Grading Freshmen
in Students & Teens ·
Terry Campbell said:Yeah, we did music class in third grade too—just sat there in front of our lockers, trying to memorize songs from some random CD...
In first grade, we have to memorize 15 songs from a music CD,
it would be reasonable to play the music during tests to help a kid if they forget how a song starts, because if they hesitate for even a second, it’s treated like they don't know the whole thing.
And grading is a whole other story; it mostly depends on the teacher. My daughter had an amazing teacher—strict but fair. She didn't get straight As in first grade, but she ended up on the Honor Roll later, and that teacher was such a great educator (she still is). She encouraged the stronger students to help those struggling and never allowed the slower kids to feel inferior.
And there's no way they were memorizing this many songs in music class seven years ago; that's just a recent invention.
But my son's teacher is someone who lacks any warmth or care for them. Cold and repulsive. And best of all, you get an F for three minor infractions across all subjects—like if he forgets his bells for music, or if he forgets the plastic cover for his desk in art. Or English and Math if he forgets to glue in a worksheet she gave him.
They are still little and forgetful; the rule where three strikes equals an F should only start in third or fourth grade, not first.
She isn't grading him; she's grading the mother for failing to pack everything. Especially since he has so many books and constant worksheets to carry, plus PE—it's too much for them.
When I ask the teacher at the end of class if they noted down the homework, she just snaps, "How am I supposed to find the time for that?" even though I point out there are only 17 students in the class, whereas the after-school programs deal with 30.
And they aren't even in the same boat, because the kids in the after-school program do their homework at school; some don't even bring books home for a week, so they can't even forget homework and get penalized. My son could already read, write in print, and do addition and subtraction up to 100 before preschool, but how unstimulating the system is shows in the fact that now he's thinking in increments of 10 or 20; he doesn't calculate as fast as before. He gets As on his tests, which she can't take away, but those Fs from minor infractions will tank his GPA. It never occurs to me to call some mom every single day to ask about homework, especially since my son isn't even aware he got an F due to those three strikes, and I wouldn't even know unless I went to parent-teacher conferences. When I tell him, he doesn't even get upset. This method of punishment is completely pointless.
Ultimately, it all comes down to what kind of person the teacher is. A friend of mine had a daughter just like this—a bit of a dreamer (just like my son, who might be staring at the stars while she's explaining the Democratic Party platform)—but she had a wonderful teacher who always said, "They're still little, they can't be expected to manage all these things," which saved the girl from becoming frustrated.
I just hope we survive this school year. Next year, I'm transferring him to a different school, but I'll make sure to research the teacher thoroughly instead of leaving my child at the mercy of some frustrated old woman who uses her RED pen to scribble in a child's notebook just to prove her superiority.