[TorqueDog]

Miss Cindy Smith of Edmonton needs to either explain her point of view or pipe down with the whining about how the media twists her words and we're only interested in one side of the story. On the contrary, we're INVITING your side of the story.

Please, if your words were taken out of context, we're eagerly awaiting you providing the proper context so we can re-evaluate our positions. But lamenting the media spinning your words without being willing to clarify your position is useless.


Here's my take:
1. If you do absolutely nothing, you deserve absolutely nothing. This is known as a ZERO.
2. If you only partially complete an assignment but do not hand it in, your grade should be proportional to what you handed in. This is also known as a ZERO.
3. If you partially complete an assignment AND hand it in, then what amount of work was completed should be graded appropriately. A zero is NOT appropriate unless you actually get everything that you completed incorrect.


For my first six grades, I was used to coasting without any issue. Always an A+ student.

First semester of Grade 7 math was quite possibly the lowest point in my academic progress. I got a 37%. It felt like getting kicked in the groin - twice... by a pre-schooler... in front of the entire school. I told my parents, and in my short-sighted view, it was immediately apparent that this was a bad idea, because I was immediately grounded from using the computer, playing video games, etc. My parents' involvement in my studies was immediately heightened and as a result of this, my grades got back to where they needed to be and I maintained a high level of performance throughout the remainder of my school years. But it wasn't without my own effort that this turnaround happened.

What was the point of this little story? That as a student, YOU are responsible for YOUR performance. If your work is deserving of a 0%, or a 37%, a 50% or a 90%, you should get that. And not doing anything is absolutely worth a zero.