Ban 'Fail' from Classrooms 1

[CajunCenturion]

Get ready to e-mail this one to your friends...

Is this for real?

Good Luck
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[aardvark92]

Here's hoping the group will have, um, deferred success with their proposal.

 

[jrbarnett]

It sounds about right knowing the English educational system.

GCSE qualifications (those taken at age 16 in the UK) are graded from A*-G and U. Grades A*-C are generally considered to be equivalent to the old "O level" passes A-C (which GCSEs superseded several years ago) and are generally considered by employers to be pass grades.
Moreover, an A-C grade is often a prerequisite for entering advanced education, although strictly speaking anything up to G is a pass.
U stands for Unclassified.

My mum works as a teaching assistant in a secondary school with students who have a variety of problems (both mental and physical), who would be more likely to get the lower level grades. From what I've heard, some of them would be upset to be told that they have failed a particular subject, even though they know that they are not academically bright.
GCSE results day is the fourth Thursday in August, so we'll see what happens then.

John

 

[SilentAiche]

[green]Dearest Child,

You don't suck at school.. you just sort of, um "Hoover."

ORECK

(Eye gnu, 'em, eye tell ya...)

(there's a "pupil" link here, I swear)[/green]

Tim

[blue]_____________________________________________________
If you need immediate assistance, please raise your hand.
If you are outside of Raleigh, raise your hand and say[/blue] [red]Ooh! Ooh![/red]

 

[SF0751]

This reminds me of the red pen story. Some teachers and principals in the US no longer use the color red to grade papers - they now use other colors "... featuring more "pleasant-feeling tones" so that their instructional messages do not come across as derogatory or demeaning."

Susan
"'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'"
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lost Road

 

[tsdragon]

Life just gets sillier and sillier. And we're supposed to be an advancing civilization?

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[Lightning]

Unfortunately, some Teachers in Australia have been exhibiting this type of behaviour for years, although it isn't an official policy.

One of my kids' primary school teachers told me at a Parent-Teacher interview that generally they won't correct spelling errors in essays because the children's "delicate psyche might be damaged, which could turn them against schoolwork altogether". And she said it with a straight face.

Tracy
If you consider historical precedents (in particular the Roman Empire), the incessant border wars, the arrogance of the leaders towards their people, the declining standards, etc all point towards a civilisation in its declining years, rather than an advancing one.

Lightning

 

[craigsboyd]

If I ever have a huge project fail miserably for one of my customers, I think I now know what I will tell them...

"Hey, Hey... now let's put this whole thing in perspective ok? I mean this million dollar project wasn't a failure... geez, what are you trying to do? Hurt my self-esteem? It was obviously a deferred success! And Uh, here's your latest invoice. Have a nice day!"

SweetPotato Software Website
My Blog

 

[TheRambler]

good idea!

For those kids who are regularly deferring their success, I would like to propose to ask them "how young are you?" instead of "how old are you?". It is all about possitive thinking.

By the way, I am 80 years young.

 

[tsdragon]

Good idea Craig, my boss will LOVE that one!

Lightning: That's why I said "supposed to be an advanced civilization". I was being facetious.


Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[rosieb]

jrb - going back a "few" years, "O" levels had 5 grades: A,C & E were passes, F was a fail and H was utterly abysmal.

I'm proud to say that I didn't get a single F, I managed a proper H, twice (for Latin). Mind that was in the days when the Latin teacher felt quite comfortable hurling a blackboard rubber at those not paying full attention.

Rosie
"Never express yourself more clearly than you think" (Niels Bohr)

 

[BobRodes]

I never failed; I found a thousand ways it wouldn't work.

T. A. Edison

Sounds like the Brits are considering Americanizing their educational system. The next step to avoiding failure is to dumb down the curriculum. Let's hope that doesn't happen. I learned more in my 2 years in the British school system (blackboard "rubbers", ear boxings and all) than I did in the 3 high school years afterwards in the US. The British educational system is a model, at least in terms of curriculum and pedagogical method. (I do not mean to include the abusiveness that was a part of the system when I was there as a "pedagogical technique", and I do understand that that has altered considerably since I was there 30 years ago.)

Bob

 

[BobRodes]

By the way, I read recently of a man who was designing training materials for a company here in the US. In his memo regarding the training materials, he spoke of "pedagogical value." A week later, he was called into the HR office and told he was fired. When he pressed as to the reason, he was told that a VP had become furious at his use of "perverted" language. The word "pedagogical" had been circled in red on the VP's copy; apparently, she understood it to mean "pedophilic." The HR guy said it was ok, he'd handle it, got her a dictionary and showed her the word. At which point, of course, a memo came down saying that company correspondence would have no words that were not in a 10th grade dictionary. The fellow resigned a month later.

Let's hope this will never happen in England.

Bob

 

[TheRambler]

I've read that too, here:
great quotes heard around the world...tell me what you've heard!
thread1256-1079035

12. As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company's training programs and materials. In the body of the memo in one of the sentences I mentioned the "pedagogical approach" used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR director's office, and told that the executive vice president wanted me out of the building by lunch.

When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn't stand for perverts" (pedophilia?) working in her company. Finally, he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired - and the word "pedagogical" circled in red. The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later, a memo to the entire staff came out directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper. (Taco Bell Corporation)

 

[Thadeus]

Bob, I don't mean to quibble, but speaking about the current education system and then using your personal anecdote from 30 years ago, is like speaking about the quality of American cars when the last one you owned was a Ford Pinto.

~Thadeus

 

[yanqui]

I think the wizarding world got it about right:

"O for Outstanding, the highest grade
E for Exceeds Expectations
A for Acceptable, the lowest passing grade
P for Poor
D for Dreadful
T for Troll or terrible which is the correct name for this grade "

Thanks, Ms. Rowling.

The wizarding world just doesn't care about tender feelings; if it doesn't do the job, it's garbage.

 

[tgreer]

The software industry has once more demonstrated that it's years ahead of everyone else. We don't speak of "bugs" in my shop, but rather, of "undocumented features".



Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

http://www.brownfedora.com

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting

 

[sbudzynski]

yanqui i like the letter grades and their meanings

But knowing the "PC" world we live in I am positive it will become a "deferred success".

How dare we demoralize trolls! Also the name Troll is demoralizing, how do we expect them to live a successful life?

Any ideas for a more PC name for a Troll?

hahaha

Steve Budzynski
Metro Office Products Inc

http://www.metoffpro.com

 

[BobRodes]

Why, I disagree with you Thadeus. I'm quite sure that quibbling is exactly what you mean to do.

All kidding aside, if anything, our system in America is farther behind the rest of the world now than it was then. We've spent the last 30 years dumbing down our curriculum so that nobody will fail, with the result that everyone's failing.

Bob

 

[tsdragon]

Any ideas for a more PC name for a Troll?

How about:

Subterranean individuals
Subterrenes
Sub-bridge dwellers (those that dwell under bridges)

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.