, texas, u.s. school system
The Dallas school district has enacted a series of new rules which makes it virtually impossible for students to fail. They can re-take tests, only homework grades which will raise their average count toward that average, they can turn in homework late with no penalty.
I don't believe in zero tolerance policies, but what are we teaching students when they seemingly can't fail a course no matter how little work they do?
more info:
www.coyotethunder.com/RedMonkey/archives/2008/08/perhaps_i_am_si.html
I know the prevailing theory behind moves like this are to create students with high self-esteem - if they can't fail, they don't get that blow to their self-esteem. But is this really helping create strong and thoughtful adults?
User Comments
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I would say that's not beneficial for the students in the long run. Life doesn't always offer a fail proof plan or a second chance. It doesn't seem like an idea that would truly engage, challenge, or motivate. -
How will this prepare students for real world job situations, when contracts are won and lost on the ability to meet deadlines, and where employment itself can depend on it? -
Yours is an excellent post, Ender. As you know from my comment on your blog, I am dumbfounded. I had to blog about this myself on my history blog, because this has to be about the worst education policy I have ever seen.
edited to add: I bend over backwards to ensure student success, but there are limits that stem from the kinds of lessons we want to impart. -
The same kind of thing happened here in the UK, when New labour took power Blair's big election slogan was "I have three main priorities, education, education, education." ("War,war,war" isn't as voter friendly)
So what they did was pull a huge con trick they sold off the exam marking system into private hands and asked them to completely overhaul the system and surprise surprise every year since we have had record passes.
It has become so silly now that universities are demanding the government adds a grade called A star, it's the grade equivalent of one louder. -
What grades does this refer to? I remember back when I was in grade school, in the 70s it was a so-called "new" policy not to hold kids back a grade between the grades kindergarten to grade 8 unless it was an extreme situation, so that's nothing new.
As for high school, people could fail a course, but not an entire "grade" and you were required to have a certain amount of credits to graduate.-
By grades, Ender means the marks students receive in their report cards.
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Yes, but for what year? Grade 4, Grade 11?
I don't see it as anything new. I also remember that for certain courses in high school we could do 'extra' projects to raise our grade near the end of the year. That was helpful for those who maybe didn't do so well thru the year. I guess I just didn't see this as something new. -
But was it a school district policy or was it at the teacher's discretion?
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drowsey - the mark you get in a specific subject. so even tho you don't do well on your maths homework, none of those individual marks count toward your year-end overall grade.
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@ mark - I'm pretty sure it was policy. From grades 1 to 8 kids didn't "fail" the entire year, so it must have been a policy.
@ ender - what I'm saying, is here I don't think people "fail" in the grades before high school unless it's extreme, and in high school you can fail but you can also try to work something out with your teacher to bring your mark up, like a project, so you don't fail. I don't see the problem with that. But that's how it was when I was in school in the 70s.
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i suppose the next question, then, is how do these idiotic education policies get passed?
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And passed by professionals, not lay people who want to coddle their kids.
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I think you'll find that whether the students pass or fail it isn't going to make much of a difference to getting into university/college, or for that matter entering the job market. Employers and universities will simply adjust their intake methods, perhaps requiring a particular grade, or if this isn't shown on the end of high school certificate, then some kind of aptitude test. I doubt this spells the end of civilization, and if it helps struggling students become better citizens or parents because they don't have the emotional baggage of considering themselves stupid or failures then all power to the education system. We need more people with self-confidence than we need people who are dropouts.-
but does it *really* give students self confidence when they already know they can't fail?
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Universities in America, especially state universities, actually have remedial courses. San Jose State, for example, has a class called "100W" that everyone entering their junior year must take and pass, or they will not graduate. All juniors are tested before the beginning of the school year to assess their writing skills and only those who score extremely high are allowed to waiver the class. Of the 120 students with whom I took the class, only two of us waivered, the rest had to take the class.
There are other (no credit) remedial classes a student can take to bring their skills up as well. I think this is part of the reason high schools lack pressure to truly educate kids anymore. I entered college at the age of 38 and was horrified to find my first two years of university were a repeat of my last two years of high school (circa 1962-64), in one case using the same text!
Kids NEED to fail, especially in the lower grades. If they can't read or do their multiplication tables by the time they enter high school, it's too late. We learn more from our failures than our successes anyway, and a child who fails a grade in school sends a message to both parents and educators that he needs more attention that he is getting.
