When you were a kid was 93% an A grade, A-, or a B grade? (teacher, vs)
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Since you say people like to see soccer refs penalizing the other team, even more than scoring against the opposing team, perhaps students like seeing such teachers give bad grades and/or unfair punishments to classmates that they don't like.
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I think this is a pretty good assessment of how most students feel about the top students. They love to see top students "brought down a notch" so to speak, even if it's really nothing the student did.
You mention behavior grades in your next paragraph. Class grades for behavior and worse, class punishments are a favorite for a lot of teachers. I believe the assumption is peer pressure from those who didn't misbehave will bring the miscreants into line. What this ignores is the fundamental reality that many of the "miscreants" are more than willing to take any punishment, lie, whatever it takes, so long at they can "take the better students down with them." They get a perverse pleasure out of it. So in fact the class grades and class punishments are actually rewarding the worst behaviors.
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Originally Posted by mitsguy2001
Take my 6th grade social studies teacher. She was one that many student said was "tough but you learn a lot", and that she was "firm but fair". The reality was that her class was a disorganized mess. We had 2 textbooks and she would often assign homework from the wrong textbook, so we'd waste time on homework that had nothing to do with what we were learning. The lessons would jump around randomly: one week we'd be learning about the Middle East in the 20th century, the next week we'd be learning about Ancient Greece. She would frequently and randomly give behavior grades to the entire class, where everybody in the class would get the same grade. They would always be a C or a D, and they would count as 2 test grades, and there would be enough of such grades to make it mathematically impossible to get an A in her class, even if you were superhuman and got an A on every exam. Most students said her behavior grades were "firm but fair" since everybody got the same grade and there were no picking favorites. But you and I agreed that giving everybody the same grade is not fair. She would frequently falsely accuse students of cheating. But she didn't pick favorites. Even those who were normally the teachers pets would be falsely accused of cheating. So many students said she was "firm but fair" about cheating, since she didn't pick any favorites. But, you and I both agreed that falsely accusing students of cheating is never fair.
There was a girl, Cori, in that class, who was the typical annoying teacher's pet girl. But in this class, she would get the same behavior grades as everybody else. And even she was falsely accused of cheating at least once. I hate to admit it, but I did get some perverse pleasure in seeing her perfect 4.0 ruined (even though middle school GPA is mostly meaningless), and there being nothing she could do about it, knowing she didn't deserve the A's she got in other classes anyway. I got some perverse pleasure in knowing that her parents likely yelled at her for getting a B in the class, and likely yelled at her about her behavior grades, and likely yelled at her for cheating, even though there was absolutely nothing she could have done. And I got some perverse pleasure in knowing that she at least got a glimpse of what school life was like for the rest of us, who weren't teacher's pets. But I would never say I learned much from that teacher, nor would I ever say she was a fair teacher.
From what you describe, that's not what I would call "firm but fair." Though I can see how a lot of students would see it that way. Because they are seeing the better students get poor grades or punishments without regard to actual performance. I would just call it a poor teacher.
I think this is a pretty good assessment of how most students feel about the top students. They love to see top students "brought down a notch" so to speak, even if it's really nothing the student did.
You mention behavior grades in your next paragraph. Class grades for behavior and worse, class punishments are a favorite for a lot of teachers. I believe the assumption is peer pressure from those who didn't misbehave will bring the miscreants into line. What this ignores is the fundamental reality that many of the "miscreants" are more than willing to take any punishment, lie, whatever it takes, so long at they can "take the better students down with them." They get a perverse pleasure out of it. So in fact the class grades and class punishments are actually rewarding the worst behaviors.
Yes, exactly. That is very obvious to anybody who is not a teacher. The "bad" kids like having the power to punish the entire class, and they don't care themselves about the punishment. Plus it turns the "good" kids, who should be on the teacher's side, against the teacher. In this specific case of behavior grades, it also ignores the fact that a C or D actually increases the grades of an F student, while hurting the grades of an A student. So even if you believe that giving the whole class the same grade is "fair", the impact is far from equal.
