Good on him. Lucky him, he's near retirement and won't lose benefits if he ends his career right now.

Too bad other teachers can't afford to take that stand.

OK, as a former full time teacher and now a substitute teacher, I have some questions on this.

A few years ago, I caught a kid blatantly cheating on a test. I gave him a zero. Oh, he also called me a motherfarker when I did that. That earned him removal from the class. Did I irreparably damage his poor widdle psyche?

A couple of years later, I had an honors student turn in a term paper, worth half his term's grade, that was not only way too short and not really on topic, but most of it was lifted directly from Britannica Online. The only changes were to the font. He got a zero on that and it dropped his final grade for the year by one letter.

I guess I'd get fired from the school in this article, too.

Aulus: A couple of years later, I had an honors student turn in a term paper, worth half his term's grade, that was not only way too short and not really on topic, but most of it was lifted directly from Britannica Online. The only changes were to the font. He got a zero on that and it dropped his final grade for the year by one letter.

So he turned in a paper worth half his term grade, got a zero, and was knocked down just one letter grade? Unless that was a knock down from 'D' to 'F' I think your math may be off.

Yeah, you're right. I think it was from an A to a C., so a couple of letters.

Aulus: Did I irreparably damage his poor widdle psyche?

If not, too bad. I say this as a parent.

So if I only do a few of the assignments and the easiest test and nothing else all semester I would walk out with an A?

What exactly did the principal sayof?

School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

One, before the standard Fark trolls come in here, this is Edmonton, Canada.

Two: It's not often any of us see real heroes

Is where I stopped reading in disgust.

cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

So following orders is more important than doing the right thing? You sound like a real hero.

scottydoesntknow: Aulus: A couple of years later, I had an honors student turn in a term paper, worth half his term's grade, that was not only way too short and not really on topic, but most of it was lifted directly from Britannica Online. The only changes were to the font. He got a zero on that and it dropped his final grade for the year by one letter.

So he turned in a paper worth half his term grade, got a zero, and was knocked down just one letter grade? Unless that was a knock down from 'D' to 'F' I think your math may be off.

Must be an English teacher.

What about giving them a -1 instead of 0? It's not 0 and is technically correct if policy only forbids a zero, which is the best kind of correct.

CitizenTed: cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

So following orders is more important than doing the right thing? You sound like a real hero.

You know who else just followed orders?

cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.

Oh yeah? Well, when I see a naked man chasing a woman down an alley with nothing but a butcher knife and a hard-on, I shoot the bastard. That's MY policy.

cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

You know who else relied on people to just shut up and do their job?

cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

Fark you. Not only is that not a teacher's job, but fark you for being a horrible person as well.

Especially if you're trolling. Fark you for trolling a thread where, for once, a teacher is doing the right thing.

Either way, fark you.

/srsly, frk u
//with a tire iron to the head

CitizenTed: cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

So following orders is more important than doing the right thing? You sound like a real hero.

The school's policy is grounded is well thought-out educational theory and was agreed upon by the principal and school board. If he doesn't like the school's policy then he should find himself another school, not buck authority just because he thinks they're wrong.

This guy isn't a crusader, he's an old relic who refuses to keep up with the times. At best he's a misguided vigilante.

FTFA: Instead, students are given a final mark based on the work they do complete.

So does that mean that if a student turns in the first assignment of the year ONLY and get a perfect score on that, they get an A for the class? Because they hit 100% of the shots they took? What kind of lesson is that?

"What about giving them a -1 instead of 0? It's not 0 and is technically correct if policy only forbids a zero, which is the best kind of correct."

Came to basically say this. Give the snowflake a 1 or a 0.1 and the helicopter parents something to chew on.

Hero Tag appropriate. Prolly doesn't agree with 'not keeping score' so all snowflakes can feel special.

/Would buy him a beer
//Possibly rent him a hooker too

cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

When the policy is counter to what the institution is supposed to accomplish, fark the policy. This coddling to get them out the door is the reason educational standards have plummeted in the U.S., which is currently ranked 14th in the world...behind Estonia.

