Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesFanStrandedInEDM
Cecil,
The very base of the "No Zero Policy" is accurate assessment. If you were to go onto Alberta Education and take a look at a few curriculum's you wont find ANY that specify the importance of deadlines. Teachers are hired to teach to the curriculum. One curriuclum objective/outcome could state that "The student understands the effects of Globalization on the 3rd world". The teacher's job is to assess that outcome alone, behavior and tardiness do not come into play as it does not state "The student understands the effects of Globalization with a smile on their face" or "The student understands the effects of Globalization by September 13". If the teacher is teaching to the curriculum, they are only grading the outcome. Schools today are not graded on a bell-curve, they are graded on the knowledge of outcomes. So it shouldnt matter that the other students wrote the test 3 months earlier. If the student knows the outcomes, he knows the outcomes.
Children will have decades to learn the lessons behind punctuality and work ethic. They are in school to learn Math, Science, Social Studies, English, along with a bunch of other courses. The primary goal of schools are for students to Learn the curriculum.
As for the assignments that would fall under this policy....On a previous post to SilverGS i specified the difference between Formative Assessment and Summative Assessment. I know a lot of people have a problem coming to terms with this, but not everything that is done in a classroom is done for marks.
Formative Assessment are the activities that the teacher uses to teach the content, it gives them feedback on students understanding of the material. These activities do not count for marks. So thats why some of you may have come home as a child proud of your 100% on your Crossword on the "Giver", but the reality, it wasnt for marks and thats why your grade in English didn't seem to align with your "Giver Crossword"
Summative Assessments are what assignments that would fall under the umbrella of the "No Zero Policy". These are the assignments that the teacher would use for Marks. These come at the end of units to test the understandings of the curriculum outcomes. It is meant to give the teacher a "snapshot" of everything that student does or doesn't know. These may come in the form of Tests, Essays, Group Projects, Presentations. It takes everything the kid learned and thrown at the teacher to grade.
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I still get the idea of properly assessing a students knowledge, but I am baffled, absolutely floored at how dismissive you seem to be towards the other lessons that kids learn in school. It really explains why so many kids are so unprepared once they reach real life and university, because they've been coddled all their lives through school.
So why do teachers have due dates at all? Why not let the students choose when their assignments are due? If it doesn't matter why not just say everything must be completed by year end?
Is it not vastly unfair to have one set of kids hand in their paper on Sept 13 but another set of kids can have 3 extra months to refine that paper and make it better? Are there not severe late penalties for missed assignments?
What if the kid decides to just hand in a blank piece of paper? Would that not be enough to get them to get a mark similar to a zero but at least it would be a mark and not an MEV?
When he gets fired from his job for not completing tasks or drops out of university for being a failure do you really think the excuse "but I knew the material by the end of the year" is going to work?