What we need to do is de-stimatize failure and come to view it as the valuable learning tool that it is.
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I have mixed feelings about this. I'm definitely not about passing kids just to boost their self-esteem or any of that touchy-feely crap that doesn't net any kind of concrete results, but here's the flipside: if a kid fails a test, misses a couple of homework assignments, and then finds himself in a position in which he can no longer pass the class, he has zero incentive to go back and catch up that work or to put any effort into the work in the future. Instilling discipline and a sense of deadlines and consequences and all that is important, but the primary goal is to make sure that the kids learns to read or to multiply or whatever is on the table, and at the end of the day a hard-line "sorry, you blew it" approach gives the kid no reason to do that. I suspect that that, more than the self-esteem issue, is the motivation here. I don't think what you describe is the way to fix it, but there's a downside to the traditional approach, too.-
oh i agree that the traditional approach is rife with problems. i just don't think this particular pendulum swing the other way is really a step in the right direction either.
of course, how do you create a set of rules saying that you can give a student who suddenly starts really trying in the second half of a semester or 6 weeks period a bit more weight than the stuff they turned in earlier? -
@Tiffany: But couldn't a school system proclaim a kind of philosophy to its teachers and continue to treat problems in context instead of issuing an automatic, consequences-free, get-out-of-jail-free card to the students and at the same time telling the teachers that the district doesn't trust them, not under any circumstances, period?
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they are trying to address the no motivation to try when they're behind as well. i'm not sure this policy works either, not because it gives a "bottom" grade but because it's not going to address every single case.
Last school year, Dallas' board of trustees reaffirmed a policy that prevented teachers from giving students a grade lower than a 50 in any one grading period. The reason given was that students who fall below 50 have no hope or motivation to bring up their grades and just give up.
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In the younger years, like grade school, is it done to boost self esteem or done to keep kids with their peers? I can't see how that boosts self esteem. I thought it was agreed by most that by failing a kid who is 11 and keeping the in a class 10 year olds wasn't beneficial to the kids.
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Moving kids to the next grade in elementary school is never going to hinge on a failure to do homework. But in high school people get credits for a certain number of courses in order to get their diploma. This system can make a mockery of that.
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the original article:
www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/081508dnmetdisdg...
it appears that this goes across all grades - kindergarten through high school.
trustees asked administrators to develop standardized grading rules for elementary, middle and high school teachers. -
Oh right. But I don't see how the same policy can affect all grades in the same way. That's another way in which the district seems to have lost touch with reality.
Just one example: Letter grades for Kindergarten? And those wee ones and their parents are supposed to stress about them?
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This policy, by the way, is strangely at odds with the whole "no child left behind" policy of the federal government, as it will promote progress without results. I''m not a fan of Bush's "no child...", but I wonder how Dallas thinks it's gonna square that circle.
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Tis a shame that schools and teachers can't go back to the old way of teaching.
Fail the kid if they aren't passing. Heaven forbid that they should actually learn something before being moved ahead.
Discipline should follow right behind.
I feel sorry for the teachers these days. Wouldn't want thir job for all the tea in China-
Which is why there's a shortage in the US.
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Being a teacher myself- it is a touchy spot. We have pressures to make sure EVERY child passes on grade level with 80%, even if they don't want too or the don't care. We have no ability to discipline (teachers are being sued for even talking loudly to students) and yet we are asked to do the impossible. It is tiring and frustrating- but it is my passion! I don't know what the answer is to the above question, but I know that kids in my class aren't "given" anything in the grade department- They EARN them!
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I've only ever taught adults, never children, and the courses I've taught (first aid, salesmanship, and lately English) are not subjects that require a pass or fail since every student takes something away from the lessons and it is better to have some knowledge than no knowledge.
The self-esteem and confidence building that I've seen in adult students who know they are going to receive a certificate is no different to those who know they might fail, but significantly when the students know they cannot fail they seem more committed to participating and having fun, and more than that, they seem better able to learn as well.-
I see the opposite dynamic in my history survey courses. I set up a system in which no one can fail if they do all the work conscientiously and come to class. And still some insist on failing by not turning in work, or not coming to class, or plagiarizing. The difference? My survey courses are not an elective. Students have to take them. This makes the experience more like what one deals with in high school.
