What do you think of nit picky teachers? 6th grade

[Anonymous]

I am the Prior PP whose 6th grader has an IEP for these types of issues. This is the perfect year for your son to learn to follow directions. The key here is that you and the school need to support him with that.

On tests, he should be circling or highlighting key words - even if that means he takes the test on paper rather than computer. For an assignment, the teacher, aide, (or you depending on the assignment) should go through the rubric with him and make sure he understands what to do. Before he turns in his work, he needs to go through the rubric again and check off all the items he completed. If he missed any, then he needs to complete them. These are all things that can be built into a 504 plan.

If he loses points on a test or assignment because he didn’t follow/understand the directions, then walk through with him where he went wrong and how to do it better next time.

This is part of what he needs to be learning in school. Some things are harder for certain kids to learn and that’s okay. Keep working on it. But, as you can see in this thread, it is important that he learn this skill.

-signed mom of a kid who got every math “estimation” question wrong for three years because he didn’t read carefully enough and didn’t estimate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to learn to follow directions now.

I teach college and last year I had a student hand in an essay that completely missed the purpose of the assignments. She was a great student, had been doing very well in the course, was a lovely person but for whatever reason she just went completely off base on her final term paper. She wrote a great paper and obviously put a lot of work into it but it wasn't the paper that was assigned.

I graded using a rubric and there were parts of the rubric that I couldn't even apply to her paper. I gave her marks where I could and her final mark was around 40%.

She contacted me immediately asking to meet. She came to my office and she looked like she had been through something awful. She told me she couldn't sleep or eat, that she had never failed anything and she didn't know how to cope with this. She started sobbing in my office and it was a bit heart wrenching. I could see that she really didn't know how to cope with this. She pleaded and pleaded to let her rewrite it or to grade it differently or do a bonus assignment or anything because she couldn't accept a failing grade. I said no to all and she was honestly almost traumatized. I really think this was the most difficult thing that she had gone through (as a high achiever). I had to get her support from a friend to leave my office. Her mom called me a couple days later pleading with me to do something as her daughter was not coping well and this had impacted her mental health.

I met twice more with the student helping her to learn to cope and build resilience and never changed her mark. That would have been the easy out for me and made her happy but this was a life lesson she needed to learn and it was what was fair. She never fully understood. She did pull herself back together and did fine in my class (above the class average but lower than her usual marks). It would have been much much better for her to learn this when she was younger.

Wait. Her MOM called you? Is this a thing now? I am floored that parents now think it is OK to call their child's university professors to plead for special favors (or for any reason). I would have been absolutely mortified if my parents had done this.

NP. This is off topic to this thread but since you ask, the answer is that parents feel emboldened to do this because colleges have turned parents into consumers with power. They charge such ridiculous prices for tuition and fees now. My alma mater costs 75k a year including room and board. It was under 35k when I attended 20 years ago. There is no way on earth it is truly "worth" 75k except that there are some people (about 1200 families per year) who can afford it.

When my kids are old enough to attend, it'll probably be close to 100k. You better believe I will be PISSED if I hand over 400k to a school to educate my kid and a professor pulls a stunt like the one above.

Don't charge astronomical prices and you'll get more reasonable responses. The more you charge, the more you empower people as consumers who can EASILY go elsewhere and take their money with them.

So you’d prefer that no one holds your kid accountable while they’re in college? You think it’s better if it doesn’t happen until your kid gets fired from their first job because they completely screw up projects because they didn’t pay attention to instructions? Or maybe you’ll just call your kid’s boss when you’re unhappy with your kid’s performance review.

No one is going to fire someone for not putting a border on a report. Come on. You're being ridiculous.

Man, I’m sure PP was not talking about PUTTING A BORDER ON A WORKPLACE PROJECT. Geez, extrapolate from the information given and see the big picture here. PP is spot on.

People get fired for not following directions all of the time. And sometimes, you don't get a redo. You need to get it right the first time. Come on! But...I agree about charging people $400k. You will get mommy calling about her money, for sure.

[Anonymous]

I'm surprised at how many people are dismissing the importance of following directions and actually doing what was assigned, even at work.

If I give an employee a task with specific instructions, it's because I need it that way. Maybe I need a specific font, or maybe even a specific border, because your task is one small part of a bigger presentation and I don't have time to be fixing everyone's borders and fonts.

