“What would school have been like if you never had to worry about getting an F? Students at West Potomac High School in Alexandria, Va., are about to find out…”
A few days ago, I came across this article by Mira Jacob on Yahoo and it really got under my skin. To give you a summary of what is taking place in Virginia, school officials have done away with the standard failing mark, the “F”, and replaced with the letter “I” for incomplete. The argument the article is trying to address is if this is “…an inspired move to get those marginal students on track and learning, or just another way in which we’re coddling underachieving kids and hobbling the rest [.]”
I think we’re coddling the little fuckers. Failure should be an option.
Back in the day when I swam for the once glorious Mountain View Crawdads (my summer league team) there was a rule in the league stating if you team lost every meet, they were to move down a division. On the contrary, if you won every meet, your team advanced to a higher echelon. There has to be consequences on both sides of the spectrum to give incentive and make kids work towards goals.
There should be a threat of failure; no child likes to be left back. My junior year of high school, I almost failed my Honors history class; history was not my strongest subject by far. By the end of my first quarter, my teach informed me I should drop the honors class and take the standard Academic level course. I didn’t want to leave the entertaining and more advanced learning of the Honors level course, but at the same time, failing would have been a huge blemish on my academic career. This fear forced me to sit down and read my notes over every night; I rewrote every page of my notes until I remembered every word that was taught to me that day. I sat down with my folks and had them quiz me every night. It was probably the hardest I ever worked for any type of class in my life, high school or college. And by the time mid-terms came around, I was back on track, scoring “A’s” in the class.
By telling student if they fail, there is a chance to fix it, you’re teaching them a skewed life lesson. If I didn’t have the fear from my teacher, I might never have worked as hard as I did. I believe the notion of failure in a child’s development shows them life isn’t fair, that you have to work hard if you want to get ahead in this world. If students believe they don’t have to be their best to move on to the next grade, and there’s is always time to fix things, there will be no sense of urgency to better them selves.
If a student is really have trouble keeping up, the school should have different education levels. At Bishop McDevitt, where I did my time, there were three different tracks: Honors for the more advanced students, Academic for the average kids, and Basic for those who might have a little trouble grasping the material. I’m not saying one level is better than another. Everyone learns differently. This system gives students who absorb knowledge differently, options.
There is a flip side to my argument however, because of course, the world isn’t black and white. The problem is the threat almost gives you the feeling that if you mess up, your whole life is over. Parents and teachers like to stress that every decision and choice you make early in school has a rippling effect on your success in life and your career. This is obviously not the case.
I was asked at age fourteen, in my freshman Algebra class, what I wanted to do with my life. I needed to know, so I could plan the rest of my math and science courses correctly to be advanced enough before going away to college. I said I was interested in computers, so I had to make sure I took multiple math classes sophomore year, then I could take this other math class junior year, to make sure I was in Calculus and some other intense math class by my senior year. I hated math; I didn’t want to do that much math. So I said to my Algebra teacher, and I quote, “That’s a lot of math. Eh, screw it, I’ll work in television.” (Luckily, my teacher was a sexist drunk who had more heart attacks than letters in his name, so I didn’t get in trouble for saying screw it.)
You’ll never hear me say this again, but I think a little bit of fear does kids a favor. Learning from one’s mistakes and failure is priceless. The value of learning from losing is one lesson everyone should learn.
Be still and know that they won't lie to you every single time you're facing lies…
[*Easily one of my favorite song lyrics of all time.]
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