Quote:
Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo
I (really) appreciate your comments, and understand them fully. Teachers are placed in a tough spot in this regard - no question. I'm going to be SUPER clear here....I appreciate teachers and respect them very much! It's a hard job that gets harder every year. None of my comments are intended to diminish the respect that teachers deserve - they are purely to identify things that I don't happen to agree with.
That said, I still don't see why teachers can't 'Fail' a student. I understand the multiple reasons why it is an undesirable outcome, but I still don't see why teachers aren't allowed. Is the "...policy that no student can be held back" actual written policy?
At the very least, I think that teachers have a professional duty to flunk a lousy student, period. Unless there is an actual written policy that forbids it, the failing of students should be a regular occurrence. Lastly - if that written policy actual does exist, the teacher's union (and it's members) have a professional duty to bring it to light and argue against it.
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I taught Junior High in the 70's and 80's. Already at that time, it was pretty near impossible to fail someone in Junior High. Some failing was still occurring at the Elementary level though.
I can remember one student who really just pushed the system to the limits and unfortunately his father backed him up. In fact, the father basically said, you will not fail my son.
I taught this person Math. He was never a discipline problem, in fact far from it. He sat there like a lump on a log and never interacted period. He also never did one iota of work. He sat there the whole year, never doing one assignment, never completing one question on any test, he just did nothing.......and as far as we could determine, this student had no learning disabilities etc. It was impossible to motivate him to do anything in any subject.
Yet at the end of the year, his teachers were asked to come up with some kind of assessment that would get him passed. I refused. I rated him at 0, that is what he had done all year, zippo. Yet he was moved on to Grade 10.