Skip to main content

Home/ Praxis Commons/ Group items tagged reference

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
anonymous

Why Johnny Can't Fail: Grade inflation is only part of the problem - 0 views

www.osstf.on.ca/Default.aspx

education OSSTF teachers teaching equity policy freshaer

shared by anonymous on 04 Jun 09 - Cached
  • “You know there’s something wrong, when, as a teacher, you put more time and effort into the process of failing a student than the student has put into your class.” And, as for Johnny, there’s a further irony: not failing when he needs and deserves to, may prove more problematic for him than failing.
  • the principal calls in Johnny’s teacher. He tells her to give Johnny the opportunity to recover his credit by allowing him to redo a few assignments, including the ones he didn’t do, and hand them in whenever it is convenient—for Johnny. The teacher is up to her neck marking exams, preparing final reports and getting ready for the next semester that starts in three days. She leaves the interview distraught and disturbed: distraught about the extra work she is now expected to do and disturbed about having to compromise her professional principles. She decides to refer the matter to her Branch President.
  • Success becomes a function of the system in which the student has been immersed. Failure is understood as a function of the teacher who has allegedly not managed to convey the material or inculcate the appropriate behaviours in the student.” Accordingly, “students…will develop only the feeblest sense of individual obligation for their performance.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The inordinately complicated and refined nature of current “assessment and evaluation”—outcomes, expectations, rubrics, learning skills, achievement chart categories, assessment guidelines, and so on—partly explains why administrators are reluctant to tolerate failure: too much methodology, expertise and commitment has been invested for anything but success
  • When this becomes a systemic culture, the traditional and arguably natural principle of education is subverted: the school now finds itself adapting increasingly to its students. A school does this when, for example, it allows late assignments to go unpenalized, plagiarized essays to be rewritten, absolute deadlines to be repeatedly extended, unsubmitted work to be accepted after the semester is over, and obvious failures to be overturned. Students are quick to sense when those ultimately accountable for enforcing the standards of the school, its administrators, are soft; that so few students take advantage of this is a wonder.
  • anonymous on 04 Jun 09
     
    This article was published when I was completing my teaching degree here in Ontario. Many of us read it not as a critique of the system but of a new policy document (freshaer) that essentially allowed students to hand in materials into the summer. What benefit is this to students or teachers? How does it prepare students for reality (to allow them to skip months of classes and then hand in the work whenever they like)? Furthermore, is it fair to allow students to decide when they'd like to hand work in, forcing teachers into overtime labour to accomodate this?
  • anonymous on 04 Jun 09
     
    "You know there's something wrong, when, as a teacher, you put more time and effort into the process of failing a student than the student has put into your class." And, as for Johnny, there's a further irony: not failing when he needs and deserves to, may prove more problematic for him than failing.
anonymous

Critical Pedagogy on the Web: Home - 0 views

mingo.info-science.uiowa.edu/...page1.htm

pedagogy criticalpedagogy freire reference education

shared by anonymous on 04 Jun 09 - Cached
  • anonymous on 04 Jun 09
     
    This site has a dual focus, providing both a general overview of critical pedagogy--its definitions, history, key concepts, and major theorists--and links to other critical pedagogy resources on the web
1 - 2 of 2
Showing 20▼ items per page