Tags for "Grades"
Posted on Nov 06, 2009 - 09:58 PM by Claire Russell in Pulse
Hi, my name is Claire Russell. I am a freshman at a mainstream public high school in rural Maine. I attended a "Waldorf-inspired" alternative school from the moment I walked into my first day of kindergarten, until the day I graduated from eighth grade last June.I loved school. Every minute of it. There wasn't a day when I thought it was a drag to go to school. It was perfect for me. We learned to learn. My teachers taught to teach. We weren't tested, graded or analyzed. I had a second family of twenty-four kids my age and a teacher who probably knew me better than I knew myself at most times. The thought of leaving broke my heart a little every time I thought about graduation. It seemed... District nixes cash-for-grades fundraiser
Posted on Nov 11, 2009 - 07:33 PM by Darren Schwindaman in News Feed
A $20 donation to Rosewood Middle School would have gotten a student 20 test points - 10 extra points on two tests of the student’s choosing. That could raise a B to an A, or a failing grade to a D.
Susie Shepherd, the principal, said a parent advisory council came up with the idea, and she endorsed it. She said the council was looking for a new way to raise money.
“Last year they did chocolates, and it didn’t generate anything,” Shepherd said.
Shepherd rejected the suggestion that the school is selling grades. Extra points on two tests won’t make a difference in a student’s final grade, she said.
It’s wrong to think that “one particular grade could change the entire focus of nine weeks,” Shepherd said.
Posted on Dec 04, 2009 - 01:51 PM by Kristan Morrison in democracy.edu
The semester is winding down for my teacher education students and me. We are all filled with that sense of anticipation that comes when you see hard work reaching an end. It is at this time each semester that I start gathering my thoughts about changes I want to make to my courses for the new semester, and it is at this time when I ask my students to give me advice and feedback on how things went for them in my class. Inevitably, the conversation comes around to the reading responses -- the weekly written assignments where students give evidence of having read and processed the assigned texts.Each week, I give students anywhere from 25 to 50 pages to read for class and I ask them to... Bullied by a Role Model
Posted on Dec 20, 2009 - 05:00 PM by Claire Russell in Pulse
I write today from my heart, which, like my head is very confused and upset. I have been at my new school for nearly three months and I am happy to report I have not once been bullied, or teased -- until today. We all went through getting teased when we were children, and I have to admit I even did my fair share of teasing when I was young too, but it's an easy thing to fix. When you're teased as a child, you run to your teacher for comfort and advice. The scary thing is, this time the bully was my teacher.It was the end of the day and I was walking with my friend to basketball practice. My teacher stood in the hall. I called to him, "So, did I get an A on that assignment?" in a joking... Don’t Call it a Comeback
Posted on Dec 21, 2009 - 10:47 PM by Ammerah Saidi in The Learning Curve
I've been gone a while--I know. But such is the nature of democratic education. Let me explain.If you've read my previous entries, I hope it was clear that I had a vision for my classroom and I was going to strive to make this vision a reality. The path had been set and the last time we communicated, I believed that I needed to condition my students to be unconditionable. I quoted Audre Lorde and questioned her belief that we could not use the master's tools to dismantle the master's home.
So several weeks later and after lots of reflecting, I'm totally retracting my statements. As adamant as I was that my students needed to be conditioned through the use of grades and external... Reverse Pressure: The Pressure to Fail
Posted on Jan 10, 2010 - 05:20 PM by Claire Russell in Pulse
In schools across America, young teens walk their halls with the heavy burden of perfection always upon them. Whoever instills this need for being flawless is often the one pushing young people. Their parents, their teachers, their family. However, at my school there is a new kind of pressure that is exceedingly different from the classic one: The pressure to fail.Meeting the status quo. That's what it's all about. Don't do too well, don't stand out. Kids use the term “rebel” fairly often in my school. In dictionary terms, this means someone or a group of people who rise up against the government. In my school, it's someone who fails. Someone who steals. Someone who is not in a good place... Test Stress
Posted on Jan 20, 2010 - 10:05 PM by Alison Bagg Brink in ImprovEducation
EEEK! Finals!