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From what you describe, that's not what I would call "firm but fair." Though I can see how a lot of students would see it that way. Because they are seeing the better students get poor grades or punishments without regard to actual performance. I would just call it a poor teacher.
Why would other students see her as "firm but fair"?
The point that people seem to ignore is that in a class like that, knowing that with the behavior grades, it's mathematically impossible to get an A, why spend a lot of time on that class, knowing you won't be rewarded, no matter what your grades are? And knowing there's a good chance you'll be falsely accused of cheating, so why spend time studying, knowing that you'll get a 0 anyway? And when homework is obviously assigned from the wrong textbook: you're learning about Europe during the middle ages, but the homework that is assigned is about sub-Saharan Africa, which wasn't even part of the curriculum, why put much effort into that homework?
From what I remember (graduate H.S. in 89). + and - were more arbitrary. Like on english essays, etc. where there wasn't really an actual grading scale based on a number. So a teacher may say this paper was an A- because you had a few grammar/punctuation errors.
But in STEM classes, it was based on a 10 point scale. so 90 and above was an A, 80 and above as a B, etc.
I did have a few classes where the teacher would grade on a curve. So you may have gotten a 67 and still gotten a C, etc. I do recall once where the curve was on the higher end. So an 83 may have ended up being a "C" (e.g. adjusted to a 78 or something).
I don't recall ever having a plus or minus on a report card after 3rd grade. Which wasn't even based on A-F scale. It was O/S/N scale. (Outstanding, Satisfactory, Needs improvement). And they were handwritten on carbon copies. Parent signed and the teacher would take the top/original.
87-93 is a B according to mandatory grading system used in FCPS, in the late 70s. And I had a chance to make all As once in my life and a football player hating #### would not give me a boost with a 93.2 average.
Why would other students see her as "firm but fair"?
Because at that age and behavior, the poorer students would see everyone getting the same grade, esp if the better students got brought down a little as "fair." They consider equal outcomes as more "fair" regardless of what they put into it.
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Originally Posted by mitsguy2001
The point that people seem to ignore is that in a class like that, knowing that with the behavior grades, it's mathematically impossible to get an A, why spend a lot of time on that class, knowing you won't be rewarded, no matter what your grades are? And knowing there's a good chance you'll be falsely accused of cheating, so why spend time studying, knowing that you'll get a 0 anyway? And when homework is obviously assigned from the wrong textbook: you're learning about Europe during the middle ages, but the homework that is assigned is about sub-Saharan Africa, which wasn't even part of the curriculum, why put much effort into that homework?
At some point you have to think "what does this class do for me?" in a manner other than grades. If it's a good lead in to another class, then I'd want to put effort in and get the best I could in order to better prep me for another class. On the other hand, if it was a throw away that did nothing but fill time during the day, then I'd only put in the effort needed not to harm my GPA.
Because at that age and behavior, the poorer students would see everyone getting the same grade, esp if the better students got brought down a little as "fair." They consider equal outcomes as more "fair" regardless of what they put into it.
Makes sense. Although that equal outcome idea sounds a lot like Communism.
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At some point you have to think "what does this class do for me?" in a manner other than grades. If it's a good lead in to another class, then I'd want to put effort in and get the best I could in order to better prep me for another class. On the other hand, if it was a throw away that did nothing but fill time during the day, then I'd only put in the effort needed not to harm my GPA.
This was the ultimate throw-away class, since 7th and 8th grade social studies had nothing at all to do with 6th grade social studies. The next time any of these topics came up was in 9th and 10th grade, but by then, no matter who your teacher was in 6th grade, you would have long since forgotten what you learned in 6th grade, and there wasn’t that much overlap anyway. I think this may have been why my school district always seemed to assign controversial teachers to 6th grade social studies, knowing that was where they did the least damage.
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