And if I ask you to prepare a presentation on XYZ, I'm not going to be happy if you give me a presentation about ABC,
no matter how amazing it is and how much brilliance it showed. I asked you to demonstrate XYZ.

Especially in the case of the Spanish test, the child did *not* demonstrate knowledge that was asked. If OP's kid wrote that Buenos Dias means good day, it does *not* demonstrate that he knows when or how to use the phrase, which it sounds like was what was being evaluated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to learn to follow directions now.

I teach college and last year I had a student hand in an essay that completely missed the purpose of the assignments. She was a great student, had been doing very well in the course, was a lovely person but for whatever reason she just went completely off base on her final term paper. She wrote a great paper and obviously put a lot of work into it but it wasn't the paper that was assigned.

I graded using a rubric and there were parts of the rubric that I couldn't even apply to her paper. I gave her marks where I could and her final mark was around 40%.

She contacted me immediately asking to meet. She came to my office and she looked like she had been through something awful. She told me she couldn't sleep or eat, that she had never failed anything and she didn't know how to cope with this. She started sobbing in my office and it was a bit heart wrenching. I could see that she really didn't know how to cope with this. She pleaded and pleaded to let her rewrite it or to grade it differently or do a bonus assignment or anything because she couldn't accept a failing grade. I said no to all and she was honestly almost traumatized. I really think this was the most difficult thing that she had gone through (as a high achiever). I had to get her support from a friend to leave my office. Her mom called me a couple days later pleading with me to do something as her daughter was not coping well and this had impacted her mental health.

I met twice more with the student helping her to learn to cope and build resilience and never changed her mark. That would have been the easy out for me and made her happy but this was a life lesson she needed to learn and it was what was fair. She never fully understood. She did pull herself back together and did fine in my class (above the class average but lower than her usual marks). It would have been much much better for her to learn this when she was younger.

This story is horrible. Makes you sound awful and sadistic.

Yeah, you don't come off here well at all, college instructor!

What?! NP here. I can't believe you are advocating for changing a grade in response to a COLLEGE STUDENT who melts down when she makes a mistake.

Are you all unfamiliar with assignments? Rubrics? What planet am I living on??

This poster has given you a perfect example, wrapped in a bow, of why children should learn that details matter. Gah!

No I don't think the grade should be changed. But the college student asked to write another paper, on the correct topic this time, for partial credit and she turned her down.

I don't think she should get an A for the rewrite but maybe a C or a B which is better than a low F.

I agree with this.

My son is a freshman at a a selective top 15 university and he recently got a C on his Philosophy paper. He made an appointment to meet with the professor, who told him that he did not expand enough on the ideas. He gave him (and other students) the opportunity to rewrite the paper by the end of the semester for a new grade.

You sound like a horrible sadistic professor and so glad you don't teach at my son's college (not in the DC metro area of course).

I don’t think s/he sounds like a horrible sadistic professor at all. Then again, I don’t expect the world to cater to me or my kids.

Thanks Professor.

Nope. But good try.

[Anonymous]

My son is a freshman at a a selective top 15 university and he recently got a C on his Philosophy paper. He made an appointment to meet with the professor, who told him that he did not expand enough on the ideas. He gave him (and other students) the opportunity to rewrite the paper by the end of the semester for a new grade.

You sound like a horrible sadistic professor and so glad you don't teach at my son's college (not in the DC metro area of course).

The difference is your sons Professor gave the entire class the same opportunity. It is fair because everyone has the same chance. The other kid failed the final paper because they did not follow the directions. The Professor should not give one student a chance to change their grade and not give that same opportunity to all students.

I required a rough draft for all papers for my Freshmen and Sophomore classes so that I could address possible issues with papers for students who are new to college. The rough draft was marked liberally but there really was no grade. I would write "If this was your final paper it would be a Grade X. Please see the comments to improve your performance." It was meant to be a wake up call. Students who reviewed my comments and/or came to see me during office hours tended to receive A's and B's on their final paper. Students who didn't, well, it tended to be ugly. And when they came to complain about their grade, I would ask them to bring their marked up rough draft. It normally took about 30 seconds to see that they made no changes to the final.

I suspect that your sons Professor does this same thing every time he teaches this class and it is meant to be a wake up call to the students. It helps them adjust to his expectations. There is a huge difference between offering one student an opportunity to improve a grade and all students to improve a grade.