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Hmmm, you raise a very good point about the difference between elective and mandatory courses. I guess elective students will always have more motivation to complete the course because they have a personal interest.
On the other hand, I have personal experience of training adults in a mandatory setting (sales) and found that it placed more onus on me to motivate the students, and if you can get to the heart of why they are there and what they get out of the course it is usually possible to give them the motivation to stick with the course and excel. I suppose my retainer was sufficient for me to want to do this, and perhaps in public education the retainer is not sufficient - and please, don't misunderstand me, I am well aware that most teachers become teachers because they love their jobs, however low remuneration often means low motivation to reach out. -
Isn't sales at least related to their jobs? I work to show the relevance of history and the associated skills I cultivate to students, but it's a tall order for some, say in sports management, nutrition, and computer science, just to pick a few examples.
There is also an age issue. Usually my mature students have a higher motivation than students who came straight out of high school. The older students know exactly why they have decided to come back to school and they have concrete expectations about what graduating will bring them. -
Another possible difference Carl: Are you just teaching subject matter are you dealing with basic skills related to reading, writing, and critical thinking?
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Is self esteem the real reason? Maybe it is at the grade school level, but I doubt it.
I know at the college level that "self esteem" and other sensitive, liberal-sounding terminology is used as a way of masking the real, rather conservative, reason that grades are inflated: the corporate university wants to keep customers happy and in the store.-
self-esteem is the clarion call i have heard repeatedly in school districts which make this type of move. i have not specifically heard it in the case of dallas, but i have in other places.
and, i heard a department head at a well-known university state that when a student writes a draft of an essay and hits print three more times for "drafts" two through "final," that it hurts their self-esteem to fail the class. after all they have a large looking stack of work and that work was worth "nothing"? never mind that they actually only wrote 1/4 of that stack .... -
Yes, that's what they SAY--my point is that it's not what they mean, at least not at the college level. I've worked with too many people who talked like social workers but owed their jobs to a keen instinct for watching the bottom line--making sure students kept paying tuition, even when it's obvious that they have no motivation and would be better off dropping out and working for a while.
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Since when don't people have to work to earn self-esteem? What does this do to kids who work hard and earn grades only slightly higher (or no higher) than the slackers? I don't just want kids to pass classes, I want them to learn both the material and the lesson that it feels good to work for something and achieve it. -
@drjay1966 ahh, yes, i see what you're saying now. in fact, the "keep them paying tuition" bit is why i'm no longer teaching ....
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I went back to university to do a masters in northern ireland, it became clear that you could hand in any old crap and you would get a pass mark, after a while I lost the motivation to do any decent work and would hand in work I wasn't pleased with, safe in the knowledge that it was enough to pass. Now I'm nearing the end and i can't help feeling I haven't learn anything useful and that they have de-valued their course.-
Thanks for that. I have noticed students who appreciate having to work hard. But they're often the older ones who know what life is like outside of school and university.
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Yeah you have to sacrifice alot more. Despite paying fees most of our resources are free on the internet(w3schools etc) make me wonder what i've paid for
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Absolutely, failure is as much a lesson as success. Not everyone is cut out to be good at everything.
Failure in one thing should show you where to head to succeed. The problem is that people don't teach choices and consequences.
Schools are treated like factory farms for college. People should be shown the opportunities out there, trade schools, military, etc.
People are not taught the consequences of their actions these days. Schools in the United States are less and less about learning to think. Colleges are turning into corporate factories designed to take your money. The cost structures rise so fast that it is easy to make a lot of money running a for profit college in the United States.
If you fail out of a for profit college, they lose money, so it becomes harder to fail all the way down the line.
The concept of a "liberal education" is gone... -
I see failure as a relative measurement. Even one pass, if one is the last person in the ranking, he/she is still considered a failure. That's how self-esteem works.-
True that. I've seen students feel bad because of their relative standing even though they earned a decent grade. My response: Ignore what others are doing and do the best you can.
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Did you really write "true that" as if it were a complete or rational sentence, or am I hallucinating? [shakes finger] Don't make me post about you.
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Say what?
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Bad dog!
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yes it is needy cause if a student doesn't have fear of being fail then will not study well. but this thinking may look wrong because it depends on the student's intrest too if having intrest then will surely pass that and will attain good marks too.
but as an indian student a student should have every type of knowlegde and should be all rounder too. -
What happens when these kids hit employment age? The first time they are fired...what will happen?
