Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, parents and students actually cared about their grades. There was this long held tradition that failing is bad, but it was usually the student's fault if such a travesty occurred. All the parents in the land told their children they needed to be responsible for their work and no one would do it for them.
Fairy tale land is such a happy place, non?
Unfortunately, I do not live in fairy tale land, nor do I work there. I am stuck in reality. I am surrounded by students who have little or no motivation to lift a finger to do work, and they are coddled by parents who thought their mommies and daddies were meanie-heads and promised themselves they would never be that way with their precious angels. Newsflash: your "precious angel" is a dumbass. And to make matters worse, you are helping them dig their own graves of mediocrity and/or failure. It should not be MY responsibility to make 40 extra handouts because your child is incapable of holding on to the one I gave him when the paper was first assigned. There are these magical things called "folders" in which we can put a variety of papers for safe keeping. There is also this apparatus called a "backpack" which is designed for easy transporation of materials from one location to the next. That's right, folks: my students don't even own bookbags. I don't know if it's a matter of affordability, or if it goes back to the aforementioned issue of apathy and laziness. Why on Earth would students ever need to transport assignments from school to home?
This rant is drawn from an incident that occured today. I have a student in one of my classes who, along with his mother, make me want to commit horrific acts of violence. He has a love of socializing and a disdain for actually being productive in any way. It is a truly rare day when I see him have a piece of paper on his desk, let alone any writing on it. It appears to me that he simply chooses not to work. He loses everything he is given, and his mother constantly pesters me to make extra copies, e-mail this, send that home. TEACH YOUR CHILD!!!! Stop giving him excuses, stop giving him an out. If he can't handle holding on to a worksheet, especially one he could have finished in class, then he FAILS! The even more obnoixious part is when he actually turns the work in, it's crap. It's a joke. He half-asses every assignment, so when you point value it out, it's almost the equivalent of not having done anything at all. For the love of God, save a tree.
The middle school as a whole is similarly coddled; every week, middle school students get a "missing assignment sheet." What this means is any student can choose not to do an assignment for a whole week, and then turn it in the for full credit. If you turn it in after missing assignment day(Thursday), they get 75% credit, the Monday after gets 50%. What then is the motivation for doing ANYTHING at all? They will simply get a second chance. Aren't we supposed to be preparing our students for the "real world?" Last time I checked, if I didn't get my lesson plans finished, I don't get an extra week to get them done. I don't get to just sit at the front of the room and doodle on a piece of paper. Even someone at McDonald's can't just not do their work for a week-- no one wants a 5 day old hamburger. Aren't we just hindering them? If this a view of the future of the country, I think I may have to pack up and move.
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