For the PP who thinks that your high tuition gets you extra information or access, nope. I am not allowed to discuss your child's grades with you. Your child is an adult. My parents solution to this conundrum, 20 some years ago, was to require that I show them my report card before they wrote another tuition check. If I had a grade they were not happy with, I had to show them the work that had been returned. They made it clear that if they thought I was doing poorly due to partying or not attending class, they would not write the tuition check. They never dreamed of calling the school or the Professors. I am not changing your kids grade because Mom and Dad are upset or because Mom and Dad choose to send their kid to a crazy expensive college. Mom and Dad need to check in with their kid and find out what is going on and make sure that their kid is doing their work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better to learn to follow directions now.

I teach college and last year I had a student hand in an essay that completely missed the purpose of the assignments. She was a great student, had been doing very well in the course, was a lovely person but for whatever reason she just went completely off base on her final term paper. She wrote a great paper and obviously put a lot of work into it but it wasn't the paper that was assigned.

I graded using a rubric and there were parts of the rubric that I couldn't even apply to her paper. I gave her marks where I could and her final mark was around 40%.

She contacted me immediately asking to meet. She came to my office and she looked like she had been through something awful. She told me she couldn't sleep or eat, that she had never failed anything and she didn't know how to cope with this. She started sobbing in my office and it was a bit heart wrenching. I could see that she really didn't know how to cope with this. She pleaded and pleaded to let her rewrite it or to grade it differently or do a bonus assignment or anything because she couldn't accept a failing grade. I said no to all and she was honestly almost traumatized. I really think this was the most difficult thing that she had gone through (as a high achiever). I had to get her support from a friend to leave my office. Her mom called me a couple days later pleading with me to do something as her daughter was not coping well and this had impacted her mental health.

I met twice more with the student helping her to learn to cope and build resilience and never changed her mark. That would have been the easy out for me and made her happy but this was a life lesson she needed to learn and it was what was fair. She never fully understood. She did pull herself back together and did fine in my class (above the class average but lower than her usual marks). It would have been much much better for her to learn this when she was younger.

Wait. Her MOM called you? Is this a thing now? I am floored that parents now think it is OK to call their child's university professors to plead for special favors (or for any reason). I would have been absolutely mortified if my parents had done this.

NP. This is off topic to this thread but since you ask, the answer is that parents feel emboldened to do this because colleges have turned parents into consumers with power. They charge such ridiculous prices for tuition and fees now. My alma mater costs 75k a year including room and board. It was under 35k when I attended 20 years ago. There is no way on earth it is truly "worth" 75k except that there are some people (about 1200 families per year) who can afford it.

When my kids are old enough to attend, it'll probably be close to 100k. You better believe I will be PISSED if I hand over 400k to a school to educate my kid and a professor pulls a stunt like the one above.

Don't charge astronomical prices and you'll get more reasonable responses. The more you charge, the more you empower people as consumers who can EASILY go elsewhere and take their money with them.

So you’d prefer that no one holds your kid accountable while they’re in college? You think it’s better if it doesn’t happen until your kid gets fired from their first job because they completely screw up projects because they didn’t pay attention to instructions? Or maybe you’ll just call your kid’s boss when you’re unhappy with your kid’s performance review.

No one is going to fire someone for not putting a border on a report. Come on. You're being ridiculous.

I have seen briefs kicked by a court for failure to use the correct font size. Good luck if you’re the junior associate who screwed that up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the Prior PP whose 6th grader has an IEP for these types of issues. This is the perfect year for your son to learn to follow directions. The key here is that you and the school need to support him with that.

On tests, he should be circling or highlighting key words - even if that means he takes the test on paper rather than computer. For an assignment, the teacher, aide, (or you depending on the assignment) should go through the rubric with him and make sure he understands what to do. Before he turns in his work, he needs to go through the rubric again and check off all the items he completed. If he missed any, then he needs to complete them. These are all things that can be built into a 504 plan.

If he loses points on a test or assignment because he didn’t follow/understand the directions, then walk through with him where he went wrong and how to do it better next time.

This is part of what he needs to be learning in school. Some things are harder for certain kids to learn and that’s okay. Keep working on it. But, as you can see in this thread, it is important that he learn this skill.

-signed mom of a kid who got every math “estimation” question wrong for three years because he didn’t read carefully enough and didn’t estimate.

OP here.

