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I would like to begin by thanking everyone who has shared their
experiences in this area. Until now, I thought I was in a unique
situation. A parent has expressed "deep concern" that I have the temerity
to ask questions on a test that are not identical to those in the homework
or examples done in class. It is "unreasonable" of me to expect their
child to be able to do a problem they have not seen before. A biology
teacher here was asked to provide a "study guide" by a parent. The guide
was to include only those vocabulary words which will be on the test as
the girl should not have to "waste her time" learning things that will not
be on the test. Fortunatly, one of our administrators is an ex science
teacher and so far the administration has backed us.
On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, Scott Goelzer wrote:
<snip>
had factions in the school, jocks, brains, druggies, kikkers, etc). The
jocks were stereotypically non-academic. No more - my best students are
now called scholar- athletes. These kids can manage all of their school
work and sports. Why? Sports is now the last place a teacher can say to
a child 'You lost, your performance was terrible - you will practice
harder or sit on the bench' and be absolute. Parents will accept this
behavior from coaches, but not from teachers.
I am glad that this is still the case where you teach. Around here many
students who are told to sit on the bench transfer to another school to
get more playing time. We have many "elite" club teams in soccer
and basketball and parent's expectations are high when little Suzie enters
high school. When the state athletic association tried to make
the transfer
rules stricter they were met with a lawsuit. Another lawsuit over playing
time in a neighboring school last spring led to a coach quitting
in the middle
of the season.
classroom. The other kids, with inflated self-esteems, view success asThere is also some evidence that boys and girls respond in different ways
a lucky event - often discussions with these kids reveal them to be
very fatalistic. They also feel that a grade is a judgment - of
themselves as person, not their work. Doesn't make sense, but that's
what I get from discussions.
to failure. "Boys and girls view academic failure very differently. Boys
often attribute their failures to lack of trying. Girls are more likely to
attribute their failures to a simple lack of ability" (1) Psychologists
call this "effort attribution". (2) Since most of the cited studies
occurred in the 80's it would be interesting to see if a decade of
"self-esteem" edubabble has resulted in both genders thinking as Scott
indicates above.