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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m a third grade teacher and I don’t offer retakes.[/quote]

I'm betting you are over 50, OP.

The idea of a rigid "sink or swim" approach to childhood education is very Old School. Is the goal to evaluate performance or to gain mastery of a concept or idea?
If your goal is mastery, then retake-retake-retake UNTIL mastery is the name of the game. If it's just to tick the Pass/Fail box and give a gold star to the kids who got it on the first go (either by studying or b/c they didn't need to!) then that is a completely different system.[/quote]

And what about the kids who do all their homework, listen carefully in class, ask questions when they don't understand something, study hard for exams and basically take personal responsibility for themselves and their own learning... what are they learning? Aside from not to bother.

This is just yet another step in the direction of "a trophy for everyone" which anyone who has been paying attention can easily see has NOT been working out well for the youth of today.[/quote]

My guess is you don't have multiple kids with differing strengths and abilities.
My son works *so* hard in school.  He does his homework every day, on time.  He also does extra work with me or DH.  He listens in class, and his teachers report he participates and asks good questions.  He studies hard all the time.  He pretty much never forgets his homework, or loses assignments, or anything like that.  He is absolutely the paragon of taking personal responsibility for himself and his learning.
And  yet....  he doesn't get As on the first try. He works hard for Bs, and when he pulls out an A it's usually because he took advantage of relearning and retake opportunities.

Meanwhile, my daughter has very different strengths.  School is easy for her and things come quickly to her. She doesn't work hard in school, rushes through her homework, yet still gets basically everything right.  As are trivial.  Her A on the first try on her tests aren't because she has some better work ethic or better personal responsibility.

I couldn't care less about DS getting a trophy or about DD getting the initial gold star.  I want both my kids to learn and if it takes my son a little longer to learn things, than that's *way* more important to me than having my daughter think she's some uber-responsible kid just because she gets an A on the first try.[/quote]

When do you think it would be reasonable for your son to get the Bs he deserves? Or you think he should continue getting As throughout high school and college? What about in the workplace? Should he be promoted and given opportunities over better candidates just because he's a nice kid who works hard? Surely it needs to end somewhere, right? (or not?)  I'm curious where you think this ends.[/quote]

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