The K-12 School System Needs an Overhaul, Yesterday
As a student, Tutor, educational assistant, and as someone who, in general, has to deal with other student’s shitty work I must say I am sick and tired of the K-12 system. As an educational assistant, tutor, and peer I often end up editing the crap these students hand in. If they are coming out of high schools that never give them 0′s or only base their marks on whatever they decided to hand in, why would they have any understanding of academia, math, science, or the English language? For years now I have been struggling to help students who come out of high school with little to no understanding of such basic skills as grammar. High school English programs have a heavy focus on Shakespear instead of teaching students how to use a comma, or what a semi colon is for. They push students through from one grade to the next without thinking about the consequences this could have later. The justification for these actions is that they (whomever ‘they’ are) do not want children to be impacted negatively. So the solution is to have a society of people who have no concept of language.
But it gets better then this. Today this story broke. Lynden Dorval, a teacher with 35 years of experience, was suspended for insubordination. Dorval explains to global news just why he was suspended:
My principal has been giving me directive for almost a year-and-a-half to not give students zeros if they don’t hand in work or show up to write an exam,Instead we have a comment policy where we’re supposed to put in comments indicating what they haven’t done. The problem with that is the marks program doesn’t count that for anything, so if a student had only done half the work then their average mark would be based only on that half the work. The average is calculated by whatever marks are in there.
So basically children are learning nothing from K-12. It’s time we overhaul the system. Student’s should get zeros if they don’t do their work, or don’t show up for exams; sometimes students should get left behind; and more importantly they should be held accountable for their actions. It’s no wonder one of my peers at school last term said to me “I don’t understand why I got an F, why didn’t this prof just let me hand it in at the end of the term.” Indeed, what a jerk.
