Why do some HS teachers tell students not to care about grades -

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP can you give us the TL;DR version of your question for us?

This is the best I can do:

How should I gently suggest to the teacher in upcoming PTC that being a harsh grader - while at the same time telling students they should be there because they love Japanese and not because they want a good grade - is causing more harm to my kid than helping?

Why is caring about grades an inherently bad thing?

How can my kid demonstrate that he's doing what the teacher asked when he follows the rubric for a graded essay but still makes an 86?

OK, this is problematic. The truth is, he may just be a bad teacher. You can complain diplomatically, by all means, but if he's not the brightest bulb, he's never going to get it. I think what might be more helpful is for your kid to request a meeting with him to go over why he thought he checked all the stuff from the rubric, but still lost points. Your kid will need to pay close attention to the teacher's explanation, because the tone will tell him just as much as the words. If the teacher is amenable to flattery, and your kid has savvy social skills, he might be able to get some points back (life lesson!).

Kids can tell when teachers are in the wrong and just don't want to admit it. My daughter witnessed her Spanish teacher unfairly take off points from a classmate because she "seemed anxious when presenting". My daughter could hear every word she said and it was all correct according to the rubric, so her classmate should have gotten all the points, like my daughter did.

You can also request a meeting with the counselor, and ask whether this teacher has had complaints before. Ask other parents too.

Most teachers are honest and willing to discuss material with students, but there will be a few who just aren't. It sucks when you land on one. My oldest, in college now, had a terrible math teacher in senior year, who created a ton of unnecessary stress right during college applications. My daughter hasn't had such a terrible experience (she's in 9th grade), but we told her it might still happen.

All this is a life lesson in the things you can control vs the things you cannot control. Tell your kid to hang in there, and if you suspect he's a little weak in the actual language skills, get him a tutor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They're making the point that love of learning should be the driving force in school, even if unfortunately kids are well aware that's not what's rewarded in college admissions.

This is exactly what I think. But one teacher in one class can't change an entire system. And, FTR, I agree with this teacher. But any teacher who can't or won't understand the pressure kids are under for getting mostly straight As is living under a rock.

We have checked common data sets for a variety of colleges - from reaches to my kid's safety. The safety (to get direct admit) requires a 3.8. All the rest are at 3.9.

[Anonymous]

Schools should only give out As on official transcript.

Colleges abuse these grades as admissions exams, and that's absolutely not what course grades should be used for. All schools should protests this misbehavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP can you give us the TL;DR version of your question for us?

This is the best I can do:

How should I gently suggest to the teacher in upcoming PTC that being a harsh grader - while at the same time telling students they should be there because they love Japanese and not because they want a good grade - is causing more harm to my kid than helping?

Why is caring about grades an inherently bad thing?

How can my kid demonstrate that he's doing what the teacher asked when he follows the rubric for a graded essay but still makes an 86?

OK, this is problematic. The truth is, he may just be a bad teacher. You can complain diplomatically, by all means, but if he's not the brightest bulb, he's never going to get it. I think what might be more helpful is for your kid to request a meeting with him to go over why he thought he checked all the stuff from the rubric, but still lost points. Your kid will need to pay close attention to the teacher's explanation, because the tone will tell him just as much as the words. If the teacher is amenable to flattery, and your kid has savvy social skills, he might be able to get some points back (life lesson!).

Kids can tell when teachers are in the wrong and just don't want to admit it. My daughter witnessed her Spanish teacher unfairly take off points from a classmate because she "seemed anxious when presenting". My daughter could hear every word she said and it was all correct according to the rubric, so her classmate should have gotten all the points, like my daughter did.

You can also request a meeting with the counselor, and ask whether this teacher has had complaints before. Ask other parents too.

Most teachers are honest and willing to discuss material with students, but there will be a few who just aren't. It sucks when you land on one. My oldest, in college now, had a terrible math teacher in senior year, who created a ton of unnecessary stress right during college applications. My daughter hasn't had such a terrible experience (she's in 9th grade), but we told her it might still happen.

All this is a life lesson in the things you can control vs the things you cannot control. Tell your kid to hang in there, and if you suspect he's a little weak in the actual language skills, get him a tutor.

Great advice, thank you. I did suggest to my kid the bolded above and will again suggest to him that may be the best course of action here.

I generally don't do teacher conferences any longer, but in this case I probably should to get a better read on what is motivating this teacher. It probably comes from a good place, but I can sense my kid is getting a little frustrated with him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get that. But as I mentioned he’s a tough grader in a very tough class. The way he grades is causing stress - it’s disingenuous to say grades don’t matter.

If a teacher truly wanted to have kids focus on learning instead of grades - then don’t have grades. Pass/Fail would work.

Conferences are coming up soon. And I’m thinking about discussing this with him in a way that’s non-confrontational. But I think figuring out the motivation behind this philosophy would help my kid who is a junior and, yeah, focused on his gpa this year.