If a person is never allowed to fail, how will they ever know the true joy that comes with succeeding?
This type of "education reform" will create an incredibly large pool of mediocrity. -
I have a no nonsense approach to free education:
1) Respect
2) Uniforms
3) Discipline
4) One-on-one interviews between each student and their teacher(s) (every two weeks)
5) After school help, free tutoring
6) Music and Arts
7) Remove distractions from class. Includes clowns, bullies and aggressive students
8) Instill Pride
That should about do it.
Every person should be allowed to fail but then be shown how to succeed. A helping hand is not a hand out and the more we help our students the brighter futures they will have.-
I wish this could be the case (at least with most of your points), but alas it isn't. As a teacher, we simply do what we can (which for me is my VERY BEST!) to help the students be successful. Creating pride is something that is nearly impossible. I started a student council in our elementary as a way to get school spirit started. It is going on its third year, and still we have little pride to show for it! But, we keep moving on and work for the best!
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As someone who taught college...
Fail them... nothing says get your act together like a 0.0 on the transcript. -
The thing about failing is it teaches you how to get back up ... which is so important in life. It also teaches you early on that failure isn't the end of the world. In other words, you can rise above, learn something and be a better person for it. Not sure why people think failure is such a negative thing.
I mean I get why in the early grades they move kids ahead, but certainly not in high school. I failed math in grade nine ... that meant summer school and no TV for me. It actually ended up being one of my best summers as a teenager, for a variety of reasons. And I learned a lot from the experience, and not math. -
While I have always liked the idea that a student can make the extra effort (extra work, retaking a particularly bad test) to help their grades out, I don't think that school systems should "bail" the kids out of a failing grade, either.
Instead of doing that to bail the kids out, why not be more proactive, and as soon as a teacher realizes that a student is falling behind, contact the parents and work together to make sure the kid is actually learning in school before they start failing?
Seems like a better plan to me.-
That's how I handle it. One university I have worked for supports me in this effort. Another does not. Guess where I end up handing out more "F"s?
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I agree Anok, I mean it's not like you get to the end of the year an all of a sudden realize the kid is failing. I remember in my case, when I failed grade 9 math my father was more angry at the teacher (well, maybe not quite) but he was angry at him because he thought I was doing fine. He couldn't understand why the teacher hadn't tried to intervene ahead of time. And my parents attended all the parent/teacher meetings. I knew my tests scores were low ... but to be honest with you ... I really didn't think about it too much. Details ... they escape me. Serioulsy, how could I be expected to put 2 and 2 together ... ?? HA!
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that was actually something i used to do when teaching college - it was a rule in the dept and while i kind of wondered about it at first, i really, really liked it.
if a student looked to be in danger of failing i sat down with the student and we came up with a plan, a contract, of how they could salvage the semester. most of the time, the students created more extreme deadlines than i would have - and all but one student kept to all of that. -
Just recently, we had a big brouhaha about this with one of my brother's teachers.
Not only did the teacher fail to contact my mom and step dad when he started to do poorly (all because of homework, not lack of ability) but he failed again to contact the parents, send home any progress reports or do anything until he had already failed beyond repair. My brotehr, being cocky but not experienced enough to understand how it all works, figure dhis test scores and ability would keep him from failing, and thta homework didn't matter. SO he never realized he would fail because of this.
THEN when the 'Rents finally got the report card (Only one per semester, so it was about 3 days before graduation) they through a fit, requested a meeting with the teacher, and he blew them off.
Because of the negligence on the teacher's part, he was allowed to graduate, but he lost TWO $60k scholarships to one of the top colleges in the US because of it.
The damage has been done.
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Just curious Anok---not passing one marking period before graduation made him fail?, I assume a report card was passed out each sememster, and that if he was passing then failed one marking that he'd still graduate. However not aware of the graduation requirements there where he lives. In my state highschoolers who fail one class, class not sememster or marking period will not graduate, that's one class...so essentially a freshman who fails 9th grade english the first sememster has his graduation rights suspended or delayed unless he/she passes all classes or pays to take the class in summer school
Even with all those types of accomodations you will be amazed that there will still be students who will fail, I had a student who refused to do any work after the first marking period...he wouldn't even write his name on his work or be bothered to hand it in blank. Needless to say he failed and he didn't care-
I'm not entirely sure how it worked out, But it had something to do with the fact that he needed the credits from that class to graduate, and I guess they do credits by semester, not a cumulative grade for the year, or something.
