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Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material

nytimes.com

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Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material

#71

Post by russell_h »

matwood wrote: post #67
russell_h wrote: post #28

One of my favorite memories from high school was from my AP physics class. One of the junior class valedictorians (there were at least 3 girls, all very liberal arts focused, tied for the position at the time) got a C on a test that accounted for a major portion of our grade. After class on the day we got our tests back, she approached the teacher and explained to him that she had never gotten a C before and was gene…

One of the junior class valedictorians (there were at least 3 girls, all very liberal arts focused I wasn't aware that a student could even focus on liberal arts in HS. When I was in HS there was some class choice at the high end, but every student had to take some sort of math, english, and social studies every year.

At my school the "honors program" was very liberal arts focused. But, with the grading I described above, the good students got straight A's, so the valedictorian was the person (or usually people) who managed to take the most AP classes. Only the easier, not calculus based, version of AP Physics was offered, so it wasn't that hard and a lot of the top students took it.

The councilor told me the average AP Physics test score was slightly above a 2. Calculus (AB - the differential/integral only version) test scores were in that range as well, despite most students getting As in both classes.

Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material

#72

Post by lukeschlather »

jdietrich wrote: post #58

The job of schooling isn't to teach skills and knowledge, it's to teach deference and compliance. I can prove this quite straightforwardly. Imagine how our system would treat a student who aced every test, completed every assignment perfectly, but who habitually truanted and generally refused to toe the line. If schools were simply a place of teaching and learning, such a student should face no problems, but in most…

That's backwards. Teachers do not force students to be compliant. On the contrary, parents and school administrations force teachers to be compliant when their students ask to be allowed not to work as hard.

If schools were teaching deference and compliance, you wouldn't have such a student who is truant yet aced every test.

The truth is our schools aren't teaching much of anything, and it's partially because of the attitude you outline in your post - everyone believes that their child is that exceptional student who despite being an arrogant prick and never showing up to class, is still brilliant. Consequently they raise hell until teachers relent and give their children good grades. Now, of course this is less likely to happen with the aforementioned truant child, because the teacher has something concrete to point to as to why the child is undeserving. In the case of the child who shows up every day and does work yet is not learning, the teacher has nothing to tell the parents other than the truth - and the truth will cause the teacher a world of grief.

Of course, really, parents don't have to actually cause trouble. The assumption that every child is deserving of good grades has been institutionalized, so teachers have to have wills of iron to go in year after year and risk parental attacks.

Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material

#73

Post by lukeschlather »

anthuswilliams wrote: post #54
nutmeg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note on side note: CNAs are not nurses.

Duly noted (and upvoted). I should have made it more clear--my belief is that their actions reflect poorly on the RN who supervises them.

Leadership abilities can't really be taught, and are always in short supply. It's hard to make the people around you more effective at their jobs.

Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material

#74

Post by forgotAgain »

What's new here? My experience as a parent confirms the truism that schools are run for the benefit of the adults: teachers, administrators, and parents.

More then half the parent teacher meetings I've been to (K through 12) where with teachers who I would fire if they worked for me. Having achieved six figure salaries by surviving school politics they contribute as little as possible to their students while punching their ticket each year until retirement. The good teachers are not rewarded but penalized for not going along with policies created to benefit administrators.

Having excelled at politics as a teacher the administrators are interested in nothing more than having days without problems. A day where everyone behaves and follows the rules is the quest. Parents seeking accountibility from schools are a problem. I have never seen an administrator hold a teacher accountable for not doing their job of teaching the students.

The adults who are not in the discussion yet for improving schools are the parents. Every slackard kid has a slackard or absent parent. Too many parents see school as a babysitting service allowing them to concentrate on more important things.

My primary objection to the article is the statement that the main reason students don't succeed in college is that they are unprepared. The main reason kids don't succeed in college is because they don't belong there. Too many adults teach college as the 13th grade. Kids go there because it's the path of least resistance. Kids who were unmotivated in school are not going to be magically motivated just because they are now in a junior or four year college.

Johnny can't do university because all through his life the adults didn't give a shit. They were only looking out for themselves.

Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material

#75

Post by shadowfox »

bradley wrote: post #39
solson wrote: post #26

Watch out, I am going to generalize here... In my experience, in the US, EMPLOYEES in marketing, sales, management, finance, and operations do much better if they have high "life/social" skills even when their level of intelligence or knowledge are lower than others. However, this pattern doesn't fit IT/software and engineering (hard sciences) where creativity and knowledge are required. Some of the best engineers ha…

> The question we need to ask about education: > What are we trying to produce? K-12 education as we know it today was first mandated/implemented by the King of Prussia in the 1860's to jump into the Industrial Revolution. We sent envoys to study and copy his schools. He sought 3 products: Compliant citizens, efficent factory workers, and obedient soldiers. We in the US have added a 4th purpose: free day care so both…

Has the goals remained the same for the past 150 years?

Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material

#76

Post by steveklabnik »

matwood wrote: post #66
enjo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is just ridiculous.

Not necessarily. Do you think most programs for a programming classes are written during the exams? What if a student passed every programming exam with an A, but never wrote a complete program and turned it in during the class?

This was a math class. The homework was just hundreds of problems that were just like the ones I aced.

Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material

#77

Post by yequalsx »

matwood wrote: post #65
yequalsx wrote: post #19

I teach mathematics at a community college. Every year the administration sends to my department statistics on how many people pass our classes. We're told to come up with strategies to increase the passing rate. I haven't had a pay raise in over two years. My strategy for increasing the passing rate is to give points for things a well trained monkey could do. I give points for coming to my office. I give points for…

We're told to come up with strategies to increase the passing rate. This may be a valid request, but it's impossible to know without more information. If we take your total pool of students we can probably break them down into 4 groups 1) Intelligent and motivated 2) Intelligent and unmotivated 3) Not intelligent and motivated 4) Not intelligent and not motivated Nearly all students in 1) should be passing while near…

This semester I'm teaching 8th grade level algebra. At a community college this is typically the second most populated course for the math department. Pre-algebra is the number 1 course. I have two students. Call one of them A and one B.

A is 27 years old, never had algebra in high school and hasn't had math in 10 years. She's going to college because her hands have arthritis and she can't continue to cut hair (her current profession) for much longer. I'm trying to teach her in one semester stuff that took me a year to learn when I was in eighth grade. I told her the class was going to be tough. I told her it would require a lot of effort on her part and that it would be frustrating. Her response was, "Well, I have a life outside of school and work and I'm not going to sacrifice it." I knew then she would fail. She dropped a few weeks ago.

B is Hmong barely speaks English, has 7 kids, a job and never went to school as a child. She's getting an A.

Is A's failure my fault? Is B's success my fault?

My experience is that groups 2, 4 as you label them are a large majority of the students I encounter. I can't force a student to be willing to sit down and do problems. And algebra is a subject that requires you to do problems to get it. If a student isn't motivated there isn't much I can do.

Learning is work. It requires effort. It's frustrating. Students at my college, for the most part, are not willing to go through the frustration, effort, and work necessary to learn. I'm a bad motivator. I've tried to be a better motivator. I believe strongly in the correctness of the Chinese proverb:

A teacher can only open the door to the house of knowledge, he can not make you enter.

Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material

#78

Post by hugh3 »

j_baker wrote: post #35
ghurlman wrote: post #4

This is in no way anything new; not in the US at least.

It is new for school systems to actually recognize the phenomenon though.

From what I've heard about what school was like prior to, say, 1960 ("sit up straight or you'll get the cane!") old-school schools would have embraced the idea that their job was to teach good behaviour as well as academic skills. It is, perhaps, a shame that some of this has been lost.

Re: Many teachers...grading...for compliance - not for mastering course material

#79

Post by cookiecaper »

anthuswilliams wrote: post #27
yequalsx wrote: post #19

I teach mathematics at a community college. Every year the administration sends to my department statistics on how many people pass our classes. We're told to come up with strategies to increase the passing rate. I haven't had a pay raise in over two years. My strategy for increasing the passing rate is to give points for things a well trained monkey could do. I give points for coming to my office. I give points for…

I attend a podunk university in southern Utah, where college life resembles an episode of 'Community', and the phenomenon you describe is apparent. 60% of the students are seeking acceptance into the nursing program. The school claims it is one of "the top nursing schools in the country". This claim is based on their graduation rates (for those accepted, around 80%). The school inflates their graduation rates by lean…

I went to the ER at IHC recently. I received two hydrocodone during my stay. I was billed $5 for them. Not directly related, but I found this pretty lame and wanted to comment.
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