Basically, it sounds like he had a girl in his class who never showed up and never did her homework. At the end of the year, another math teacher tutored the student for two days, and she took the final exam and passed. So the school gave her a D instead of an F. But the math teacher is pissed off because he wanted to fail her!
That makes no sense to me. She passed the final exam, which basically means she had mastered the concepts in the class. It's not like she got an A - she passed with a D. It doesn't matter whether she had a good attitude or turned in assignments - but I'm guessing that if she'd been one of the teacher's favorites, she could have failed the exam but passed the class.
Lampros is full of 'woe is me': “It’s almost as if you stick to your morals and your ethics, you’ll end up without a job.” And the article tries to claim that this episode pokes holes in "the Department of Education’s vaunted increase in graduation rates" and reflects "pressures from administrators to pass marginal students."
Seems like everyone's lost sight of the big picture. A teacher worked with a student one-on-one for two days, and she passed her final exam. Maybe with four days, she could have aced it? It seems to me that 1) the student isn't marginal; and 2) the teacher who tutored her showed that the school system could make huge strides in student achievement with a little more effort.
Far too many teachers value students following rules over students actually knowing the course material. This was one of those cases - not everybody learns by sitting still in a chair all semester, and Lampros should stop worrying about whether kids show him enough respect and spend more time worrying about whether the kids actually learn the material.
1 comments:
Sorry, but you're just wrong on this one. Try doing what this student did at a job and you'll be fired. She never showed up for the class and didn't do the assignments. Last time I checked, showing up for your job and doing what your boss asks, whether you like it or not, is required to keep your job. And part of the educational process is getting people used to what will be expected of them later in life. Also, I wouldn't say that the girl "mastered" the concepts just because she crammed for 2 days before the test. I'd be willing to bet $10,000 that if you gave that girl the same test today, she'd fail because she didn't learn the concepts, which is done through repetition, but simply memorized some things for 48 hours, and them forgot them.
Post a Comment