Finals…I type ‘em, they take ‘em. They stress, I correct.
No, it is much more than that. I sit down and try to create a test that is fair and relevant. I pull from the most important Spanish grammar concepts, the most used (or useful) vocabulary I have taught, and the most interesting stories we have read, and create questions that get to the heart of the matter.
I am required by my school to provide a culminating task that is relevant to the class. I am required by my department to provide a written test. I have nearly two hundred students. To maintain any sanity at all, I give a multiple guess final. Oh, make that multiple choice…
Supposedly, if students do well on...
Lessons from Piano Lessons: Musings on Intrinsic and Extrinsic MotivatorsPosted on Mar 10, 2010 - 11:17 AM by Kristan Morrison in democracy.edu
I am going to deviate this month in my blog from my usual teacher perspective and instead discuss things from a student perspective. Why? Because I have recently been inhabiting the role of a student and it is making me re-examine some assumptions I have had about motivation to learn; specifically - are extrinsic motivators wholly bad (as somewhat suggested by Alfie Kohn in his book Punished By Rewards
)?I have always wanted to play the piano - especially after seeing the movie The Piano (don't get me started on Harvey Keitel - hubba hubba, rrrrhrahwrrr). I finally told my spouse that for a holiday gift I would like piano lessons. So, he bought me ten lessons with a local teacher. I... Success or Just a Broken Promise?
Posted on Mar 22, 2010 - 08:00 AM by Claire Russell in Pulse
Before the beginning of this school year, I made a promise to myself. I vowed that no matter what happened in my new school or whatever experiences I would have or problems I would encounter, I would not change who I was or what I believed in.As the summer came to a close and the fifth of September rolled around, it seemed so surreal, it almost seemed like my class and I might actually just meet in our little classroom, and embrace each other like we did every year, and say how much we missed everyone, and have many conversations about all our adventures that summer. But it become apparently clear that this was not how it was going to happen. And somehow I ended up in a brand new school... “Man, this class is pugnacious!”
Posted on Sep 11, 2010 - 04:33 PM by Ammerah Saidi in The Learning Curve
I saw my students for the first-time this past week. I've been preparing for their arrival, metaphysically, since man was first created; philosophically, since I was born; and officially since teacher training started on August 16th
Things quickly got heavy with my new eighth graders as soon as I passed out the class syllabus which contains the following paragraphs (selected because they caused the loudest sighs of exasperation and/or shouts of defiance from my students):
*CRITICAL INFORMATION* “C” is the default grade for any assignment, NOT an “A” since an “A” means going over and beyond what is requested of the skill and requires further independent research from the student. See...A Fifteen-Year-Old’s Perspective on Testing
Posted on Jan 13, 2011 - 12:18 AM by Claire Russell in Pulse
Hello Everyone!Here I am, it is 12:20 in the morning on January 13th 2011, and I am doing homework. Today was a snow day, and I, instead of staying home and doing homework all day, made the somewhat irresponsible decision of going out to my friend's house and having a snowball fight and making a snowman and laughing the whole day away. And now I am mad at myself for it. But, before I fall into such a pit of self loathing, I have to ask myself, why? Why is it so dreadfully important that I, a social fifteen-year-old, stay home out of the beautiful snowy weather and study? And at what point did I become so deeply involved in school that I would be so disappointed in myself for something... Soothing Hymn of My Eagle Mother
Posted on Jan 31, 2011 - 12:08 AM by Susan Chen in Op-Education
Like Amy Chua, my mother is Chinese and wants her daughter to succeed. She genuinely cares about my education and invests in my future. She wants me to maximize my time around productive activities and minimize my time dawdling. Like Amy Chua, my mother believes in my potential for growth and excellence.However, I was allowed to have sleepovers. My B's were tolerated. I did not have to be a star musician or come in first in every math and science competition. I was permitted to pursue my interests and excel through passion. Because of my mother's love, I was able to graduate from Stanford University this past June.
My mother is an eagle mother.
Like an eagle, she is able to have a... Alfie Kohn: “It’s bad news if students are motivated to get A’s”
Posted on Mar 30, 2011 - 06:15 PM by Shawn Strader in Resources