NEVER GOT AN A
I am not bragging that I never got an A, I am just confused. What has happened to our system that an A is now commonplace. Spencer is pretty bright; maybe he deserves the A’s, maybe. Maybe from all the proud parent of an honor roll student bumper stickers I see, maybe our grading system has been watered down.
In my day (this phrase is the first sign of the onslaught of becoming an old fart) teachers would never give more than ten percent of their class an A. They would also give ten percent of their class a D or less. I think today’s teachers just do not want to argue with today’s parents.
Today’s parents, parents that played Beethoven to the womb, bought the “My Baby Can Read” program nonsense, only show educational DVD’s on TV and have had tutors for their little geniuses since age four, will not accept that their child might just be average.
It used to be the teacher is always right, now it is give them an A or prepare to fight.
If only when these children are adults, their employers are as nice as their teachers. “Give me a raise, or my mommy will come in and yell at you!”
I did have one eight-grade teacher, in my day, who was too “nice” to give a bad grade. I had failed two tests in this class and had a 60, or F average. I was acting up in class one day and she threatened me, “Young man, if you don’t behave I will give you a D for the day.” Wise-ass me answered, “A Dee? That will raise my average.” (Sorry, I like that story and had to find somewhere to slip it into my blog.)
I’m glad I never got an A. I never deserved an A, and had to work pretty hard for a B. I got a bunch of B’s, maybe more than C’s, and I was proud of them. It feels good to earn something, even if it is not the gold ring.
I hope Spencer earned his A’s and feels good about them. Maybe he is just in a really smart class. He must be, because in his class of twenty-two, fifteen received A’s.
I think it was much harder to earn an A back in the day. I'm not an old fart yet (although my kids might disagree with that) but back in MY day, A's were hard to come by, too.
ReplyDeleteMy son came home from school recently with a graded "research" paper that he did, and I know for a fact that he didn't do much researching while doing it, despite my nagging... and it wasn't very well written, probably took him all of two hours to complete it. And there it was...an "A" on the top of his paper! To be honest, I was looking forward to him getting a low grade, just to prove my point about putting in the work and effort in order to get good grades. When he showed me the paper, he had a smile on his face that clearly said, "See? I didn't put much effort into it and it was still an A paper! Told ya!" When I asked the teacher about it, she told me some bs about it "not being about the grade" and that it does more good to "encourage them" than to crush their spirits with a low grade, blah blah blah. Encourage them by handing out A's left and right? for work that is a C grade, at best? I'm sorry, but I expect more out of my Kindergartener. He's a slacker, and he knows it, and I won't have it, gosh darn it!
Okay, I'm kidding. I was actually talking about my 6th grader.
All kidding aside, though...I do think it was harder to earn an A a few years back (a few?) and teachers were not afraid of parents' reactions. And parents expected more out of their kids back then, without making lame excuses.
Katrina @ They All Call Me Mom
It's weird because in my class, the kids either have A's or F's. There are not very many F's at all. I rarely ever get a kid with C's. Nowadays, it seems to be all or nothing!
ReplyDeleteI never got an A either Cranky. My kids are all really bright and are part of something here in the UK called 'Able & Talented' which means they are in the top 5% of the country for their respective age groups academically....I have no clue where they get their smarts from - I'm not stupid but I'm not that clever...Mind you I have noticed that they seem to learn stuff in school these days that is so cool compared to the boring classes I remember - perhaps that has something to do with it.
ReplyDeleteLou :-)
I should also say that whilst my kids are all super smart, they definitely missed out when it came to the common sense gene - and this is something I see alot.....clever kids with no streets smarts..I remember my daughter phoning me one evening to ask me how she should cook sausage and how to tell when it was cooked - no common sense at all....
ReplyDeleteLou
I didn't get a lot of A's either. Good for your son getting 3!
ReplyDeleteI am a new follower from About A Mom.
Please follow back when you can.
http://GrandmaReviews.com
http://facebook.com/GrandmaReviewsBlog
http://twitter.com/#!/GrandmaReviews