Ravenwood - 08/09/05 06:30 AM
A teacher's union in the U.K. has suggested that students no longer be given failing grades. Instead, teachers would give them "deferred success". The stigma of failing is just too much for kids to bear. It destroys their self esteem and pretty much ensures that when they fail later in life, they'll have no way to deal with it and will likely commit suicide in a cheap motel room.
The Professional Association of Teachers will be told at its meeting next week that the label of failure could undermine pupils' enthusiasm...Of course when I went to school, nobody got 'F's. Our grade system went A through E, which sparked many a quandry with the F-people.Liz Beattie, a retired teacher, will call on the association's annual gathering in Buxton, Derbyshire, to "delete the word 'fail' from the educational vocabulary to be replaced with the concept of 'deferred success'".
She argues that repeated failure, such as in exams, can damage pupils' interest in learning.
She told the Today programme on BBC Radio Four she had deliberately made the motion provocative to spark a good debate, but said it reflected the way the education system was developing.
"E's, what are those?"Of course in high school chemistry class, our teacher graded on a 10 point scale and didn't stop at 'E' or 'F'. Many a failing kid got 'G's, 'H's, or 'I's."It means you failed."
"No. F means you failed. E doesn't mean anything."
"Okay, so what does A mean?"
"Umm..."
Category: Fall of Western Civilization
Comments (2) top link me
yeah, right, its all for the kids and their best interest.
The fact that the teacher no longer has an annual failure rate attached to their personel file is just coincindence.
Eliminating the failure grade and replacing it with deferred success means that deferred success becomes
the new failure grade, with the same degradation attached. I suppose this concept is too simple for one educated beyond the ability to reason. As are all the teaahers in my family, with masters degrees.
When I was in elementry school, we had some weird grading system that was like CE, JA, UD, QD, BS. I can't remember how it went. I also went to about 7 different elementry schools, so I don't even remember which one it was. Whenever they would tell me my grades, I would say "Is that like an A or an F? Good or bad?" and they would tell me. I pretty much stopped paying attention because "Good" didn't mean shit and "Bad" didn't mean shit. I graduated High School with, like, .02 above what the bare minimum was for graduating in my county. Lot of good public school did me. I'm still smarter than almost every teacher I ever met, but according to grades, I'm a dunce. Go figure.
Posted by: Matt Groom at August 10, 2005 1:42 AM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
