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Yes, I am aware. We all have our biases. People on this forum need to hear about my experiences in order to balance out the blatant pro-teacher bias on this forum.
Perhaps you should have your own sticky thread so that you don't have to write it all up over and over and over again. Then you could just post a link to it.
You asked a question, I answered. Then you moved the goalposts to a different question about desks. Then someone else answered those. And so on.
Errm, no. In a nutshell, you posted a rant about how your school had a similar policy to the OP's daughter's school re: cheaters and how much you hated school, a very revealing statement. I responded with a statement, not a question, that it's hard to cheat without a little help even in a very tight classroom. You then went into a lengthy description of how elementary school desks are arranged, to which I responded that this child is not in elementary school. lkb0714 then jumped in with a snide remark to me and a description of the desks in her school. Then our poor benighted mitsguy2001 says there are different types of desks; that in his district 6th grade is considered elementary school even if it's held in a middle school, and so on and so forth. I surer than heck didn't move the goalposts, but several other people did. I stand by what I said-it's hard to cheat without a little help, no matter what the freaking classroom arrangement.
I also agree with this from psr13: "If my 6th grade child told me that she didn't even know the first name of a child sitting close enough to her to cheat off her, I'd question the veracity of the story immediately." That was my immediate thought upon reading the OP.
Errm, no. In a nutshell, you posted a rant about how your school had a similar policy to the OP's daughter's school re: cheaters and how much you hated school, a very revealing statement. I responded with a statement, not a question, that it's hard to cheat without a little help even in a very tight classroom. You then went into a lengthy description of how elementary school desks are arranged, to which I responded that this child is not in elementary school. lkb0714 then jumped in with a snide remark to me and a description of the desks in her school. Then our poor benighted mitsguy2001 says there are different types of desks; that in his district 6th grade is considered elementary school even if it's held in a middle school, and so on and so forth. I surer than heck didn't move the goalposts, but several other people did. I stand by what I said-it's hard to cheat without a little help, no matter what the freaking classroom arrangement.
I also agree with this from psr13: "If my 6th grade child told me that she didn't even know the first name of a child sitting close enough to her to cheat off her, I'd question the veracity of the story immediately." That was my immediate thought upon reading the OP.
Okay, but you're both arguing ridiculous semantics just to be right. The reality is that if a teacher really gives a darn about cheating there are very easy ways to mitigate that risk. Standard multiple-choice tests suck not just because they are easy to cheat off of, but also because they are the worst possible way to judge whether a student has learned the material. At least if a teacher is going to give one, they can randomize the order.
Okay, but you're both arguing ridiculous semantics just to be right. The reality is that if a teacher really gives a darn about cheating there are very easy ways to mitigate that risk. Standard multiple-choice tests suck not just because they are easy to cheat off of, but also because they are the worst possible way to judge whether a student has learned the material. At least if a teacher is going to give one, they can randomize the order.
I don't like people misrepresenting me. I agree with what you said. I can remember from my own days in school so long ago that some teachers had us sit in every other seat for tests to avoid cheating.
This belief that the teacher is always right and the child will always lie is what bothers me. Because I too had some teachers who held high performance against me. Not all. Never said that. Some were very good and some outstanding. Mr F. Tremendous history teacher; made you love the subject. Ms L. 12th grade English. Took Shakespeare and Chaucer from dread to delight. There were others too. But on the flipside there was Mrs I. Hated boys. Boys would be kept in from recess for anything. Often punishment was her bending your fingers back until you were on your knees in pain and then whacking your palm with a ruler. Or Mrs A. Equal opportunity hater. Her tactic was to grab kids in a Spock pinch and drag you out of your desk to yell at you and then shove you back into it. She kept that up until one kid, S T, just turned around and slugged her. He got a week's suspension, but she didn't grab kids anymore.
I'm sure he felt that suspension was well worth it.
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Or the English teacher like Mrs W. Had it in for me for some reason and was determined to ruin my grade. Several times stopped teaching to berate me for whatever random thing she could think of. Nothing to do with anything I did; once for who my parents were (which made no sense because they weren't). Didn't matter what grade I got, she marked it down to C or D. Even took my tests to the principal to show him my work compared to the grade. She refused to change my report card, but retaliated even worse the rest of the year.
