A song about Millennials...

[Mr Hero]

I'm an education major so let me explain.

School is a training ground for the real world. We teach our students a number of things through formal and practical means, ranging from time management skills to history to researching. The school is a place where we show kids what society expects of them and, ostensibly, how they can succeed.

Schools are also a place where you can learn to fail without major consequences. The longer you fail, the harder it is to succeed, but there are a lot of stop gaps at the primary and secondary levels to try to help catch you. Because we want to teach students how to come back from failure. Which means we want to show them success at the end.

So if I don't have a grade cap and a kid decides not to turn in assignments, he starts getting 0s. Just one 0 means that the next two 100s are going to be spent bringing that 0 to barely passing (avg of 200 between 3 grades is 67). After so many 0s, the child sees there's no point in recovering: they won't even get back to barely passing. So why try?

Lesson learned: eventually all you can do is fail. Not the lesson we want to teach, as set forth above.

So we set a grade cap. A 60. It's still a failing grade, but now we've provided a chance for success. One 60 can be brought to a C by a 100. It takes 5 to 6 60s to weigh a single 100 down to a failing average.

Lesson learned: even if you screw up, if you work hard enough, you can recover.

That's consistent with the lessons we want school to teach and gives students a greater incentive to try.

You're missing a key ingredient. When I was in school, students still had the chance to turn in late assignments. Depending on the teacher, there's still a penalty. But turning in a late assignment is still worth more than not turning it in at all. That's how students should be expected to recover. By doing the damn work in the first place!

[Kheldarson]

You're missing a key ingredient. When I was in school, students still had the chance to turn in late assignments. Depending on the teacher, there's still a penalty. But turning in a late assignment is still worth more than not turning it in at all. That's how students should be expected to recover. By doing the damn work in the first place!

And that's still in place and still the best lesson to learn. But studies have shown more student investment in schools that have a grade cap, for the reasons I mentioned.

We seem to expect kids to think like adults. They aren't. And one of the biggest reasons they aren't is the lack of experience. So why do we want to punish them in a severe way?

"Hi Johnny! It's really great that you want to get your act together at this late date, but there's no chance in hell of you even getting a 60 at this point! Better luck next nine weeks where you'll still be digging yourself out of the hole you're in this nine weeks!"

That's not a good attitude for school. School is a training ground, so yes, it should get harder over time. But that doesn't mean we remove safety nets.

I'll also point out that a lot of these new strategies are in response to the increased lack of steady parental involvement. More and more pressure is on the schools to make our students successful, pressure that once was taken by parents. They were the safety net for the middling kids. They aren't anymore as our economy requires parents to work two jobs and school systems are overworked by the sheer volume of students.

[s_stabeler]

while true, that usually relies on the teacher to give a reasonable penalty for late assignments. Also, a grade cap has advantages in guaranteeing that a kid- if he works reasonably hard- can recover from a bade grade to at least pass the course. ( for example, in the webcomic Kevin and Kell, one o the characters was a college student that had trouble handling an unstructured workload. she failed midterms, IIRC, and the shock led her to seek help from another character in organising her time. She managed to recover her grade to a B, IIRC, even though I doubt her assignments were perfect. That is the point of a grade cap- ensuring that it's possible to recover from a bad grade partway through the course.

Its' also why I would have a graduated grade cap- 1st year of college had a fairly high cap- intended to help students avoid failing courses while they are getting used to college life. Plus, 1st year courses should be easier to account for the transition. ( I like how it's done in the UK: the first year is spend making sure everyone has a certain base level of knowledge required to understand the rest of the course. 2nd year is effectively when the actual degree starts) 2nd year should have a lower grade cap- meaning that it is harder to fail. 3rd year should have a low grade cap, while 4th year should have no grade cap.

Suggested caps:
1st year: 60%
2nd year: 30%
3rd year: 10%
4th year: no cap

the idea being that the grade cap is remove as students get further along the curse, so that they should increasingly be used to college life.(the cap is based on the year the course should be taken in, incidentally, so if a 4th year student was taking a 101 class, they would get the benefit of the cap. That's because if a 4th year student is still taking first-year courses, they probably need the benefit of the cap, while if a first-year is taking 4th year courses already, they don't need the cap. It also nicely accounts for people taking longer than 4 years to finish their degree.)

[Rusty Shackleford]

- the 91-0 game might actually have elements of bullying in it, to be blunt. (if they are THAT different in skill, there should probably either be a mercy rule- where the game gets called early if the score is getting ridiculously lopsided- or the more skilled team should play games against teams of their own skill level. Games are supposed to be fun, and one side getting steamrollered is no fun for either side.)
.
- grade floors... to be honest, provided it's possible to fail an assignment, I don't nessecarily see it as a bad thing,

On the 91-0 game, the time clock was already continuously running and, IIRC, the winning team put their non-starters (and *their* relief) in crazy early (like 2nd quarter) and were doing small gain runs as well, if it is the same game I read about.

If you don't turn in an assignment, why should you get credit? (unless I have misread your side on that)

[Kheldarson]

If you don't turn in an assignment, why should you get credit? (unless I have misread your side on that)

It's a pseudo-credit. The kids know when they're not doing the work, and the teacher often notes which grades were due to no work being turned in. The point is that at no point in the school year should a student feel like it's impossible to not fail. That getting your act together can still bring in results.

The kids who still want to fail will. This is about catching more of the low end of the middling group who don't have great support at home due to societal changes.

[s_stabeler]

exactly. The point is that a student should never be in the position where there is no incentive to start doing the work. It's why I suggested above using a graduated cap- as students have less reason not to do the work, the cap fades away. ( there's a high cap in the 1st year since students are still getting used to living on their own and not having their studies as structured as at school. in the 2nd year, there's a much lower cap, since they should be beginning to sort themselves out. by 4th year, they have no real excuse for not doing the work, so the cap goes.