Topic: Teacher to be fired for giving zeros

[Cord]

The physics teacher, who colleagues called Captain Zero, spent 18 months disobeying the school’s rule against doling out zeros to students who didn’t complete assignments or tests, which school management sees as a discipline issue, not an academic one.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/30/edmonton-teacher-faces-termination-hearing-for-obvious-neglect-of-duty-after-giving-zeros-to-students/


This sounds to me like a case of education bureaucracy run amok. So if a student refuses to hand in an assignment or take a test, the school refuses to give them a mark of zero. And the teacher that does puts his job in jeopardy? That's some great education system we have here. Only a pure-bred bureaucrat could believe that it is in a student's best interest to give them a mark for work they didn't do. That lesson will sure come in handy once out of high school.

But then it all started to make sense when I heard that funding depends on students receiving a minimum grade. And, strangely, the guy's own union has been virtually silent on the issue. But then that same funding equals more teaching jobs which equals more union members.

Seems like "students" and "education" are just seen as by-products of the system.

[johngenx]

They don't get a mark for work they didn't do.  If someone printed that, it's BS.

Wasn't there a big thread about this already?  Maybe I responded somewhere else.  Can't recall.

I'm one of the "no zeros" teachers.  And it does NOT mean I have low standards.

That said, I stand behind his right to conduct his class as he sees fit.  It's just not the way I do it.

[johngenx]

Here's what I do...

I have two types of assessment.  One is "assessment FOR learning" and the other is "assessment OF learning."

Suppose we're doing a math unit.  There is ten assignments that are part of the unit.  These assignments are graded, but the grades DO NOT count towards your report card mark.  These assignments are to allow the student to chart their progress, and to identify their weak areas.  The final Unit Exam (which can take many forms, I use projects and presentations mostly) is where the actual mark comes from, because now I assess your level of knowledge of the material.

As my student, if you choose NOT to do any of those ten assignments, well, that's up to you.  It makes it tough for me to help you, but in high school, that's your decision.  But, if you ace the Unit Assessment, then you get a great grade.  You know the material, and whether or not you did the assignments is irrelevant.  The assignments are designed to assist your learning and my ability to target your weak areas.

This is where most people chime in with "but at work" and other career related comments.  School is NOT a job, it's not work, and I'm there to educated and test student's knowledge of the curriculum, not have them complete tasks.  A job is often task oriented, learning something is results oriented.  NOT the same thing, not at all.  If companies want students "ready for the workworld" then they need to talk to parents and institute their own programs, because that's not my job.

Back to the no zeros.  So, if you don't hand in the assignment, well, you just don't get anything.  It's an empty box that I eventually mark "incomplete" so I know you didn't do it.  Since your mark is the Unit Test, it makes no difference.  Don't do the Unit Test?  Well, then you're skipping a LOT of school.  Only students that drop the class, or out of school, really manage to do that.

This type of grading is considered better for students.  A student that is weak with the material initially, but learns it well is not penalized with some poor marks in early assignments.  It allows students and teachers to find gaps without the pressure of marks.  I love it.

[The Mighty Duck]

I remember there being a rather lengthy thread about this a while back. I think johngenx's method works, and if that's the method that the school in question is using, then the media has been misrepresenting the details of the situation. OTOH, if their portrayals are accurate, then it's an insane policy that needs reworking.


That being said, I absolutely disagree that high school can forgo getting students ready for the working world. It should never be a school's entire focus, but it's an important part of why they're around. There's a reason "Collegiate and Vocational" is such a common naming convention. If we're going to make high school education mandatory, then we better make sure it prepares students for the real world.

[johngenx]

We have them for 1400 instructional minutes per week.  There's no way that we can implement the curriculum and give them a bunch of job readiness training too.  Well, and not have them graduate at 17-18.

Many of my students take an extra year or two to complete high school, and we do a lot of life and work skills.  However, the class room is NOT a place to mimic work.  As I said, the objective of learning is NOT task completion, which most jobs are.  We focus on the end result, not the steps. Well, the step are important, but NOT the key components, and NOT what we should be evaluating students on.

Parents and industry have to take up the slack.  Where this is not possible (many of my students lack family support) we need to have programming in place, but acknowledge that we need more time/energy to both educate and train.

[johngenx]

As for school mimicking The Real World, well most companies use -poor instructional methodology. It's not the job of the school to "lesson them up" on the stupidity of industry either. Think kids don't know that if you don't do your job you get fired?  If not, it takes one instance for them to get it. I'm not going to compromise my teaching to "teach 'em a lesson" like that.

[Cord]

These assignments are graded, but the grades DO NOT count towards your report card mark.

Do the teachers decide what counts toward the report grade? Or is that set for everyone? Because if the assignment grades don't matter for the final mark, and those are what Captain Zero was giving zeros for, then what would it matter what mark went on them?

[johngenx]

Do the teachers decide what counts toward the report grade? Or is that set for everyone? Because if the assignment grades don't matter for the final mark, and those are what Captain Zero was giving zeros for, then what would it matter what mark went on them?

Yes.  The teacher in question uses a different system than I do.  He grades every assignment and uses it towards the final grade.  If you don't complete an assignment, he gives you a zero, and it brings your mark down.

This is what most people are familiar with, and they believe it makes students accountable.  Students are accountable for their learning, and how they get there can be different for every student.  A couple years ago I had a student that did NONE of the assignments.  He barely came to class!  But, at the Unit Test, he'd waltz in, and score near 100% on each unit.  So, should he get a poor mark when he has complete mastery of the subject?  Not in my class.  He was given very high grades.

