Should good behavior count in school?
Potsdam high school showed up in a New York Times article this weekend. It’s about revising grading formulas to measure actual knowledge rather than the ability to pay attention in class, hand in homework on time, and bring your pencil to class.
The superintendent in Potsdam, Patrick Brady, who has been rolling out a revamped grading system this fall in his 1,450-student district, said it would allow teachers to recognize academic strengths where they often are not discovered — among minority students, or students from poorer families, or boys — subgroups whose members may be unable or unwilling to fit in easily to the culture of school.
“We are getting rid of grade fog,” Mr. Brady said. “We need to stop overlooking kids who can do the work and falsely inflate grades of kids who can’t but who look good. We think this will be good for everyone.”
Potsdam parent and literacy professor at SUNY Potsdam was also quoted in the story, saying the new system punishes the so-called good kids:
“Does the old system reward compliance? Yes,” she said. “Do those who fit in the box of school do better? Yes. But to revamp the policy in a way that could be of detriment to the kids who do well is not the answer.” In the real world, she points out, attitude counts.
I remember at several points in my schooling we actually got graded on how neat our folders were kept.
Do you think organization, preparation, behavior matter in school? Or is it just the final result – at the end of the day, what did my child actually learn?
Tags: education, st. lawrence valley
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I taught in public school, grades 4-12 for 33 years. I used to tell my students, a carpenter doesn’t get extra pay for showing up with his tools, ready to work. A contractor would assume that workers will show up dressed properly, tools in hand, ready to work. The real world doesn’t give extra credit for doing what you’re supposed to do. That same carpenter, if he/she shows up to work late, without his or her tools, might find him/herself unemployed. Lesson: the working world, for most people assumes compliant behavior and punishes non-compliant behavior. Which world would parent like to see their sons and daughters prepared for; the one that they are going to live in or the one that their parents would like to see them insulated from? That said, I believe a school should do everything it can to teach students preparedness, readiness and organizational skills. Parents need to do this at home, as well.
full disclosure: i was horrible at doing homework. I found high school tediously boring and easy. My grades did suffer for not doing homework, but my Regents scores told a different story.
Who cares if someone doesn’t do homework? If they know enough to demonstrate knowledge of a subject, that should be enough.
School often is a place where kids are taught conformity; obey the teacher, do what they say without question, absorb what they teach without question. Schools should be teaching kids basic knowledge and how to learn, not teaching them that you need to sit down and do what everyone else does in order to succeed.
Can I assume that this convoluted and mathematically challenged letter to the editor of North Country Now is indicative of the new grading system?
On the one hand, this guy seems to be recognizing that, very often, the teacher’s pets are the ones getting the good grades, the awards, the recommendations and so on in school. Those who can and do produce the best work are not always recognized for it. In high school, especially, some teachers are not capable of distinguishing the best work from the rest. But, in the “real” world, things are not necessarily any different. The boss’s pets get promoted, not the smartest workers. The skills of the successful kids in school — paying attention, getting assignments done, being neat and punctual — are the same skills that will lead to success in the outside world. This isn’t true if you’re in a field where a lot of skill is required — athletics, surgery, novel-writing. But, in most careers, being personable, punctual and deferential are going to be more important to your success than skills more particular to your job.
We had grades for “conduct” at the school I went to for many years.
The students who inflate their grades by having perfect attendance, having the neatest folders/desks and completing the homework often evolve into the job applicants with the “best looking” resumes. The wake-up call is when you find out the they can’t do the job. They always show up on time and turn in beautiful reports, but that isn’t what gets the job done.
Give me the non-conformist who is willing to get his hands dirty, can think on his feet and is unafraid to question the bureaucratic crap that has very little to do with getting the job done. That person will prove to be very valuable and a good manager will recognize it.
Grades should be based upon tests and assignments.
Soft skills should be recognized but should not push academic grades up or down.
I don’t like the idea of all of this massive extra credit for busy work to pump up grades; I get the feeling that the new policy is probably aimed at that practice.
I think it should play a role but as the first poster stated it is more of an expectation to do your work. When it comes to the work world attitude, working well with others, and taking direction will usually trump skills. Skills can be taught attitude, judgment and character cannot. But doing a bunch of busy work to overcome not knowing the material is not a good lesson either.
Kids should definitely be graded on how well they fit in the machine. Being different is bad, we all know that, and kids that are restless, full of piss and vinegar or bored out of their skulls should be drugged into lock-step obedience. Stand in line with your hands at your side!
