Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Abolish Grades, Combat Racism

I used to think the movie, “Idiocracy” was one of the dumbest movies ever. I’m beginning to think it was prophecy.

Yep!!!

Hire these kids to build a bridge...and if it falls and u drown...no worries....we get to try again ....WTFFFFF!

.................................Jeopardy Contestants anyone????? ; ]

Blacks can't act like whites but whites can certainly act like blacks. Destroy the standards and expectations and they are.

It is silly to think that some alleged remedies for supposedly racist curriculum or grading systems, in and of themselves, will help any student - and, as pointed out by someone here, those could very well be a hindrance to them. With regard to measuring learning achievement, assigning grades, awarding diplomas/certificates, etc., there always has been significant disparity of expectations and standards among schools in various areas and situations. That is where the "good" program reputations came about and, in general, the overall disparity is not likely to change.

However, the actual levels of student learning mastery and achievement in a particular school situation often can be improved, and sometimes dramatically. In some well-meant endeavors, such improvement has been stimulated by changes of the type generally noted in that article. Improvement in learning never results from lowered expectations on the part of the school, but it does occur as a result of changes in approach, curriculum design, application of student time on task. prevailing attitudes, etc. Those here who simply and automatically knock down the idea of subjective grading decisions about mastery by the individual teacher, or teams thereof, are displaying some ignorance indicative of less than fulsome education. In some areas of learning, judgment by an accomplished and dedicated educator is just about the only means for effective grading. And, if you think that individual teachers, even in a rigid standardized test setup for grades, do not influence the student grade outcomes through teacher behavior - you need to think some more.

It certainly is easy enough to criticize much of what has evolved in public schools and what is now being done/not being done there - I am witness to that evolution and am horrified at times - we all have observations/opinions about such things. Sometimes we are correct. But, knee-jerk criticism is not productive. That sad initial post on this matter, which badly misrepresented the content of that article on the SD Schools, is an example of the bad knee-jerk - maybe a condition due to some earlier mistakes in grading decisions.