Any ideas for how to do this?

As a high school teacher, I can 100% say that Pass/Fail would not help the kids focus on learning. Lots of teachers now feel that grades are equitable, and have stopped doing most grades (easier for them personally also). It is the very rare student who will benefit from a system like that.

[Anonymous]

Teacher is tough grader. He gives out poor grades. Students freak out and this makes him feel bad, so rather than change his grading style, he just tells them to stop freaking out. Problem solved - now the students are at fault, so no more bad feelings.

Not hard to understand.

[Anonymous]

Oh what did we do back when you had to rely on your fortitude to comfort you that a decent grade will follow. Now a days you have students and parents that want to waste teacher time btching about every minute grade that comes out as they too know that college will bankrupt American families. American Education. It's almost an oxymoron.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh what did we do back when you had to rely on your fortitude to comfort you that a decent grade will follow. Now a days you have students and parents that want to waste teacher time btching about every minute grade that comes out as they too know that college will bankrupt American families. American Education. It's almost an oxymoron.

DP and a teacher. I just read this thread with a heavy heart. This type of parent interaction is the worst part of the job, and it’s why I’ll probably leave one day.

One PP suggests flattery, because points are clearly more important than learning. Sure, manipulation is a life skill, but it isn’t what the child was supposed to learn in that situation.

One PP (presumably the OP?) is frustrated that her child followed a rubric and got an 86. Totally reasonable. Most rubrics have a column for exceptional achievement, and then a second for proficient work. Following a rubric proficiently will land you a reasonable 86.

I deal with this often at work, and when I put in grades lower than an A I just wait for the parent emails to hit my inbox. It never takes long. (The record is about 2 minutes.)

Some parents don’t want 86s. Or, frankly, for their students to be challenged. They simply want easy access to high grades. Learning? Achievement? That’s secondary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh what did we do back when you had to rely on your fortitude to comfort you that a decent grade will follow. Now a days you have students and parents that want to waste teacher time btching about every minute grade that comes out as they too know that college will bankrupt American families. American Education. It's almost an oxymoron.

DP and a teacher. I just read this thread with a heavy heart. This type of parent interaction is the worst part of the job, and it’s why I’ll probably leave one day.

One PP suggests flattery, because points are clearly more important than learning. Sure, manipulation is a life skill, but it isn’t what the child was supposed to learn in that situation.

One PP (presumably the OP?) is frustrated that her child followed a rubric and got an 86. Totally reasonable. Most rubrics have a column for exceptional achievement, and then a second for proficient work. Following a rubric proficiently will land you a reasonable 86.

I deal with this often at work, and when I put in grades lower than an A I just wait for the parent emails to hit my inbox. It never takes long. (The record is about 2 minutes.)

Some parents don’t want 86s. Or, frankly, for their students to be challenged. They simply want easy access to high grades. Learning? Achievement? That’s secondary.

+1

I am a math teacher so it’s a little different but the only emails I get from parents revolve around how to bring up the grade. It’s rarely about how to support their child in learning the material. The best part is when the parent says the kid knows the material. But they fail every assessment. Okay.

[Anonymous]

This is OP - I thought this thread had died, but just came back to this subforum and saw additional posts.

To the poster directly above, after posting here and thinking for a bit, that's exactly what I had intended to do - ask at the parent-teacher conference what we could do at home to support our son when he feels he's done his best but the grade doesn't reflect what he "thought" he'd earned. Neither of us have taken that language, so it's all on our kid and what happens in class for the most part. And as I mentioned in op, my intention was not to make problems for the teacher, but to inquire in a way that didn't seem accusatory.

In any event, it's all moot at this point. He went to the class a few days after seeing his grade on google classroom and as I had suggested, was set to show the teacher the rubric he followed, point out where he'd attempted to address all the requirements, and ask teacher how he could improve.

As it turns out the majority of the points were taken off because of artwork that accompanied the essay, not the essay itself. (Apparently the kids were given a choice to do artwork or some other supplemental work for this project.) So he did meet requirements of the rubric for the writing piece. The artwork may be re-done to gain points back. So all is good in this instance.

There's a lot of pressure put on both students and teachers these days and I'm sympathetic to both.

[Anonymous]

I admire teachers who are trying to do things the “right” way, but the reality is that if 95% of teachers are playing a different game, that’s setting up students for failure. I had teachers in the 90s who were intense and strict and would happily give Bs using rubrics for good but not excellent or perfect work. And that was ok, because you could still be competitive for an Ivy and scoop up scholarships at a state flagship with a couple of Bs on your transcript. But I agree that this teacher is either naive or arrogant to not adapt their grading to the reality of the college admissions landscape, especially since it involves subjective elements like art.

[Anonymous]

Remember:

C’s earn degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remember:

C’s earn degrees.

Exactly!

Don’t stress kids out over grades; they really don’t matter that much.