In the same class was another student that struggled like heck with the material.  She did very poorly on the assignments, but was improving with each assignment.  By the end of the unit, she had really caught on, and received a very high grade based on her unit exam mark.  She too, would have been penalized for assignments that counted towards the final mark.

A course will be made up of many units.  It's the unit marks that create a final mark.

[johngenx]

Oh, and the Edmonton Sun coverage is highly one-sided.  They love the idea of someone that punishes people as part of their learning...

[Cord]

If you wanted to grade like the other guy, could you? Or would your principal put a stop to it?

[mmret]

RE: John's method.

So take a hypothetical case (which may be very unlikely, but bear with me) where a student simply does nothing. A whole bunch of incompletes/blanks.

End of the year rolls around. Does this student move onto the next course? I presume not.
At some point you've got to slam down a number. Blank and zero are essentially the same at that point.

---

Total aside, marks are sort of funny but break it down and you basically arrive at the conclusion that anything between 0 and 20 really just means all the same thing...

[johngenx]

End of the year rolls around. Does this student move onto the next course? I presume not.
At some point you've got to slam down a number. Blank and zero are essentially the same at that point.

No, there is no zero given.  A zero is not a blank or INC (incomplete) as zero is used in a mathematical computation.  If the student has not completed enough work, then they are not passed onto the next course.  They might be given an INC.

I, as a high school teacher, have some luxuries that earlier grades don't have.  If a student is not attending and/or not completing their unit work, then I typically withdraw them from the course.  I know LONG BEFORE the end of the course that they're not with it, and we have a discussion.  The idea that teachers come to the end of the course/year and suddenly find students that are not achieving seems ridiculous to me.  How could that happen?  It's inconceivable to me.

[Cord]

RE: John's method.

So take a hypothetical case (which may be very unlikely, but bear with me) where a student simply does nothing. A whole bunch of incompletes/blanks.

End of the year rolls around. Does this student move onto the next course? I presume not.
At some point you've got to slam down a number. Blank and zero are essentially the same at that point.

---

Total aside, marks are sort of funny but break it down and you basically arrive at the conclusion that anything between 0 and 20 really just means all the same thing...

FWIW, in an interview I heard with the teacher in question, he claimed that unless a grade of 25 was given, there would be no funding provided for that student. He claimed that at some point the government began to wonder how all these people could be getting 25s so the teachers began to fudge the numbers, giving 28, 33, 27, etc in an effort to not lose any funding.

[johngenx]

FWIW, in an interview I heard with the teacher in question, he claimed that unless a grade of 25 was given, there would be no funding provided for that student. He claimed that at some point the government began to wonder how all these people could be getting 25s so the teachers began to fudge the numbers, giving 28, 33, 27, etc in an effort to not lose any funding.

Unfortunately, he's right.  It's stupid.  The entire funding model is ridiculous and encourages schools to ignore the struggling students.  Here's my dilemma with a failing student: I can withdraw them from the course, and they have a clean transcript, of I can let them screw up and get 30, or whatever, and fail.  We get our money, but the student has a terrible mark on their transcript.  Which one is better for the student?  However, what if the school loses teachers and has to raise class sizes or cut programs thanks to less money?  That's not great for any of the students.

It puts us between a rock and a hard place, and many teachers spend all too much time worrying about funding.

[tpl]

Do the teachers decide what counts toward the report grade? Or is that set for everyone? Because if the assignment grades don't matter for the final mark, and those are what Captain Zero was giving zeros for, then what would it matter what mark went on them?

Yes.  The teacher in question uses a different system than I do.  He grades every assignment and uses it towards the final grade.  If you don't complete an assignment, he gives you a zero, and it brings your mark down.

This is what most people are familiar with, and they believe it makes students accountable.  Students are accountable for their learning, and how they get there can be different for every student.  A couple years ago I had a student that did NONE of the assignments.  He barely came to class!  But, at the Unit Test, he'd waltz in, and score near 100% on each unit.  So, should he get a poor mark when he has complete mastery of the subject?  Not in my class.  He was given very high grades.

In the same class was another student that struggled like heck with the material.  She did very poorly on the assignments, but was improving with each assignment.  By the end of the unit, she had really caught on, and received a very high grade based on her unit exam mark.  She too, would have been penalized for assignments that counted towards the final mark.

A course will be made up of many units.  It's the unit marks that create a final mark.

When I was at high school ( 50+ years ago)  I had kids in my cohort just like both of your examples.

Example 2    quite common in fact...it was called learning in those days

Example 1   A bit different 'cos in the late '50s early '60s you actually had to attend school but certainly one of my buddies could do that...nothing much all term... and then score close to 100%  in the closed book exams we had in those days.  To be fair he could only do that in math and English Lit.

FWIW we could be marked at zero for not handing in work but the exam was the thing that mattered then.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

When I was in highschool our final mark was either the sum of all the assignments and tests or our grade on the final exam, whichever was higher. University was much the same. You could have a zero heading into finals and still get an excellent grade if you new the subject.

Basing school funding on student achievement is stupid. They do that in a lot of districts in the US. Schools have figured out that if the expel or otherwise force the withdrawal of poor students they can maintain their funding and concentrate on students that are already doing relatively well. The poorer the district, the harder it becomes to provide adequate education and the more difficult it becomes to keep good teachers.

[safristi]

exempla mores...............