I think it would be nice to talk about education, in a constructive way. I had an interesting conversation with a student yesterday at lunch about how the system works, and how my class works.
Funny kid- bright, articulate, but he won't turn his work in. He is getting a D in physics; goodness knows what he has in his other classes. Anyway, in my class as long as you get the work in before the end of the quarter, you have a good shot at passing, simply because what I want is for the kids to do the work, and I don't see the point in wasting resource on teaching kids what they already know. Now this student, let's call him "Brian", said something like "But don't I deserve to fail?" And I said, "Why?" And he said that it might teach him a lesson. But he's failed before, and I said "Did it teach you anything you didn't know already?" I told him it's almost like some of the kids are asleep, in some adolescent haze, and until they are ready to wake up, you can fail them as much as you want, but it doesn't work- and it just ends up wasting district money, and taking it away from kids who are failing because they really NEED more instruction. "Brian" is so bright he really doesn't "need" to be in my class. He'd do well in honors English if he could just get things turned in.
Anyway, it was a fascinating conversation. My students are always quite honest, and willing to put their ideas out there, even when they are not fully fledged ideas, but they aren't worried about being embarrassed, and they haven't lost their curiosity. I've thought about what Brian said, and I don't know what the answer is. It seems wrong to fail people, just because they aren't motivated enough to jump through hoops yet, since we have limited education dollars. If I were paying him for his work, I wouldn't pay him for poor work- but in essence the school district really wants to pay him TWICE for poor work, by using up its money teaching him twice. Now that doesn't make much sense to me. What do you think? |
