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In reply to the discussion: Edmonton teacher suspended for giving 0s [View all]Igel
(35,268 posts)In life, you get canned for crappy work because you're not important but the work is. (Let's face it, that's how it works: you're hired to serve a function.)
In school, you're supposed to learn. The "work" is the means to learning. You have to be allowed to screw up and to screw up again. How you grade the screw ups depends on who you are.
If I had a class where almost every did all their work and most of the time did reasonably well, I'd fail kids for incompetent completed work. It would just show incompetence on that assignment.
But I have classes where when I hand out a grade below 70 the first response--real or feigned--is, "I'm stupid, so of course I failed." Or the first response is, "I'm black, of course I failed." The result of that is work not handed in. Why bother? They don't see themselves learning the science, they don't see how it could possibly help them because (as one kid said, demonstrating his utter cluelessness), they don't want black kids in college.
I hand out 70s for horrible, completed work on some assignments, the rest being based on what I think are the most important or representative questions. These are things that are practice, and only before I post the answer key. If they get a 20/100 on the test they get a 20/100.