Damn, cman got a lot of bites. Even I know that he's just being festive.

cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

You know who else had a problem that needed to be solved?

Fubini: CitizenTed: cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

So following orders is more important than doing the right thing? You sound like a real hero.

The school's policy is grounded is well thought-out educational theory and was agreed upon by the principal and school board. If he doesn't like the school's policy then he should find himself another school, not buck authority just because he thinks they're wrong.

This guy isn't a crusader, he's an old relic who refuses to keep up with the times. At best he's a misguided vigilante.

...passed with a low "C" average, did you?

This isn't "well thought out." This is a "pass them so we look good and get more funding as we shove students out the door."

There are worse ways to go out I suppose. I don't consider him a hero for this though. Principled would be a better description.

Honestly, I don't know enough about the educational process or the statistics behind which theory of grading is better, to make an accurate opinion.

At no point has the school said that there is no consequence for not doing/handing in work, only that the consequence isn't a "zero". The school separates the processes for dealing with assessment of whether students CAN do X and whether they HAVE done X. This teacher, for some reason, can't handle the fact that he is being told to assess ONLY ability and leave the behavioural consequences to the grade coordinators/administration.

FTA: In his researching of the so-called No Zeros Policy, Dorval found it's tied to the self-esteem movement, to the notion that if students get a zero it will damage their egos and they will give up. But he's found in his years of teaching that students who don't do the work simply don't like school and don't care to do the work. Essentially, many have already given up, he says.

Thank you, helicopter parents. I can't believe that I've hit the age where I become a grumpy old person complaining about how kids these days are a bunch of spineless slackjawed waste of space.

So, in theory, if you get a 100 on the first test, you can just take the rest of the semester off right?

Ah, the self-esteem movement. The irony being that this useless teaching strategy is pushed on us by the graduates with their MA and Phd in education. Ironic because I can say that they are usually the dumbest and most unqualified graduate students in any University. Of course you want to emphasize self-esteem, because your feelings get hurt every time you try and fail to open an excel spreadsheet in stats.


/Criminal justice graduate students comes a close second.

Kuroshin: Fark you. Not only is that not a teacher's job, but fark you for being a horrible person as well.

Actually, it is. A teacher's job is to execute the operational plan laid out by the school board which comes from the strategic plan prescribed by the state and federal departments of education. A teacher is the lowest level professional in the "educational" line of work, no different than say a firefighter in a brigade or a police officer in a squad. They're there to follow the orders of the hierarchy above them. You want freedom to "teach as you see fit", go be a professor or a private school teacher.

Aulus: OK, as a former full time teacher and now a substitute teacher, I have some questions on this.

A few years ago, I caught a kid blatantly cheating on a test. I gave him a zero. Oh, he also called me a motherfarker when I did that. That earned him removal from the class. Did I irreparably damage his poor widdle psyche?.


I HATE catching a kid cheating. It's an absolute no-win scenario. The kid gets pissed and hates everything about your class, the parent(s) usually go completely bat-shiat crazy (on the teacher) because they can't believe their precious little angel would ever cheat, and the administrators cannot throw you under a bus fast enough...

It's an utter nightmare every time it happens. The most recent incident involved the kid of a trial lawyer. The father's Weeners when I spoke to him on the phone was:
"Well, I'm sure my son had a good reason". Then the father spent the next 6 months threatening to sue the school if I wasn't written-up and reprimanded for using intimidation to get his child to confess. The mother was worse. The administrators, upon hearing the word "sue", called me in multiple times trying to figure out how to blame me for the entire episode so the school wasn't at fault.

The rule of thumb is: It doesn't matter what the kid did, if the parents go after the school, the teacher is always wrong. This has been the rule in every school I've ever worked in.