Sounds like my 8th grade math teacher. On almost every exam, she would mark wrong a question that I very obviously answered correctly. When I would question her, she would point out that her policy is that she does not ever change grades, since she has no way of knowing that I didn't change the answer after getting the exam back, and that I need to learn that life isn't fair. When I pointed out that this was happening on every exam, I asked if she could maybe photocopy my exams after I hand them in, so that she knows for sure that I am not changing answers. But her response was "If I do that for you, I have to do that for everybody". Did she not realize how hypocritical she was, that if life isn't supposed to be fair, then why would she have to do something for everybody if she did it for me? She also kept giving m a 3 (the worst score) for behavior, which was an instant disqualification from honor roll, even if you had straight A's and a 1 (the best score) for behavior in all other classes. The assistant principal said that he agrees that I did not deserve the 3's, but that there was "nothing he could do about it".
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And there was the PE teacher who encouraged a group of boys to beat the c*&^ out of me during PE one day. Do you know what it's like to have several guys hold you while another slams your head into the gym wall, all the while the teacher who should protect you was studying the lettering on a basketball?
I had an incident like that too in 8th grade gym class, where several students picked me up, and threw me out the door leading to outside. It was winter and that door was locked. I started banging on the door so that somebody would let me in. The teacher told me that I'm getting an F for the day! I explained that I did not choose to walk outside, and that other students picked me up and threw me outside. He then gave me another F for the day for talking back to him!
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My experience it is often the better students who suffer this.
Exactly, as I keep posting! And that is also what very likely happened to the OP's daughter. I do realize that other posters may not have had these same experiences, but it does not mean that the experiences that you and I had are not valid.
Errm, no. In a nutshell, you posted a rant about how your school had a similar policy to the OP's daughter's school re: cheaters and how much you hated school, a very revealing statement. I responded with a statement, not a question, that it's hard to cheat without a little help even in a very tight classroom. You then went into a lengthy description of how elementary school desks are arranged, to which I responded that this child is not in elementary school. lkb0714 then jumped in with a snide remark to me and a description of the desks in her school. Then our poor benighted mitsguy2001 says there are different types of desks; that in his district 6th grade is considered elementary school even if it's held in a middle school, and so on and so forth. I surer than heck didn't move the goalposts, but several other people did. I stand by what I said-it's hard to cheat without a little help, no matter what the freaking classroom arrangement.
I also agree with this from psr13: "If my 6th grade child told me that she didn't even know the first name of a child sitting close enough to her to cheat off her, I'd question the veracity of the story immediately." That was my immediate thought upon reading the OP.
And I stand by the statement that those who want to cheat find it very easy to cheat. And provided an example. If it wasn't easy there wouldn't be so much of it. Two of the more simple and obvious ways were to write notes on the bottom of shoes and on the inside crotch of their jeans. When they were looking around, they weren't looking at other's papers, they were looking at their shoes. I'm surprised more teachers didn't catch the shoe looker or more likely ignored them. And of course what teacher is going to examine some guys crotch for crib notes.
Your experiences may differ but that does not render others experiences invalid. I believe mitsguy did have some experiences in school that were significant enough to stick with him years later. Because I experienced similar. Enough so that I don't automatically assume the teacher is right just because they're a teacher.
As for hating school, yep, guilty as charged. Couldn't wait to get out of there. Which historically puts me in good company. School was not designed for knowledge but to train compliant workers for the mill. Nothing subtle about it, heck even Mr S, the superintendent told me that himself. College was different. Loved that. Because my mind had been freed from the cage of school and learning was something to be celebrated rather than squashed.
Your experiences may differ but that does not render others experiences invalid. I believe mitsguy did have some experiences in school that were significant enough to stick with him years later. Because I experienced similar. Enough so that I don't automatically assume the teacher is right just because they're a teacher.
Thank you! Again, as I said, the teachers that a student gets is not a random sample. A student will have teachers hired by one school district over a very short period of time. They are not necessarily a random sample. So even if "peer reviewed research" (which is always going to have a bias anyway) shows that teachers favor high achieving students, favor boys, favor more participatory students, etc, that does not mean that some of us won't be stuck with several teachers that favor average students, favor girls, favor quieter students, etc.
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As for hating school, yep, guilty as charged. Couldn't wait to get out of there. Which historically puts me in good company. School was not designed for knowledge but to train compliant workers for the mill. Nothing subtle about it, heck even Mr S, the superintendent told me that himself.