Yeah we're calling today to talk to his counselor about having his teachers reread his 504 plan, make sure that his testing accommodations are being implemented (according to him, they're not), and to add a goal of making him be better at following directions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised at how many people are dismissing the importance of following directions and actually doing what was assigned, even at work.

If I give an employee a task with specific instructions, it's because I need it that way. Maybe I need a specific font, or maybe even a specific border, because your task is one small part of a bigger presentation and I don't have time to be fixing everyone's borders and fonts.

And if I ask you to prepare a presentation on XYZ, I'm not going to be happy if you give me a presentation about ABC,
no matter how amazing it is and how much brilliance it showed. I asked you to demonstrate XYZ.

Especially in the case of the Spanish test, the child did *not* demonstrate knowledge that was asked. If OP's kid wrote that Buenos Dias means good day, it does *not* demonstrate that he knows when or how to use the phrase, which it sounds like was what was being evaluated.

This is the thing though. Doesn't knowing that Buenos Dias means "good morning" in English indicate that you know it is a greeting and not a farewell? I mean, it's strongly implied. It's worthy of partial credit.

I hate stingy teachers who are just looking for ways to knock kids down instead of build them up. A lot of teachers hate kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised at how many people are dismissing the importance of following directions and actually doing what was assigned, even at work.

If I give an employee a task with specific instructions, it's because I need it that way. Maybe I need a specific font, or maybe even a specific border, because your task is one small part of a bigger presentation and I don't have time to be fixing everyone's borders and fonts.

And if I ask you to prepare a presentation on XYZ, I'm not going to be happy if you give me a presentation about ABC,
no matter how amazing it is and how much brilliance it showed. I asked you to demonstrate XYZ.

Especially in the case of the Spanish test, the child did *not* demonstrate knowledge that was asked. If OP's kid wrote that Buenos Dias means good day, it does *not* demonstrate that he knows when or how to use the phrase, which it sounds like was what was being evaluated.

This is the thing though. Doesn't knowing that Buenos Dias means "good morning" in English indicate that you know it is a greeting and not a farewell? I mean, it's strongly implied. It's worthy of partial credit.

I hate stingy teachers who are just looking for ways to knock kids down instead of build them up. A lot of teachers hate kids.

PP said “good day,” not “good morning.” Which kind of just proves the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the Prior PP whose 6th grader has an IEP for these types of issues. This is the perfect year for your son to learn to follow directions. The key here is that you and the school need to support him with that.

On tests, he should be circling or highlighting key words - even if that means he takes the test on paper rather than computer. For an assignment, the teacher, aide, (or you depending on the assignment) should go through the rubric with him and make sure he understands what to do. Before he turns in his work, he needs to go through the rubric again and check off all the items he completed. If he missed any, then he needs to complete them. These are all things that can be built into a 504 plan.

If he loses points on a test or assignment because he didn’t follow/understand the directions, then walk through with him where he went wrong and how to do it better next time.

This is part of what he needs to be learning in school. Some things are harder for certain kids to learn and that’s okay. Keep working on it. But, as you can see in this thread, it is important that he learn this skill.

-signed mom of a kid who got every math “estimation” question wrong for three years because he didn’t read carefully enough and didn’t estimate.

OP here.

Yeah we're calling today to talk to his counselor about having his teachers reread his 504 plan, make sure that his testing accommodations are being implemented (according to him, they're not), and to add a goal of making him be better at following directions.

So his teacher writes on the rubric “include cover page with colorful border”. Now you want teacher to reread the 504 plan, and add a goal of “making him better at following directions” ?
How about mommy and daddy say “sonny, where’s the rubric for this poetry project? Let’s be sure you’ve ticked all the boxes.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the Prior PP whose 6th grader has an IEP for these types of issues. This is the perfect year for your son to learn to follow directions. The key here is that you and the school need to support him with that.

On tests, he should be circling or highlighting key words - even if that means he takes the test on paper rather than computer. For an assignment, the teacher, aide, (or you depending on the assignment) should go through the rubric with him and make sure he understands what to do. Before he turns in his work, he needs to go through the rubric again and check off all the items he completed. If he missed any, then he needs to complete them. These are all things that can be built into a 504 plan.

If he loses points on a test or assignment because he didn’t follow/understand the directions, then walk through with him where he went wrong and how to do it better next time.