It's even worse if a student fails your class. Most teachers I know have stopped fighting it long ago. If a student only shows up 2 out of every 5 days, they'll somehow get a "D" in the class (or better). The reason is simple, the teachers are at fault first in the eyes of pretty much everyone -- passing all students results in no one questioning your every action. The way you get through each day is by trying to make the good kids smarter -- you'll never win if you focus is trying to teach the bad kids accountability.

Guy was probably pissed he wasn't allowed to continue to crush students by giving them zeroes.

Polodious: At no point has the school said that there is no consequence for not doing/handing in work, only that the consequence isn't a "zero". The school separates the processes for dealing with assessment of whether students CAN do X and whether they HAVE done X. This teacher, for some reason, can't handle the fact that he is being told to assess ONLY ability and leave the behavioural consequences to the grade coordinators/administration.

No, adminstration does not have time, nor do they care, to teach these kids what they should learn at home and in the classroom. The people who have to deal with the consequences of these students not learning basic responsibilty, as well as other skills they are obviously not learning, are the kids future instructors and employers...which means the kid pays for it in the end.

No different than making production at a factory. Same business plan, just severly lacking in quality control

cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

The Dover, Pa school board voted to teach Intelligent design in science class.
Being elected to a school board doesn't necessarily mean you're qualified for the job.

NutWrench: Damn, cman got a lot of bites. Even I know that he's just being festive.

Yeah, supporting authoritarianism isn't exactly his MO.

Blink: Aulus: OK, as a former full time teacher and now a substitute teacher, I have some questions on this.

A few years ago, I caught a kid blatantly cheating on a test. I gave him a zero. Oh, he also called me a motherfarker when I did that. That earned him removal from the class. Did I irreparably damage his poor widdle psyche?.


I HATE catching a kid cheating. It's an absolute no-win scenario. The kid gets pissed and hates everything about your class, the parent(s) usually go completely bat-shiat crazy (on the teacher) because they can't believe their precious little angel would ever cheat, and the administrators cannot throw you under a bus fast enough...

It's an utter nightmare every time it happens. The most recent incident involved the kid of a trial lawyer. The father's Weeners when I spoke to him on the phone was:
"Well, I'm sure my son had a good reason". Then the father spent the next 6 months threatening to sue the school if I wasn't written-up and reprimanded for using intimidation to get his child to confess. The mother was worse. The administrators, upon hearing the word "sue", called me in multiple times trying to figure out how to blame me for the entire episode so the school wasn't at fault.

The rule of thumb is: It doesn't matter what the kid did, if the parents go after the school, the teacher is always wrong. This has been the rule in every school I've ever worked in.

It's even worse if a student fails your class. Most teachers I know have stopped fighting it long ago. If a student only shows up 2 out of every 5 days, they'll somehow get a "D" in the class (or better). The reason is simple, the teachers are at fault first in the eyes of pretty much everyone -- passing all students results in no one questioning your every action. The way you get through each day is by trying to make the good kids smarter -- you'll never win if you focus is trying to teach the bad kids accountability.

This! I see this both these scenarios every semester, in the most blatant of ways. I do not know why anyone would teach in the U.S.. They are not allowed to do their job and are blamed for everything.

My dad would have said the same thing this teacher did.
Then again, my dad taught at that from before I was born in 1977 to sometime in the mid 2000's (I forget the exact year he retired). So to say he had tenure was an understatement.

DRTFA

Sounds like my student teaching days. I wasn't overly tough, hell, I was only 21 but I didn't give out "A"s like they were M&Ms either. My tests were always based on 100 and kids who got 47 points off got a 53. (Heck, I wasn't teaching math either!) I had my supervising teacher and the school's principal change each of my grades so no student failed. And that's how I learned that teaching wasn't for me. Silly me, I wanted students to learn....... the higher-ups just wanted the school to look good.

KiplingKat872
This isn't "well thought out." This is a "pass them so we look good and get more funding as we shove students out the door."

Novel approach: put the funding where it's needed most, not where things are working well already.

cman: There is a reason why schools have boards

There is also a reason why teachers have tenure, and this is a textbook example why.

