snarlingcoyote
<font color=blue>I know people who live in really
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2008
- Messages
- 5,938
I'm going to wade in here - you can have the hardest working, most studious pupil in the school who simply doesn't have the natural ability to average anything above a C. Hard work doesn't always equate high grades, it equates to a student achieving their best. So no, the ability to take a vacation shouldn't be dependent upon grades.
Well, my turn to wade in. That makes no sense to me. My dear god-daughter was once called onto the carpet for taking too many afternoons off, checking out of her American History class for her doctor's appointments etc. (She'd missed 10 classes.) The child had a 98% in the class.
When asked, she handed over the book and said "If you read it one time, you can ace the class." Her school chums did not share the same opinion. When the fact that her grade in the class was a solid A, the administration agreed to give her credit for the class. My question was always: why force the child to attend a class she obviously wasn't having problems with? What was the point? "Achieving" sounds nice on paper, but when you've maxed out the knowledge necessary for the class, it's a moot point. Her choice, with the exception of thinking about the law on absences, was a wise one. Why, honestly, should she care about "achieving" more in that class, when she got no reward and obviously the teacher didn't care enough to make it challenging for her?
Saying a child should be in a class, even if the child has an A+ average so that he/she can "achieve" is nice talk, but generally equates to the child sitting in the back of the class being bored out of his or her skull. Kids that are being challenged generally don't look for ways to avoid class. (Yes, I taught for several years. Kids didn't skip my class, generally, unless they were avoiding something like the return of a paper: too much went on every day! I only had one child who was often absent. She was one of the best writers I ever taught, and did exceptionally well on her tests, so I left her be. She soaked up everything I had to offer in the class and then some, so who cared if she was absent more often than the other kids? She read the books, she wrote the essays, she understood literature.)
Is it fair that some kids can ace classes without trying and other's can't? No. But that's the way it is, and I honestly don't see what's wrong with letting the kids who DO ace the classes go to Disney with their families for a week. (when I was teaching I would've added the coda: so long as it is understood you have to get the class discussion notes from one of your classmates, read the material we're reading AND write the same essay AND take the same test your classmates take for that time period. And no chance to query me the day before the test, or get your rough draft edited <insert evil chuckle>.)