““A” is for “Acceptable”” Comments, Page 1

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One Comment on ““A” is for “Acceptable””

  1. Excellent and timely article. In fact, there ARE already the A+ and A++ and A+++ realities in some schools. Now the students aren’t aiming for 100 (that became ‘merely acceptable’) but feel the need to get ‘105 or 110 or more for ‘bonus’ or ‘extra well done job’.
    When I went to school, 100 was as high as you could get. It meant perfection. It meant no errors, best performance. Full stop.
    Now 100 is ‘almost best’ and ‘almost excellent’; and an A paper or even an A+ paper is not supreme.
    The bell curve did not shift, but the names we call each place on the curve did. Now the A is for Average.
    There is indeed nothing wrong with average performance for an average student. Anything above that would delineate areas of relative strength and serious extra effort. But with grades being a measure not only of a child’s ability, but of a teacher’s skills, a school’s ranking, and political gain (and a multimillon industry of ‘teaching programs’ and now ‘common-core’ goals that were developed without an educator on the team…), the grades have little to do with children anymore.
    The saddest part is, that children know.
    Children ALWAYS sense unfairness or hypocrisy or halls of mirrors reality. They know it is not about them, that they are cogs in a machine. That they are measured by academics that do not really measure them and yet they are judged by.
    My hope is that more of us will get the focus back to educating the individuals, not promoting the system. Well done.

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