That drastic action was taken because Dorval refused to go along with a misguided scheme cooked up by educational theorists and school administrators.

Why is this under the "News" section? Whether I agree or disagree is irrelevant to this being unacceptable for news.

Instead, students are given a final mark based on the work they do complete.

I am for this as a general initiative by which to build, say, a charter school but not as a policy. Work should be beneficial to the learning of the student, and students who work less should learn less. With this in mind, remove redundant materials, prepare scaffolding materials, and eliminate anything meant to simply occupy time.

In his researching of the so-called No Zeros Policy, Dorval found it's tied to the self-esteem movement, to the notion that if students get a zero it will damage their egos and they will give up.

No, this is tied to the consultant movement, to the notion that if you introduce something without research or any educational background but know someone who makes purchase decisions you will be able to ply your nonsense in the schools.

Isn't suspending or firing someone for not following direction the exact same thing as awarding a 0 for the same behavior? What about the self-esteem of the teacher!

Fubini: CitizenTed: cman: School: change of policy, this is how we are going to do it from now on.
Employee (a teacher): I do what I want
School: Ok, then, if you wont stop being insubordinate, then I am sorry, but we must suspend you.
Employee: HELP I AM BEING OPPRESSED

There is a reason why schools have boards. You have a problem, take it up with them. Otherwise, shut your damn mouth and do your damn job

So following orders is more important than doing the right thing? You sound like a real hero.

The school's policy is grounded is well thought-out educational theory and was agreed upon by the principal and school board. If he doesn't like the school's policy then he should find himself another school, not buck authority just because he thinks they're wrong.

This guy isn't a crusader, he's an old relic who refuses to keep up with the times. At best he's a misguided vigilante.

OMG I think this guy actually believes this shiat.

whatever.

It won't change.

It won't get better; only worse.

Kids won't be held responsible.

Get used to it or leave the planet.

/planning to leave

KiplingKat872: This isn't "well thought out." This is a "pass them so we look good and get more funding as we shove students out the door."

EVERYONE thinks they know how to do it best.

Newsflash: you wouldn't go tell an engineer how to do their job, you wouldn't go tell a nurse how to do their job, you wouldn't go tell an accountant how to do their job.

There is a ton of research in educational theory that didn't exist when this guy first started teaching. A high quality modern teacher is an expert in their subject area, teaching theory, child psychology, and developmental biology. It's not uncommon to have school principals who hold doctorates in one of those fields.

This guy might disagree with this particular policy, but it's not some crazy idea out of left field. He's refusing to go along with what the administration claims is a best practice. He's a professional- if he, in his professional capacity, truly believes that he's being asked to do sub-standard work then he should man up and leave that school. Instead, he's blatantly refusing to do what he's being paid to do and then has the audacity to play the victim card.

clyph: There is also a reason why teachers have tenure, and this is a textbook example why.

Pray tell, what does "tenure" for public school teachers do for them?

Fubini: KiplingKat872: This isn't "well thought out." This is a "pass them so we look good and get more funding as we shove students out the door."

EVERYONE thinks they know how to do it best.

Newsflash: you wouldn't go tell an engineer how to do their job, you wouldn't go tell a nurse how to do their job, you wouldn't go tell an accountant how to do their job.



Engineers are highly intelligent and hard working individuals who go through rigorous testing. Half of the graduating class in an education MA program is a bunch of bored soccer moms

Fubini: The school's policy is grounded is well thought-out educational theory and was agreed upon by the principal and school board. If he doesn't like the school's policy then he should find himself another school, not buck authority just because he thinks they're wrong.

This guy isn't a crusader, he's an old relic who refuses to keep up with the times. At best he's a misguided vigilante.

I have to disagree with you. The intent of the policy is to improve outcomes. He have implemented a policy which better incentivizes the educational policy goals. Maybe the school district should look to adopt his better policy.

Actually, zeros are terrible if you want students to learn. If you are a person who just wants to punish kids, zeros are great.

What's the difference between a zero and a 50%? They are both failing grades.