Brits no longer to be considered failures

[Pengwuino]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/britain_failure_dc;_ylt=AlFQr8K9L3L8soQXohS8MmKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

LONDON (Reuters) - The word "fail" should be banned from use in British classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralizing pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.

PS, The title is to show the location. Its not meant to be an attack on british people.

 

[brewnog]

I'll let you off the hook with the title of your thread, for now... No energy to slag off USians right now!

This stuff gets right on my tits. I don't even see that there will be an argument about this, it'll get laughed right out of whatever legislative board it gets put in front of. A healthy fear of failure is what gave kids like me the motivation to do some ruddy work!

They can't even sing "Baa Baa Black Sheep" in nurseries or schools any more for fear of inciting racial hatred, and teachers must no longer refer to the "blackboard", but "chalkboard" instead. It's political correctness gone mad!

 

[Pengwuino]

Read my PS jerk :P Dont make me slap you!

 

[brewnog]

Read my PS jerk :P Dont make me slap you!

Hah, sorry, I must have read it with too much, uhh, salt!

 

[Pengwuino]

Yes you did, you were suppose to throw it over your shoulder!

 

[Evo]

"deferred success"

"I didn't fail chemistry, my success was just indefinitely deferred"

<wipes tears from her eyes>

edit:I'm bending a rule here and copying this to GD, I think more people will see it here and I'm curious what people think of this. I can see both sides to this, but I feel that there is a limit to skirting the issue.

 

[Pengwuino]

What in the world is going on with the thread. Do you love it that much evo :D

 

[Townsend]

What in the world is going on with the thread. Do you love it that much evo :D

Very strange...

 

[Evo]

Well dagnabit, my edit was lost.

edit:I'm bending a rule here and copying this to GD, I think more people will see it here and I'm curious what people think of this. I can see both sides to this, but I feel that there is a limit to skirting the issue.

I left the original post in place.

 

[motai]

I'm seeing double!

I'm seeing double!




edit: Nevermind. I guess I'm just seeing things. Or I deferred success on my vision test.

 

[Evo]

Yeah, this copy function is a bit flaky.

 

[moose]

heh, England was such a good country, and now they are ruining it :(
This is the first step... This is like those "Participation" or "You tried" ribbons O.O

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

This is just silly.

 

[Echo 6 Sierra]

Some schools in Texas no longer use red ink to grade papers because it looks bad. Funny thing, a green or blue F will still fail your arse.

 

[Moonbear]

Some schools in Texas no longer use red ink to grade papers because it looks bad. Funny thing, a green or blue F will still fail your arse.

I think that was the beginning of the downfall. We need MORE red ink, not less! Set those kids straight and make them earn their grades!

Well, how about we just get rid of F's and work down A through E, E can stand for "Eh, maybe you'll do better when you retake it next year."

Really, I think this is such silliness (when I saw the article this morning, it was titled, "Get ready to email this one..." ) Afterall, some people need a healthy dose of failure to avoid turning that "deferred success" into a "deferred paycheck."

 

[Kazza_765]

This stuff gets right on my tits. I don't even see that there will be an argument about this, it'll get laughed right out of whatever legislative board it gets put in front of. A healthy fear of failure is what gave kids like me the motivation to do some ruddy work!

I wouldn't be so sure. Over here teachers aren't allowed to say anything negative at all about their students. Not to the students, not to the parents and not in the report cards. I have a few friends that are teachers and they spend hours trying to find ways to convey the truth without saying anything at all negative. In some states here I think, or maybe its in some schools, the parents don't even get to see the students' grades, instead they are graded on their effort and attention etc. on a scale with things like "needs encouragement" or "progressing well", instead of being graded on their actual performance academically.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I wouldn't be so sure. Over here teachers aren't allowed to say anything negative at all about their students. Not to the students, not to the parents and not in the report cards. I have a few friends that are teachers and they spend hours trying to find ways to convey the truth without saying anything at all negative. In some states here I think, or maybe its in some schools, the parents don't even get to see the students' grades, instead they are graded on their effort and attention etc. on a scale with things like "needs encouragement" or "progressing well", instead of being graded on their actual performance academically.

I really can't believe what they are doing to education. It saddens me.

 

[Lyuokdea]

This is ridiculous, "deferred success" lol, where do they come up with this stuff?

My parents are both elementary teachers, and some of the stuff they tell me about workshops they've gone to is staggering. There was a new sistem in our city called WoW "Working on the Work" which states that teachers must make all content rewarding and exciting to students. Students must be able to see the meaning and the reason for everything they are taught. This is done by sprucing up demonstrations, watching more videos, playing more games, basically everything but more reading writing and math. They want to make sure that first and foremost, education is enjoyable and features the instant gratification that kids "need."