This is part of what he needs to be learning in school. Some things are harder for certain kids to learn and that’s okay. Keep working on it. But, as you can see in this thread, it is important that he learn this skill.

-signed mom of a kid who got every math “estimation” question wrong for three years because he didn’t read carefully enough and didn’t estimate.

OP here.

Yeah we're calling today to talk to his counselor about having his teachers reread his 504 plan, make sure that his testing accommodations are being implemented (according to him, they're not), and to add a goal of making him be better at following directions.

What testing accommodations aren’t being implemented? That seems like a better case to make than “I think he should get more points for getting it wrong.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the Prior PP whose 6th grader has an IEP for these types of issues. This is the perfect year for your son to learn to follow directions. The key here is that you and the school need to support him with that.

On tests, he should be circling or highlighting key words - even if that means he takes the test on paper rather than computer. For an assignment, the teacher, aide, (or you depending on the assignment) should go through the rubric with him and make sure he understands what to do. Before he turns in his work, he needs to go through the rubric again and check off all the items he completed. If he missed any, then he needs to complete them. These are all things that can be built into a 504 plan.

If he loses points on a test or assignment because he didn’t follow/understand the directions, then walk through with him where he went wrong and how to do it better next time.

This is part of what he needs to be learning in school. Some things are harder for certain kids to learn and that’s okay. Keep working on it. But, as you can see in this thread, it is important that he learn this skill.

-signed mom of a kid who got every math “estimation” question wrong for three years because he didn’t read carefully enough and didn’t estimate.

OP here.

Yeah we're calling today to talk to his counselor about having his teachers reread his 504 plan, make sure that his testing accommodations are being implemented (according to him, they're not), and to add a goal of making him be better at following directions.

What testing accommodations aren’t being implemented? That seems like a better case to make than “I think he should get more points for getting it wrong.”

ADHD and LD's here. One of my accommodations was to take the test in a different room where I could talk out loud to myself. This helped me to read the questions out loud, which slowed down my thought process and allowed me to more easily identify all the steps I needed to do. I then listed the steps and then answered the question. I was also allowed extra time on tests because this took longer. I went from C's to A's when we realized that this method helped me to not skip steps and complete the work as required.

The OP mentioned that one of the accommodations is that her son is suppose to sit in the front row and he is not sitting there. That would reduce distractions from other kids and could influence his ability to concentrate on his work and his tests. The OP mentioned that one of the accommodations is for the teacher to review the instructions with the child individually and that is not happening. Again, that is influencing his performance. These type of accommodations are there to help the child learn to do these steps on his own but it takes time and reinforcement. If the teacher is not following the accommodations, then the teacher is failing.

As for the border, I could care less that we think it is a silly requirement. It is a requirement. The kid did not do it, he should be docked. Instead of complaining that the requirement is stupid, the parent should be reminding the child that it was required and he didn't do it. He needs to complete the assignment as written.

There are plenty of jobs that require that a person follows instructions precisely. The steps might seem stupid to you but they are normally there for a reason. I won't bother telling you how painful it is to make briefings match the templates we have to use at work but we are dinged, as in the contract loses money, if we don't use the right font, formatting, markings, and citations. The number of people who screw these things up is pretty high. We have a Quality Control program in place to prevent the contract dings. The people who keep screwing things up, caught in QC, are put on probation and a decent number are fired.

So yeah, the border seems stupid to you and to me but my bosses at work think that the borders and their width and coloring are pretty darn important so I make sure I follow those instructions. I like my job. It has nothing to do with the words that I write, using the correct font and font size and with proper margins, but someone is actually measuring this stuff. Help your kid in college and in work by actually teaching him to follow the instructions, even when they are stupid. It is harder for a kid with ADHD, I get that, but don't blow off that something is stupid and should not hurt his grade. Instead, remind him to follow the instructions and do what he is told.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised at how many people are dismissing the importance of following directions and actually doing what was assigned, even at work.

If I give an employee a task with specific instructions, it's because I need it that way. Maybe I need a specific font, or maybe even a specific border, because your task is one small part of a bigger presentation and I don't have time to be fixing everyone's borders and fonts.

And if I ask you to prepare a presentation on XYZ, I'm not going to be happy if you give me a presentation about ABC,
no matter how amazing it is and how much brilliance it showed. I asked you to demonstrate XYZ.

