On Dec 6, 7:03 am, Penny Gaines wrote:
Welches wrote:
I'm coming from the view of #1, who sits still, listens and obeys (at school
anyway!!) and is at the top end of her form. Her teacher commented that she
"coasts" the academic side, and still is at the top. Certainly she produces
much better work at home than she does at school.

At various times she has commented that you get more rewards at school by
being "not bad" than being always good. It's been comment before but I'm
beginning to sense a frustration, as often these other children are getting
rewards frequently that she would like to have occasionally.

We had this at playgroup with my youngest (the others went to a
different playgroup, where almost all children got a sticker every day.)
We got round it by addressing a specific difficulty she had, and giving
her stickers for that.

Having observed at various times the 3-4 children in her form that are least
able to concentrate seem to get more than half the visible rewards going at
any time, this does seem to be disproportionate, but I can sympathise with
the teachers who have to keep them going. The school is very
non-competative, and don't seem to reward achievement either academically,
sporting, or other although they're good at recognising effort. I like the
awarding for effort, but sometimes #1 is confused by this and thinks she
must have done something badly because others got commended and she didn't
or thinks she must be really good at something that she isn't, but gets
rewarded because she tries.

The difficulty with not rewarding academic results is that doing well
academically is not necessarily obvious to the child. Sporting
achievements are obvious, because you can see the other kids doing
stuff, but you don't necessarily see that another child is getting
crosses against most (or some!) of their maths answers .

My wife tells me that in Indian schools, class ranks based on exams
are kept from the earliest grades, and such ranks appear on the report
cards sent to parents. Academic rank can be made just as clear as
athletic rank if the school wants that. As a parent I think I would,
although I would also want to know how my kids do on standardized
achievment tests given to students throughout the state (and ideally
throughout the country).

Changing the subject, in the U.S., the federal No Child Left Behind
law, which punishes schools for poor performance of students on
standardized tests (either overall or for students from certain ethnic
groups) is up for renewal. I don't think the federal government should
mandate "solutions", such as closing down failing schools, but I do
think national tests should be given with individual results reported
to parents and school results to the general public. Currently, states
get to define "proficiency", and not surprisingly, many set the bar
low. Education expert Diane Ravitch has discussed this.

Get Congress Out of the Classroom
New York Times, October 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/op...03ravitch.html