Plus, we found that the teacher had marked him absent when he wasn't (which affects graduation as well, apparently) - all of his other classes netted high grades, and only a few absences, upon further investigation at my mother's request, we found out that basically the teacher had a "problem" with my brother, and essentially did what he could to make sure he "learned his lesson" (the teachers words, not mine). It was a pretty messed up situation, but the not reporting or working with parents is fairly common in that school, with the other teachers as well.
They have been treating the high school more like a college. -
ah I see , that makes me more sense
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Ender -
This could be a scheme to increase graduation rates for NCLB. Left you a comment on your blog.
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As a teacher myself the idea of students not failing if they are slack, underskilled or totally inadequate is bizarre
F for Friggin Hopeless-
acoustic are you a music teacher ?
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i used to be but only privately to hundreds of people over the years and have done guest spots in primary schools and written music curriculum for schools to be passed by the board of studies (Edu Dept)
Currently I teach Dip in Sys Admin, Dip in Comms and web Development this includes web stats,some of the students are presently working on stories for kids with Disabilities created in Flash. I specialise in Flash animation, particularly animation with scripts....that's a basic overview. I used to teach Blogger because I saw it as a way for non techie o have a web presence. Currently I'm developing music video tutorials as a product
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oh you can be my teacher anytime cutie
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:-)
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Sure - and in real life, when I write a scheit piece, I still get paid for it. I don't think so. This is the mind-set nowadays and everyone is buying into it. They now don't let classrooms compete even with label collecting at our school because if one class doesn't win, they'll feel badly. Sad. -
Being a parent, I would like to add my two cents in. If the child does poorly enough (like mine was this past school year) in our school system, they will fail. Even though the school went above and beyond in giving him the help that he really needed, he still failed.
Why? Because he refused to take advantage of the help that was offered to him. End result is that he's repeating his sophmore year in a special program that is guaranteed to make him a social outcast. If he can complete the work and pass it, he'll rejoin his classmates. If not, he'll be going to school on the five year plan.
I'm not saying my son is an idiot, because he's not. He's truly a bright and gifted individual. It's just he's a bona fide slacker, and he's paying the price for his laziness.-
at some schools, yes. at others - they'll pass such students anyway.
i had a student that i offered to help - said i would go to the library with him and show him how to do the kind of research he needed. he never took me up on it. i offered several times. nope, he could do it himself, despite the fact that the drafts of his paper were very sub-par and i let him know that.
he earned an F.
the dean and my dept head made me change the grade simply based on the fact that he'd hit print four times and well, that looked like a lot of work, all those papers in one stack. (never mind that he made few, if any, changes from draft to draft.)
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That's JUST what we need: More stupid people with high school diplomas! Let's take potential jobs away from college students. Brilliant! >:[ -
What's the point of education then? They should hand out free degrees because they would otherwise become meaningless. I am working in a system where students practically can't fail, here in Mexico, and it is frustrating as a teacher. Here you can take extraordinary exams until you pass or they get tired of you and pass you. So, definitely bad idea. -
What?
I'm sorry, did I understand you to say that your dept head and dean made you change the grade because he "hit print four times"?
What kind of nonsense is that? That's like me doing an overpayment for someone (I do payroll for a living), and making up the amounts as I go along.
Can you imagine what my boss would say if I handed in sub-standard work like that?
Can you imagine what this kid's potential employer would say? "Here kid, there's the sink and those are the dishes that need to be cleaned. Get to work."-
yep. cuz looking at that stack of papers made it look like a lot of work. and you know, if it looked like a lot of work, then obviously it was. and obviously then, they should pass. i mean after doing all that work.
pfft.
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This is not the first stupid educational policy to come out of Texas. They are well known for their bad policies, ever since they instituted a policy, in the early 90's, which allows many students to pass by sharing the credit for work done by other students.
What they do is pool the work for the entire class, and if it reaches a certain level, the entire class is passed. This is what "No Child Left Behind" really means.
In other words, Johnny can't read because he is encouraged not to learn. He is taught that he doesn't have to learn because Jane is a hard worker and he can just take credit for her work and pass. The whole class is passing because a few kids like Jane.