Especially in the case of the Spanish test, the child did *not* demonstrate knowledge that was asked. If OP's kid wrote that Buenos Dias means good day, it does *not* demonstrate that he knows when or how to use the phrase, which it sounds like was what was being evaluated.

This is the thing though. Doesn't knowing that Buenos Dias means "good morning" in English indicate that you know it is a greeting and not a farewell? I mean, it's strongly implied. It's worthy of partial credit.

I hate stingy teachers who are just looking for ways to knock kids down instead of build them up. A lot of teachers hate kids.

Dias doesn’t mean morning, it means day. And in English good day is typically a farewell.
So if kid literally translated he would have written what is an English farewell.
And if he wrote good morning, he didn’t literally translate it correctly.
And the confusion could have been avoided if he followed the directions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the Prior PP whose 6th grader has an IEP for these types of issues. This is the perfect year for your son to learn to follow directions. The key here is that you and the school need to support him with that.

On tests, he should be circling or highlighting key words - even if that means he takes the test on paper rather than computer. For an assignment, the teacher, aide, (or you depending on the assignment) should go through the rubric with him and make sure he understands what to do. Before he turns in his work, he needs to go through the rubric again and check off all the items he completed. If he missed any, then he needs to complete them. These are all things that can be built into a 504 plan.

If he loses points on a test or assignment because he didn’t follow/understand the directions, then walk through with him where he went wrong and how to do it better next time.

This is part of what he needs to be learning in school. Some things are harder for certain kids to learn and that’s okay. Keep working on it. But, as you can see in this thread, it is important that he learn this skill.

-signed mom of a kid who got every math “estimation” question wrong for three years because he didn’t read carefully enough and didn’t estimate.

OP here.

Yeah we're calling today to talk to his counselor about having his teachers reread his 504 plan, make sure that his testing accommodations are being implemented (according to him, they're not), and to add a goal of making him be better at following directions.

So his teacher writes on the rubric “include cover page with colorful border”. Now you want teacher to reread the 504 plan, and add a goal of “making him better at following directions” ?
How about mommy and daddy say “sonny, where’s the rubric for this poetry project? Let’s be sure you’ve ticked all the boxes.”

THIS. What PP says just above. +1

Parents now fear "helicoptering" so much, and at the same time demand so much from teachers and administrators, that they can end up thinking they shouldn't take any role in a child's homework organization. Note that I'm saying organization--I am not saying to do the child's homework for him. But since OP's son has known issues that already mean he has a 504 plan and needs accommodations at school, then at home he also should be getting help in learning to organize himself for success. And that means what the PP above says: "Let's sit down together and go over the rubric before you begin this project." Then: "Let's go over the rubric now that you're done, and check that you ticked all the boxes before you turn this in."

Kids (whether they need accommodations or don't) are not born knowing how to set priorities, use their time wisely, have a process for checking directions, etc. They have to learn it and parents shouldn't assume teachers have time to teach that in school. It's best taught at home in the context of planning and completing homework--and parents are the ones to guide that learning. OP, I'm not saying YOU never do this! But many parents including some on DCUM seem to think it's cheating or hovering ever to teach their own kids organizational skills or to look at their kids' assignments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised at how many people are dismissing the importance of following directions and actually doing what was assigned, even at work.

If I give an employee a task with specific instructions, it's because I need it that way. Maybe I need a specific font, or maybe even a specific border, because your task is one small part of a bigger presentation and I don't have time to be fixing everyone's borders and fonts.

And if I ask you to prepare a presentation on XYZ, I'm not going to be happy if you give me a presentation about ABC,
no matter how amazing it is and how much brilliance it showed. I asked you to demonstrate XYZ.

Especially in the case of the Spanish test, the child did *not* demonstrate knowledge that was asked. If OP's kid wrote that Buenos Dias means good day, it does *not* demonstrate that he knows when or how to use the phrase, which it sounds like was what was being evaluated.

This is the thing though. Doesn't knowing that Buenos Dias means "good morning" in English indicate that you know it is a greeting and not a farewell? I mean, it's strongly implied. It's worthy of partial credit.

I hate stingy teachers who are just looking for ways to knock kids down instead of build them up. A lot of teachers hate kids.

PP said “good day,” not “good morning.” Which kind of just proves the point.

No one says "good day" in English. They say something that more specifically points to the time of day: morning, afternoon, evening. That's the more accurate translation. You would use Buenos tardes for afternoon or noche for evening.