If they want a job they sure better learn how to fit in the machine, at least when they need to.
Yeah, that’s right, fit in the machine. Don’t think for yourself. Work as a wage slave for your betters. Here in America you can do anything you want, be anything you want to be, just as long as you raise your hand and say “may I?”
Whatever you do, don’t question authority, don’t waste your time learning anything that isn’t on the syllabus, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down, cause that’s the way we roll.
Oh, for the good old days when we could just beat the originality and joie de vivre out of them! Especially the joie de vivre–that’s French and we hate the French!
My husband is a special ed teacher. He works with the boys who simply cannot fit into the machine. You know the ones – the conduct disorders, the narcissists, the horribly abused and neglected, the mentally, socially and emotionally disabled. He has learned that being able to acknowledge a student’s real successes breeds incentive for further success. Removing the non-academic issues from grades and using consistent, frequent feedback (like daily goals and rubrics) for other behaviors can make a huge difference in both attitude and academic achievement. It is a lot more work for teachers, though. We need to pay them more.
Teachers are paid fairly, IMO. They aren’t paid six figures, but their employment situation is about as stable as you can get, which is worth the slightly lower salary they draw. Plus a pension that is more stable than the private sector’s 401k plans. Sometimes, their salaries are high even for the area. A Malone-born acquaintance of mine said that Elm Street, the ‘rich’ section of town, was populated mostly by teachers.
I’m glad I’m not the only one out there who sees school as an individuality-crushing machine. Misfits unite!
Right on lets unite, reading is stupid and boring so is mathematics, lets be individualists I am sure those kids will get by. I mean their competition in China and India and Japan are very groovy individualists who don’t like following rules either.
You know Toyota and Ford and even Apple are looking for people who don’t follow instructions and don’t like to show up for class or work because it is boring.
Look if you are one of the 1/2 percent of the population who is a true artist or gifted in some other way sure go for it, but for the rest of the kid the rest of us; we do them a huge disservice by the lie that they don’t have to conform to rules and get along with other students in society including their boss or in this case teacher.
Okay Mervel I admit it, I was once sent home with a note that informed my parents that I didn’t “conform to expected behavior.” I threw that away but the teacher had the foresight to mail a copy to my parents.
It isn’t just that class can be boring to students it can be stultifying.
Children want to learn. Children want to do well and get along with others and have skills in which they can excel. The problem is with a system that is set up more to stamp out cogs than it is to widen horizons. Even Honors Programs are set up for “the chosen” while lots of kids who could benefit from a more intensive curricula in certain areas are locked out.
Do students still spend weeks doing review for Regents exams and the like? What an utter waste!
And, in fact, some of the “best” jobs available today go to the square pegs.
I’m with Virginia.
I know there are problems with the public school system knucklehead.
I think we might agree on this topic though, I don’t think that homework should swamp school performance which was the policy change they were making
The young people that I see through my work also have many of these issues; they dropped out of school usually not because they were not bright enough but because they hated it and got way behind and the solution for them was to say screw you and walk out. They got many services, but of course all of those ended. Now the screw you solution may work at 16 and it may work for geniuses or extremely creative people, but in the long run it won’t help the average north country teenager struggling in school. Part of learning is learning how to do things we don’t like doing, it is learning how to handle delayed gratification it is learning how to do boring things sometimes. Square pegs still have to show up on time and still have to do the boring parts of their work. We don’t help children by giving them the impression that any business or institution is going to care that they get bored easily and don’t take directions or can’t sit still.
Mervel, why on Earth should school be boring? I’ve never met a kid who didn’t really like to learn things, though maybe their ability and ages didn’t align.
There has been much discussion on this site about the problem of employment. Maybe the school system is not adequately preparing people for the society in which they live. Maybe rigid adherence to the system freezes young minds so they become scholastic automatons unable to go out in the world and blaze their own trail. Maybe kids have so little freedom to think and act creatively that they don’t believe they have that ability. They are lost when they are in a situation that calls on them to act for themselves. We have generations of kids who want to know what the answer we are looking for is, instead of kids who redefine the question.
Let’s tell them that it is better to create their own job than to rely on someone else to do it for them.
Some subjects will always be boring for some children that is a fact of life and that is okay and that will never change. Learning how to deal with that will be a key component of future success. Sometimes learning to read will be boring, sometimes learning algebra will be boring for some (not all) children.
I am not saying crush creativity I hope you don’t think that. I really do feel though that continual coddling continual excuse making for bad behaivior is not helping the child not in the long run.