Jose doesn't have to learn English, because Jane is fluent in English. Jose can keep speaking Spanish and never learn English, and just take credit for Jane's skills, as the whole class passes based on Jane's knowledge.
But how long can that last? Eventually Jane will become smart enough to realize that she doesn't have to work so hard and she will begin to slack off. She will begin to act stupid to avoid having to do the extra work that is required for the whole class to pass.
Think about it. Put yourself in her shoes. How long would you work hard, while 30 other kids sit back and do nothing, taking credit for your hard work? You could sit back and do nothing just like them and let some other sucker do the work, for a change.
Eventually, the dumbing down won't be an act for Jane, though. She will have deliberately passed up enough opportunities to learn, that she will go from being above average to being below average. Skills not used are lost, or even worse, never learned. She will have dug herself an educational hole, with a Texas Department of Education issued shovel.
So how do you get Jane to start doing her work again? How about letting her turn in homework late? How about making wrong answers not count against her on tests.
This new Texas policy isn't to build self esteem. It's to undo the damage they have done with their past policies that encouraged kids like Jane, not to work hard. They think they have to do things like this to get kids to work at all, now.
What a fine mess Texas has made, and keeps on making. It is to the point where they can't get the kids to rise up to a certain acceptable level, so they will just lower the bar and give them a chair to stand on, to reach it.
Texas is the same state that issued "standardized tests" of basic skills, back in the early 90's, with multiple choice math questions similar to the following:
4 + 5 =
a. 9
b. 12
c. I would use a calculator
d. none of the above
If you thought the correct answer was "a", then you would have got that one wrong. The only acceptable answer that a student would have received credit for in Texas, was "c".
Texas doesn't think students need to know how to add any more, as long as they know that they can use a calculator. How is that for lowering the bar?-
app -- this was coming long before that even. i grew up in texas and watching the crazy policies being enacted was what made me decide i'd rather teach at the college level instead of in the public school system. ultimately, it wound up not making a difference.
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Jane won't be below average, because the average will be plummeting even faster than she does.
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It's not just kids. We don't even want to come out and say it when adults fail at work anymore... We make stupid noises about "areas of improvement", "having heart" and "determination" right up until we fire them.
Seems they would be better off if we had addressed their shortcomings as shortcomings and they still had their job after addressing them.-
I agree with that, 100%. The mambsy pambsy boss technique harms the company, AND the employees.
We just went through that with my husband. He had a seasonal layoff (normal) and instead of having some chutzpah to tell him when he left that his year end review was only so-so, or speaking to him directly at the time about corrections he could have corrected, they lead him on until it was time to rehire, then lead him on some more.
He passed up some good gosh darn jobs out of loyalty to an employer that had no intention of brining him back. Why? Well we're not really sure why they decided to hide the facts from him, probably didn't want a "confrontation" or some other such nonsense. He could have improved his work performance, he could have found another job right away instead of waiting SIX MONTHS at the promise of getting his job back...
Meh it was all for teh better anyway, he found a better place to work -
Because they are weak managers. The number one thing that managers do about something they see as a problem with their employees is nothing. And the number one reason good employees leave their jobs is their managers. That is not a coincidence.
Interestingly, people working for weak managers often do not even understand what is happening to them and fear stronger managers. The crew that works for me loves their jobs and happily does what it takes to get the job done and do it right. People in other departments frequently ask them how they can work for me, and they don't get why these people ask them that because they are the only department that has zero external quality defects this month in the whole operation. They don't have higher management examining them. They are much more positive about their work and their work place, because they know that if I have a problem with something, we will work together to fix it. -
For once, we agree on something
When I was in management (DON'T mock me ) I acted in much the same way...if there was a problem, it was addressed as soon as humanly possible. I made the responsibilities and expectations crystal clear, and when I left, my employees left with me. (Not because I asked them to, but because the other manager was what you call a weak manager).
I won't lie, I can be a b*tch to work for, but in the end, I work just as hard (I'm hands on) and I'm fair, and honest. Just ask my husband, he was one of my employees many moons ago - and he stills works for me today *ahem* -
I would never mock you.
Make clever remarks about anarchy and procrastinating authors, sure, but mock you, never.
Thing is that this is a principle that extends far beyond the "workplace" it is the same with families at home and any other social organism. People must know what is expected, how they are preforming within that expectation and how they can improve performance.