Furthermore, my dad is a math specialist and does a lot of stuff on teaching math. The current system is to teach things like division multiplication etc in multiple different ways i.e. for 68 - 35 you could do it on paper, you could subtract 5 from 8 and then get 63 - 30 and then subtract the 3 from 6 to get 33. or you could add up to 70 then subtract 30 then subtract 5 and subtract the two remaining. Basically all the tricks that we used to come up on our own when we learned arithmatic.

Now it's not a bad idea to introduce those types of ideas to kids. Especially advanced ones looking for another way to analyze a problem, but to teach kids 10 different ways to do a problem when kids still haven't gotten to the point of just memorizing simple addition and multiplication facts only prevents them from doing the memorization that kids need.

Lastly on to the most egregious example, the principal at one of the schools my mom works at actually banned the usage of timed math tests. Like the "do 100 addition problems" in 1 minute tests which were the reason that we all actually decided to learn our math facts. The principal banned them because she stated it rewarded kids who could do problems faster instead of just learning to do the problems. When these kids get in the real world, they will learn that doing work fast is sometimes as important as getting it done. The guy who can program 1000 lines of code in an hour will get the job over the guy who can only write 100, ceteris parabis. Besides, how are you going to get through actual math, when you still have to look twice to figure out 9+8.

It's amazing how much this has all changed in really only the last dozen years or so, as an example when I was in first grade, my teacher actually wrote this, (and I quote) on my report card "Your son will achieve nothing in life if he does not drastically improve my organizational skills" That may be a little bit harsh on the other side, but it definitely got the point across. *Looks around my room* I got to fix this soon, or I am doomed.

~Lyuokdea

 

[Kenneth Mann]

My parents are both elementary teachers, and some of the stuff they tell me about workshops they've gone to is staggering. There was a new sistem in our city called WoW "Working on the Work" which states that teachers must make all content rewarding and exciting to students. Students must be able to see the meaning and the reason for everything they are taught. This is done by sprucing up demonstrations, watching more videos, playing more games, basically everything but more reading writing and math. They want to make sure that first and foremost, education is enjoyable and features the instant gratification that kids "need."

It's called "pandering".

KM

 

[iansmith]

Well, how about we just get rid of F's and work down A through E, E can stand for "Eh, maybe you'll do better when you retake it next year."

E would not work for french class (In french school E is used instead F). It stand for "Échec" and it is translatate to Failure.

So next time my experiment fail, I will tell my supervisor that I got "deferred success".

 

[one_raven]

I moved to a town called Elmwood Park New Jersey and went to High School there in 1985.
I was confused and bewildered to find out that their grades were not onlt on a different scale than where I originally went to school (a 65% was still a passing grade) but there was no such thing as an "F".
They used "A-E" instead.

Perhaps it goes without saying that the students in that town were struggling in High School with things I had learned in GRAMMAR School in my old town!

 

[Kazza_765]

We have a nice way of grading when it comes to final year of high school. Everyone gets a mark for their subjects which are summed and then ranked. You simply get a percentile mark from 99.95 to < 13 (below 13 they don't give you your actual score). Of course, parents often wonder why their child gets such low marks at the end of high school when all their report cards read "working to their fullest potential" or "trying hard" etc. instead of "hasn't got a f***ing clue".

 

[brewnog]

Well, how about we just get rid of F's and work down A through E, E can stand for "Eh, maybe you'll do better when you retake it next year."

We've actually done this already, I forgot!

Typically, you can get 'A' through to 'E' (although you can get an A* at GCSE, which is also a bit silly). If you fail, you get a 'U', for 'unclassified'.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I thinc we shuld continu to wadder down educashun. After al, the reel wurld isant pass or fale.

I wonder how my customers would respond if I suggested that the system doesn't work, but not to worry, I have a deferral.

 

[BobG]

This is ridiculous, "deferred success" lol, where do they come up with this stuff?

My parents are both elementary teachers, and some of the stuff they tell me about workshops they've gone to is staggering. There was a new sistem in our city called WoW "Working on the Work" which states that teachers must make all content rewarding and exciting to students. Students must be able to see the meaning and the reason for everything they are taught. This is done by sprucing up demonstrations, watching more videos, playing more games, basically everything but more reading writing and math. They want to make sure that first and foremost, education is enjoyable and features the instant gratification that kids "need."

Furthermore, my dad is a math specialist and does a lot of stuff on teaching math. The current system is to teach things like division multiplication etc in multiple different ways i.e. for 68 - 35 you could do it on paper, you could subtract 5 from 8 and then get 63 - 30 and then subtract the 3 from 6 to get 33. or you could add up to 70 then subtract 30 then subtract 5 and subtract the two remaining. Basically all the tricks that we used to come up on our own when we learned arithmatic.

