Teacher corrects kids' work and the entire class sees corrections

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We definitely can't use their SINs at all and I agree that kids might eventually recognize a random number I've assigned them. Since we are required to post student work on our hallway bulletin boards, this is an issue we have to figure out. Luckily my principal is too busy with everything else to make this an issue but I'm sure the time will come.

PP, I'm required to post student work, but I return the score and comments on a separate sheet with the rubric. Some parents hate this BTW. They want the A++ and "gold star" comments to be on display. I ignore those complaints. If they complain that they can't "see the problem" that caused a lower score, I scan the work, mark that up, and email to the parent.

[Anonymous]

It is NOT ok. It's actually walking the line on violating laws regarding student privacy. I've been teaching for a long, long time and this has NEVER been OK. Not even 20 years ago. Not even when I was a kid. This is what bad teachers do. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad teachers in the world; always have been and always will be.

It is not a valuable lesson. It is not helicopter parenting to object. This board is full of people who seem to think that stuff that hurts kids is good for them.

Talk to the principal. If that doesn't work, write to your school board representative. Complaining but not taking action is what allows these teachers to persist for so long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not about fair. It's about sharing student info that is no one else's business. Are you okay with your child's entire class along with their parents knowing your kids every grade?

Yup. I was humiliated every week of tenth grade after our spelling tests when the scores were announced. Everyone except I got an A or a high B. I usually got a D. I really studied. Every week. I still can't spell but even then I knew that well presented work mattered. I was an excellent student with an issue that wasn't anyone's business and it was mortifying to hear about my failure out loud. Every week.

Part of the problem here was spelling tests in 10th grade. What kind of school was this?

Elite private. And FWIW: my son has spelling tests in 10th now (well-regarded public, honors class). It is part of learning how English is constructed (Greek roots, latin roots, Norman conquest). As when I was a kid, definitions were also tested.

[Anonymous]

How does this differ from having kids work out problems in a board in front of the class? In those situations feedback is given if the answer is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your child's teacher is violating FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.) If she doesn't get that, the next step is to contact the principal and after that, the school district's general counsel.

After that, call Obama.

But you probably want to start off by just talking with the teacher. ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does this differ from having kids work out problems in a board in front of the class? In those situations feedback is given if the answer is wrong.

That went out of popularity in my district a long time ago. The snowflakes were embarassed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this differ from having kids work out problems in a board in front of the class? In those situations feedback is given if the answer is wrong.

That went out of popularity in my district a long time ago. The snowflakes were embarassed.

Aww. Too embarrassed.

Yet in other countries it is used to help students, and help the class collaborate and encourage each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does this differ from having kids work out problems in a board in front of the class? In those situations feedback is given if the answer is wrong.

That went out of popularity in my district a long time ago. The snowflakes were embarassed.

Aww. Too embarrassed.

Yet in other countries it is used to help students, and help the class collaborate and encourage each other.

Cute that you think that DCUM parents want their 2nd grade kids to encourage each other. It's supposed to be cut-throat competition by PK3 here.

[Anonymous]

Here's how the teacher can solve the problem?

Post student work, but do not grade it first. Have the students "peer-grade". Peer-grading does NOT violate FERPA.


from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/pdf/ht12-17-08-att.pdf
"Even though peer-grading results in students finding out each other’s grades, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 issued a narrow holding in Owasso that this practice does not violate FERPA because grades on students’ papers are not “maintained” under the definition of “education records” and, therefore, would not be covered under FERPA at least
until the teacher has collected and recorded them in the teacher’s grade book, a decision consistent with the Department’s longstanding position on peer-grading."

Thus, students get the practice and educational benefit of seeing each other's work without any legal violations. Is there a possibility that Larlo will still be embarrassed by his spelling errors? Of course. But maybe he will see that other kids make mistakes, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not about fair. It's about sharing student info that is no one else's business. Are you okay with your child's entire class along with their parents knowing your kids every grade?

Yup. I was humiliated every week of tenth grade after our spelling tests when the scores were announced. Everyone except I got an A or a high B. I usually got a D. I really studied. Every week. I still can't spell but even then I knew that well presented work mattered. I was an excellent student with an issue that wasn't anyone's business and it was mortifying to hear about my failure out loud. Every week.

Part of the problem here was spelling tests in 10th grade. What kind of school was this?

Elite private. And FWIW: my son has spelling tests in 10th now (well-regarded public, honors class). It is part of learning how English is constructed (Greek roots, latin roots, Norman conquest). As when I was a kid, definitions were also tested.

At our high school, we would refer to that as a vocabulary test rather than a spelling test.

[Anonymous]

My 2nd grader really struggles with writing and we are working hard with him. This would kill his self esteem. His writing is often illegible. He's made a lot of progress in the past year with fine motor skills, spelling and language. I'm worried a system like this would do harm and discourage him. He would hate to have his name online because he's already self-conscious. I'm all for him receiving feedback and learning from strong writing samples but not in this manner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, OP. You are paying reeealllly close attention to this. Really, really close attention. Isn't there something else you can do with your time? Your kid is fine.

Is there not something better you could do with your time? Without all of the relevant background information, I don't see how you can make such an abrasive comment. Life is not fair. My kid knows that. She's also learning there will always be people like you, people who just haven't figured out how to disagree respectfully. I haven't asked for special treatment. My kid is one of the favored kids, if you must know. It's so blatantly biased that it needs to be addressed.

For the person who mentioned experiencing the same thing in another country, thank you. The teacher is not Amercan-trained, and I've tried to understand how/why she does things the way she does.

I'm the poster from another country. The idea of student privacy of their grades and effort etc is much less present outside the U.S. So it may not even occur to the teacher that that's expected here. If it's done right and without emphasis on the shame but with emphasis on what kinds of mistakes can and were made and how to learn from that it can be an effective technique. It's just hard to apply here especially in a competitive environment where the concept is that every kid is competing with all the other kids instead of every kid in the class working together to get the whole class to be better. In my country ES kids were all in the same class cohort for grades 1-8 so you knew those kids really well and you compete with the other same grade level classes for many years and it was class pride to get everyone to do well so peer pressure worked towards that. It definitely wasn't all pretty all the time and there were kids who were hurt by this but it made sense overall and made the bonds between students that much stronger.

That is not how we do things here. I had a teacher from another country back in college who insisted on doing things that way, because that was what she knew. She would hand out test papers and announce each grade, taking time to humiliate kids with low grades by saying things like "I guess you didn't learn anything" or "How could you get this wrong? Are you stupid or did you just not study hard enough?" and so on. People cried. People dropped the class. People failed. Finally a group of us went to the chair and explained what was happening. Teacher was dismissed at the end of that term. It was a great improvement for the department, which didn't fully understand before that why it was losing so many students. And this was 20 years ago - even then, it wasn't acceptable or advisable in this country. Cultures are different, and people react differently to the same things when they are from different cultures. This kind of competition and humiliation doesn't fly in the American culture.