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I don’t know what country you’re in, but in Australia nothing is awarded a grade/mark except for four assignments/test per subject through the year (one per term). All other quizzes homework etc is just for learning sake and doesn’t go towards your finalmark. (This is just high school)
I'm from the US. Yeah, school doesn't really function like that over here. In my experience, nearly every assignment that my teachers/professors handed out was for a grade. How much that grade mattered to my overall grade depended on the class, though.
Edit: clarity
>Other than those scenarios, I think it's unethical to punish students simply for not doing everything right in their work.
Getting a bad grade is not a punishment.
Feeling bad about your bad grade is a form of self punishment.
How to overcome that feeling and turn it to motivation should be taught in school.
A bad grade can lead to taking extra classes in summer school, repeating years of school, being unable to participate in extracurriculars, and make getting into college harder.
It very much is a system based on "You aren't performing well enough and are being penalized for presumably not studying or focusing enough"
It totally can be. It opens up many potential consequences, direct and indirect.
Self-punishment that stems from where? Most humans aren't naturally wired to stress about stuff as small as minor grades, but many do. School instills that insecurity.
I agree. But don't you think it's counterproductive to want to teach self-motivation while enforcing a hyper-critical grading system that attaches moral character to academic performance?
This could be a double-edged sword. Say your final grade is based on just a mid-term and final. You don't do well under pressure and blank, then do poorly. Yet, throughout the year, you got high scores on all the smaller assignments. You still fail because it was based on only those 2 tests. Those smaller assignments could have helped your grade.
Op you clearly are not a teacher. Students will always try to push the threshold of minimum effort. If you say they cant mark A all the way down, they will just mark random answers all the way down. It can be hard (not all the time) to tell the difference between a kid answering randomly and a kid that just doesn't get it, but is legit trying. Most high teachers in the U.S. have around 160-200 students a day, which doesn't give us a lot of time to do detective work on each assignment for each student. Additionally, I have noticed with a good number of my students that if there is no penalty for making a mistake, they won't notice it enough/care enough to look over their mistakes for the test. In an ideal world where every student tried hard to better themselves and legit get the material, you would probably be right. However, a lot of them are just there cuz they are forced to attend school. Lastly, it helps with consistency. If you grade differently on minor assignments than you do on big tests, it will often confuse students. You will have 50 kids coming up. Every major assignment didn't take off points on X assignment for this mistake, but you did on the test. All this to say, you might feel sad getting a lower grad on your minor assignment, but your method has been tried and doesn't work.
What's the line exactly? The line is if you think they didn't try, they fail?
If someone just put A. How do you know that they truly didn't believe that ever answer what actually A and just wrote A.
Because what kind of person would write a multiple-choice assignment where all the answers were A?? It's one thing if someone gets one question wrong, but in that example I was explaining what to do if a student answers A for like 20 questions straight. It's obvious they're bullshitting in that case.
What if that person chose all different answers and got all the questions wrong? Were the trying to fuck it up? Not trying? Or just really doesn't understand the class?
This scenario is outrageous. Either the student's teacher is comically inept at their job, or the student likely also didn't care. Everyone does badly on assignments, yes, but its very very rare for someone to pay attention in class and put effort in the work only to get *every single question wrong on an assignment.* The simpler theory would be that they were bullshitting here, too, so yeah. They likely were not trying.
No, the "dumb" kids will still have their mistakes pointed out to them and will be encouraged to improve. What I'm saying is that apathy should be punished. Mistakes made in good faith should not.
I was about to write that I addressed this in my original post, but then I read your username.
Wdym "it's whatever you feel about the kid"? I've already shown that it's not as hard as you think to assess whether a kid poor performance is due to laziness or genuine misunderstanding. Punish the former while treating the latter.
The problem is that the current (US) school system punishes kids in both situations. It doesn't matter if you don't care about the class or if you're trying to make an effort but not getting things, the grading system treats you to the same consequence.
"Getting things wrong and making mistakes is a natural, important part of learning."