Want to see real self esteem Look at the face of someone who realizes they have begun to consistently perform successfully at some task that they formerly failed at consistently.
PS. If they had never been told that they had been failing, they would never have had the opportunity to come to this realization. What a tragedy, that. -
I agree, I treat my at home mothering career the same way - only toddler sized -
It's like kids' sports. At some point, you have to stop telling them that every attempt was a "good try" and start helping them to actually catch the dang ball. My son is a whole lot more proud of himself for working every day to be able to do a stable handstand than he would be if he fell over every time and I praised him anyway.
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The idea of not allowing kids to fail is a symptom of the deterioration of the education system. Not allowing kids to fail in school just sets them up for failure in life. You learn through failure. What motivation is there to improve if you know you can't fail?
It's no wonder we are raising illiterates. -
Personally, I don't think school is challenging enough. I was bored out of my mind in highschool. College was better, but it was still relatively easy.
No one likes it if you let them win a game. They want to win on account of their own prowess. -
When a student fails, is it a sign of the student failing or a sign of the teacher failing? It's hard to know which factor is at fault. Impacted classrooms, shortcomings in educational funding, I believe these are all issues at fault. Not every child needs the same attention, some need more than others, and it's not always there for them. I seriously believe that more often than not a teacher or an entire educational system fails the student, not the other way around. -
When I was in high school I put in a lot of time and effort to fail as many subjects as possible. I would've been very upset if all my hard work had been rewarded with only a C or D. -
Failure is an unavoidable part of life.
It is also an important part of life.
What you described sounds like cheating to me.
It's the same damn silliness where child sport teams never lose.
Every game ends with both teams as the winner and every child as a winner. -
there's another angle to this. What about the children/young adults who do the work, study hard, apply themselves, and earn the grades they deserve only to see someone less deserving receive an equal grade.
To me this falls in line with the "no one wins, no one loses" approach. How do we teach our children to work hard for a goal if we then tell them we're going to reward someone else for not applying themselves and give them all equal treatment?
For me this was a split topic. I have one son who struggled in school, goofed off a bit too much, and barely passed. My other son studied hard, made high honor roll from grade 4 and up.-
I agree.
This leveling of the playing field crap doesn't work and never will.
It simply is the slanting of the playing field toward the non-productive or the struggling.
The struggling need assistance not shortcuts and special favors.
Those who piss off need to be made to understood how it is they may well be tampering with their own future.
Those who don't give a crap need to go away so that they are not a distraction or impedance to others.
In my family I was the kid who struggled and goofed off, my brother was the one who made honor roll.
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I'd be curious to read an updated article on how these policies are actually working out. Personally, I support them because I think the competition and focus on success in our culture does more to harm kids than lack of knowledge or a poor education.
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Yes. As an ex-middle school teacher I really feel there has to be consequences and if we move or change that "bar" we take away those learning events in kid's lives. You fail and have to retake it you know you don't want to do that again! -
YES! -
My sister is a teacher and her school has similar policies, but a student can still get an F. They have every opportunity not to fail though, so if they do it's because they were completely lazy. The idea behind these policies in not to help their self esteem. The main reason for the policies is to encourage learning. For example, when a student is given the opportunity to retake a test they will learn what they didn't get the first time. -
If schools were truly meant to educate children this would indeed be unacceptable. Since, however, they are NOT meant to create free thinking, autonomous adults who are deeply connected with their own sense of reason, spirit and body... this is not a problem in the scheme of things.
Food For Thought: www.rense.com/general33/sheeple.htm -
The whole education system is messed up. Education should be personal and seen as a religious like institution. Philosophy and literature should be the top subjects and they should be taught a personal one on one, meeting only once every three weeks with their teacher to go over their personal studies on the subject(relating those subjects to their interests) children need to be given respect and allowed to thrive by themselves, and in this way they will be made into beings who will go out into life always wanting to learn, because learning has always been associated with their own interest, and they have been allowed to follow their own heart. Not some mechanical nervous system of thought and curriculum like is currently in place and turning out stunted retards like burger patties at the McDonalds factory. -
I come from the old school where every student was tested and passed or failed on their knowledge. If you have never failed how will you ever understand what success is. Great people got where they are because they learned from their failures. Not allowing students to fail will breed a society of failures.
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