In retrospect, I feel as if my school district was trying to prepare boys for the military. In particular, it would explain why boys and girls were treated so differently, and why teachers were so blatant about it. They didn't even try to hide the fact that they treated boys and girls differently.
Good for your son for being so bright. He may not have a reason to cheat but adorable little Caitlin Cheerleader or Bubba the Bruiser might and he is exactly who they want to cheat off. Interestingly enough most really, really bright boys are more susceptible to the charms of cute little Caitlin than physical threats from Badboy Bubba. Your brilliant boy might tell me about Bubba beforehand and let me take care of the issue but not Caitlin.
I had an experience like that. I had a teacher with an even more unfair version of the policy described by the OP, where only the cheating victim would get a 0. The cheater would not be punished. One day, a girl who I had a huge crush on asked to borrow my homework so she could copy it. She assured me that she would come to class early so she could return it to me. Unfortunately, she was late to class that day! And when it was time to hand in our homework, I said that "Caitlin" (not her actual name) borrowed it from me. So, not only did I get a 0, but it made "Caitlin" really mad at me, and ended any chances I would have had of her ever being interested in me (not that I would have had a chance anyway with her). Ironically, even though the teacher did not normally punish the cheater, he did give "Caitlin" a 0 for being late to class and not handing in the assignment on time.
In this case, as unfair as the rule was, I really had no grounds to complain. I was aware of the rule, and I was aware of the consequences, even if I did not agree with them. I did willfully and knowingly break the rule.
This belief that the teacher is always right and the child will always lie is what bothers me. Because I too had some teachers who held high performance against me. Not all. Never said that. Some were very good and some outstanding. Mr F. Tremendous history teacher; made you love the subject. Ms L. 12th grade English. Took Shakespeare and Chaucer from dread to delight. There were others too. But on the flipside there was Mrs I. Hated boys. Boys would be kept in from recess for anything. Often punishment was her bending your fingers back until you were on your knees in pain and then whacking your palm with a ruler. Or Mrs A. Equal opportunity hater. Her tactic was to grab kids in a Spock pinch and drag you out of your desk to yell at you and then shove you back into it. She kept that up until one kid, S T, just turned around and slugged her. He got a week's suspension, but she didn't grab kids anymore.
Or the English teacher like Mrs W. Had it in for me for some reason and was determined to ruin my grade. Several times stopped teaching to berate me for whatever random thing she could think of. Nothing to do with anything I did; once for who my parents were (which made no sense because they weren't). Didn't matter what grade I got, she marked it down to C or D. Even took my tests to the principal to show him my work compared to the grade. She refused to change my report card, but retaliated even worse the rest of the year.
And there was the PE teacher who encouraged a group of boys to beat the c*&^ out of me during PE one day. Do you know what it's like to have several guys hold you while another slams your head into the gym wall, all the while the teacher who should protect you was studying the lettering on a basketball?
My experience it is often the better students who suffer this.
I have had students who think the teachers are "out to get" them. Probably a hundred students out of the 1000 or so I have had over the last 15 years in multiple schools complain about their teachers being unfair. Interestingly it is usually like you and mitsguy, who have multiple experiences with different teachers that claim the teachers are picking on them for no reason. Just last year a freshman family sued 4 of the 7 teachers a freshman had for bullying him. They actually claimed the NJROTC teacher was singling out their child by making him line up once a week to talk about his uniform. The problem was, this is called inspection, the entire class lines up in the platoon, and they all get graded on the same things using a rubric. In what is likely not a coincidence this student had been written up in the classes of the four teachers for violations of academic integrity. Some people just see themselves as the victim in all situations.
As for you gym teacher, if that actually happened as you claim it did it was assault, you should have gone to the police, and pressed charges.
Go to the police and press charges? On what? In that era the fundamental assumption was, just as you are assuming, the student was lying, and besides they probably deserved it. A teacher could do no wrong, other than benching the star football players. Football coach was sleeping with one of the cheerleaders. Slap on the wrist because she must have been tempting him. Year later he benched the star and was fired within a week. You know, priorities.
Things have changed since then. Today it would be much harder to get away with the level of abuse that was normal procedure for many teachers back then. Back then it wasn't considered abuse, but good teaching.
I curious. Why do you find it so difficult to believe what we say?
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