Inspired by the school project post...

[Wishing on a star]

As the mother of a child with a learning disability, I would fight student-grading tooth and nail. Our childs grades should be private, by law. It is not the class bullies business if my LD child has difficulties with some of the work and makes bad grades. Not to mention that my son's grade should not depend on whether another child can/does grade correctly.

If a teacher does not want to grade the student's work, then they are seriously in the wrong profession!

 

[snowwite]

As the mother of a child with a learning disability, I TOTALLY understand and agree! My son will not suffer and fail and have inappropropriate expectations placed on him. And, neither will I.

His teacher this year is not even using the the school/board approved Reading-Language curriculum. She is using a hodge-podge of lame 'trade materials' that do not constitute a well developed and sensible curriculum. Much of this stuff is completely inappropriate and should not be given to my son according to his IEP. Also, because of this varied hodge-podge of poorly developed materials, the students are repeatedly being graded on concepts that have not yet been presented to them. Ohhh, but she does go over these AFTER the kids have been expected to complete the worksheets without any teaching or presentation beforehand. I am sorry, but using the grading process as 'review' and 'teaching' is as ****=backwards as putting the cart before the horse decades ago.

I have simply and firmly refused to "review and correct" all of these inappropriate worksheets which are sent home when the student does not get the correct answers. I am not on the school's payroll. I am not homeschooling. If I wanted to homeschool my child, then that is exactly what I would be doing. The school EXIST with the sole purpose of educating our children. If they cannot do that in the 7-8 hour day that they have these children, (with reasonable and age-appropriate homework) then that is THEIR shortcoming, not mine. Expecting children to be devoted to school from before dawn until they collapse into bed at night is just plain wrong. I don't care what other countries are doing. That does not make it right. Not at all. Did you know that some of these other so-called 'competitive' countries who have such demanding school systems, like freakin' boot-camp, with days even longer than ours, also have astonishing and sickeningly sad child-teen suicide rates.

I am all for educating my child. It means far more to me that any of you could ever imagine. But, using 'education' as an excuse for all of these expectations and demands is just exactly that.... an excuse. The ends do NOT always justify the means.

ITA

 

[AC7179]

I teach, and probably once a week I have my students exchange papers to grade.

These are not tests or major grades, but short, five question, reading quizzes.

The questions aren't hard, and it is more of a "Did you read the material, or did you not?" The grades are usually 100% or 80% if the kids did their homework, and a 40 or 60 if they did not. I feel like I can do a better job grading their essays and their critical thinking assignments if the kids grade these types of quizzes. I go over the quiz anyway, and this way, the kids get a review and know their grade immediately.

In five years of teaching, nobody has complained. If someone did, I wouldn't mind grading that student's paper. No big deal. But really, I don't have a problem with switching papers, if it is not every day.

For the parents who don't want to review assigned homework at home........that's a difficult situation. I can say that from my experience, the reason our (teachers') jobs are so difficult is because there are tons of children that are entering school who have never been read to, never been worked with to learn letter, etc., and are basically at a deficit starting out. I fully agree that in a perfect world, a child wouldn't have to do extra work at home, but sometimes, that's just not the way it is.

If you refuse to help your child with the math problems that are being sent home because you are not on the school payroll, who are you really hurting? The school, or your child?

 

[Alex2kMommy]

Not saying anyone is a 'crappy parent' etc... however

When my DD's come home with a project, which they do every 2-3 months....we sit down the first night and break the project down into managable tasks...then we assign a 'to do by' date and time to them...For instance..

Poster board for a book...

we break it down to- pick the book, draw the rough draft, pencil the poster board, color the poster board, rough draft of written paper to go with it...final draft of paper to go with it....each of these has a day to do them on.

Sometimes they go beyond the task- doing 2-3 in one day, if they have extra time etc..

this keeps it from being a last minute project, or spending their weekends consumed with a project. It's also something I do with big tasks at home, breaking them down into managable tasks. i also do this with my college classes, with papers, projects, case studies etc..

Am I the only one that does this? It seems to me that it helps them at this early age get into a system for when they get into high school and have more and more project type hoemwork (term papers, book reports etc.)...

Just a thought

Brandy

I love this approach! I wish my parents had taught me about project planning when I was young. I had to learn on the job, and it was (and still is) harder than it probably should be, it just doesn't come easily to me.

I will try to do this with my kids.

 

[Wishing on a star]

I teach, and probably once a week I have my students exchange papers to grade.

If you refuse to help your child with the math problems that are being sent home because you are not on the school payroll, who are you really hurting? The school, or your child?

First, Doesn't matter if it is 'probably once a week'. So what. You are still letting children grade other childrens papers. 'Once a week' does not change my opinion. And, it doesn't matter if it is JUST little quizzes. If it is just a simple little pop quiz once a week, then why aren't you grading them? I maintain that a teacher who does not want to grade the students' work is in the wrong profession.

Second: I expected the little jab about reviewing and correcting the worksheets. I NEVER said that I would not help my child with math. (just love it when people put words and thoughts in my mouth )

You are quite wrong. And, in fact, the complete opposit is true. I very much CAN, and WILL, assist my child with reasonable homework. I do it all the time. I have spent countless hours working with my LD son. I have spent more time working with my son on academics than probably 99.9% of parents! ( How is that for a concerned and involved and dedicate parent.) However, The teacher sending home work that was done and graded in the classroom for me to 're-teach' with my son, ON TOP of the regular homework assignments. Nope. No way, no how. I am not her teacher's assistant. The homework load is enough to demand of these kids already without requiring them to re-do the classwork with their parents. (Whom, as many teachers have always been quick to point out, are deadbeat bums who do not even read with their children.)

 

[golfgal]

The only points you have made that I would argue are (1) time spent prepping for a class decreases after the first year of teaching the class, and (2) your time constraints don't justify having students grade other students' papers and embarrassing kids.

And you have been a high school social studies teacher for how long? I never had two years in a row where I taught the same courses, heck I never had 2 semesters in a row where I taught the same classes. A good teacher is constantly revising lessons, etc. It DOES take that much time to prep for a class, sorry.

My time constraints had NOTHING to do with kids exchanging papers to correct and EVERYTHING to do with the kids going over the material again. There is a LOT to be learned from reading the answers from others about various subjects, the most obvious being they hear other opinions or points of view on a subject and it broadens their MIND!

 

[AC7179]

It's a vicious cycle.

Like I said, it's not a big deal to me, or to my students, or to their parents. The kids grading the papers while I review it saves me about 20 minutes of grading per class period that I can better spend planning and grading their essays in more depth. It's a win-win!

If it was a problem with a student or a parent, I feel fairly confident they would let me know, and at that point in time I would grade that student's paper.

And I maintain that the ONLY person losing out by your refusual to reteach the lesson is your son. Do you think your refusual is going to change anything about what the teacher does?

Really, we do the best we can. We are underpaid, underfunded, and held to high, sometimes unreasonable expectations. In a perfect world, I agree, school should be left at school and students wouldn't grade others' papers. But, it's not a perfect world and most teachers really are doing the best they can with what they have been given.