Now it's not a bad idea to introduce those types of ideas to kids. Especially advanced ones looking for another way to analyze a problem, but to teach kids 10 different ways to do a problem when kids still haven't gotten to the point of just memorizing simple addition and multiplication facts only prevents them from doing the memorization that kids need.

My daughter's elementary school did this - mental math. I thought the concept was good, but the look of panic in her eyes when you gave her a choice gave me some doubts. Introducing this in elementary school might be a bit early, especially kids that have been raised with calculators.

When I was in school, learning the short cuts for doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, squares and and square roots in your head was something I had to learn in high school on my own - in fact, you pretty much had to invent your own little tricks, which meant you needed some concept of algebra (slide rules were such a tricky thing to learn that you needed to be able to come up with an approximate answer in your head so you could do a sanity check on your slide rule answer).

 

[matthyaouw]

When I was younger, I was told by a teacher that they were no longer allowed to say "trial and error" as that was too disencouraging for students. Instead it must be called "trial and improvement". Oh dear...

 

[Lyuokdea]

When I was younger, I was told by a teacher that they were no longer allowed to say "trial and error" as that was too disencouraging for students. Instead it must be called "trial and improvement". Oh dear...

LOL, wow.

I don't think that teaching alternate ways to do things is on face bad, but when you are only teaching "the many different ways to do something" like addition instead of just actually teaching addition facts and making kids memorize them, you are doing them a disservice, because addition tables, times tables, etc. are things that must be memorized in the real world in the end later. Go back and teach a couple tricks, you could spend maybe a week on it in 5th grade, instead of 2 months in second grade, when kids are supposed to be memorizing the facts so they can advance to thinking and considering them later.

~Lyuokdea

 

[Smurf]

It disgusts me. Kids these days are such pussies. I mean, I've had teachers talk so much crap to me I could write a 10 page report on it. (in fact some of my favourite high school stories are about this)

It's ridiculous now, we've given up stopping the kids from failing, our mentality now is that as long as they do it without knowing that they're failing we've done our job.

 

[Gokul43201]

Well, the kids aren't really failing if you don't call it "failing" anymore. And that makes the teachers and the schools more succesful, doesn't it ? See how that works ?

 

[outsider]

They are compromising to adjust perception to accept general mediocrity.

The situation of failure is a real one when one does not achieve one's goals. This is also called "reframing". Widespread political correctness is where the cultured world is heading. Survival of the fit no longer applies in a world where we support the survival of all, to keep the natives (figuratively) at bay. It may result in some happy people and some frustrated people.

***
Let us seek the highest ground and move onward from there.

 

[Physics is Phun]

wow. this is rediculous. I don't really remember elementary school being too mean on report cards. But in high school it was completely different. teachers did pretty much whatever they wanted. my tech teacher always swore, calling us f'ing idiots if we screwed something up. On the exam I wrote a little joke and he said he was going to give me 100% cause it was funny, and some other student was like, hey that's not fair, you can't do that. and the teacher responds, shut up, I can do whatever the hell I want.
I remember on our report cards just last semester, not on mine, it said "you wrote a very poor exam" I thought that was kinda mean. but what can you do, the teachers seem to do what they want here.

 

[Andy]

Why couldn't they do that when i was back at school? I would prefer to have defered my english exam.

 

[Daminc]

I've been in 3 different types of school.

When I was young my father was in the Army and so I went to an army school. I loved school then (almost all subjects) and then, when he left the army I joined a civilian school which sucked. RE was just writing out the bible and I hated it. Pupils messed around in class which never happened in the Army school and I hated that. Math was about 6 months to a year behind that of army school education so it appeared that I was a 'swot' which I hated so in the end I just gave up school.

This 'PR' trend is just a further decline in the standards of education. How can the pupil address a problem if the teacher isn't allowed to tell the pupil in case 'it hurts their feelings'.

The third type of schooling was an Army Apprentice College (pre-army education) where I spent 2 years studying Electronic Engineering and the difference is extreme. Failure isn't an option. Any failure results in a proportionate punishment. If you don't want to get punished...don't fail.

It was drilled into us that if we fail then people can die as a result. It certainly seemed brutal at the time but it's probably one of the main reasons why the British have the best trained army in the world. The possibility of failure is smashed out of the soldiers psyche.

 

[Diencephalon]

It would've been sweet if I could've simply deferred AP Calculus instead of Failing it by sleeping through it and not doing any work for the last 3 months of school.