Exactly. And so is responsibility and reward for effort. You're basically describing a "show-up and get a ribbon" system where your level of standards is not nearly as important as the quality of what you turn in.
that's how it works in a bunch of other countries (like in brazil, where i'm from) and imo it's way better and less stressful on the student. idk how much homework american students get but if it's close to how much i got back in school, it feels borderline evil to grade every single one of them based on performance lol
some teachers made random students read some of their answers out loud in class, and even though we weren't graded based on performance it helped push the students to at least try and answer correctly
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I don’t know what country you’re in, but in Australia nothing is awarded a grade/mark except for four assignments/test per subject through the year (one per term). All other quizzes homework etc is just for learning sake and doesn’t go towards your finalmark. (This is just high school)
I'm from the US. Yeah, school doesn't really function like that over here. In my experience, nearly every assignment that my teachers/professors handed out was for a grade. How much that grade mattered to my overall grade depended on the class, though. Edit: clarity
>Other than those scenarios, I think it's unethical to punish students simply for not doing everything right in their work. Getting a bad grade is not a punishment. Feeling bad about your bad grade is a form of self punishment. How to overcome that feeling and turn it to motivation should be taught in school.
A bad grade can lead to taking extra classes in summer school, repeating years of school, being unable to participate in extracurriculars, and make getting into college harder. It very much is a system based on "You aren't performing well enough and are being penalized for presumably not studying or focusing enough"
It totally can be. It opens up many potential consequences, direct and indirect. Self-punishment that stems from where? Most humans aren't naturally wired to stress about stuff as small as minor grades, but many do. School instills that insecurity. I agree. But don't you think it's counterproductive to want to teach self-motivation while enforcing a hyper-critical grading system that attaches moral character to academic performance?
This could be a double-edged sword. Say your final grade is based on just a mid-term and final. You don't do well under pressure and blank, then do poorly. Yet, throughout the year, you got high scores on all the smaller assignments. You still fail because it was based on only those 2 tests. Those smaller assignments could have helped your grade.
Op you clearly are not a teacher. Students will always try to push the threshold of minimum effort. If you say they cant mark A all the way down, they will just mark random answers all the way down. It can be hard (not all the time) to tell the difference between a kid answering randomly and a kid that just doesn't get it, but is legit trying. Most high teachers in the U.S. have around 160-200 students a day, which doesn't give us a lot of time to do detective work on each assignment for each student. Additionally, I have noticed with a good number of my students that if there is no penalty for making a mistake, they won't notice it enough/care enough to look over their mistakes for the test. In an ideal world where every student tried hard to better themselves and legit get the material, you would probably be right. However, a lot of them are just there cuz they are forced to attend school. Lastly, it helps with consistency. If you grade differently on minor assignments than you do on big tests, it will often confuse students. You will have 50 kids coming up. Every major assignment didn't take off points on X assignment for this mistake, but you did on the test. All this to say, you might feel sad getting a lower grad on your minor assignment, but your method has been tried and doesn't work.
What's the line exactly? The line is if you think they didn't try, they fail? If someone just put A. How do you know that they truly didn't believe that ever answer what actually A and just wrote A.
Because what kind of person would write a multiple-choice assignment where all the answers were A?? It's one thing if someone gets one question wrong, but in that example I was explaining what to do if a student answers A for like 20 questions straight. It's obvious they're bullshitting in that case.
What if that person chose all different answers and got all the questions wrong? Were the trying to fuck it up? Not trying? Or just really doesn't understand the class?
This scenario is outrageous. Either the student's teacher is comically inept at their job, or the student likely also didn't care. Everyone does badly on assignments, yes, but its very very rare for someone to pay attention in class and put effort in the work only to get *every single question wrong on an assignment.* The simpler theory would be that they were bullshitting here, too, so yeah. They likely were not trying.
OK, so the line is if you think they are wrong. You make them lose points, but if you think they are just dumb they don't. Got it.
No, the "dumb" kids will still have their mistakes pointed out to them and will be encouraged to improve. What I'm saying is that apathy should be punished. Mistakes made in good faith should not. I was about to write that I addressed this in my original post, but then I read your username.
I get what you are saying. That's why I was asking what the line was. You just said it's whatever you feel about the kid.
Wdym "it's whatever you feel about the kid"? I've already shown that it's not as hard as you think to assess whether a kid poor performance is due to laziness or genuine misunderstanding. Punish the former while treating the latter. The problem is that the current (US) school system punishes kids in both situations. It doesn't matter if you don't care about the class or if you're trying to make an effort but not getting things, the grading system treats you to the same consequence.
"Getting things wrong and making mistakes is a natural, important part of learning." Exactly. And so is responsibility and reward for effort. You're basically describing a "show-up and get a ribbon" system where your level of standards is not nearly as important as the quality of what you turn in.
that's how it works in a bunch of other countries (like in brazil, where i'm from) and imo it's way better and less stressful on the student. idk how much homework american students get but if it's close to how much i got back in school, it feels borderline evil to grade every single one of them based on performance lol some teachers made random students read some of their answers out loud in class, and even though we weren't graded based on performance it helped push the students to at least try and answer correctly