Classroom Antics

[sirwired]

I can totally understand the "banned topics list". I imagine that students (or their parents) have sued the school in the past for alleging that a poor grade was evidence of the teacher's obvious political bias, and could not even possibly because Little Johnny can't form a coherent sentence to save his life.

[XCashier]

And teaching to an empty room sounds pretty nice. . . .

Well, why not? The empty room would listen about as well as your students do.

[Sapphire Silk]

One of the students in my wife's RN classes was actually told on numerous occasions by the director of the nursing program as well as different teachers that she should change majors.

It actually had nothing to do with her classroom work as she damn near aced every test. It had everything to do with Clinicals. She was terrible, no bedside manor, terrible in a crisis, etc.

Some students like this do eventually shape up and get it together. Some don't, alas.

I've got a student like this coming to me in the Spring. If she can hold it together, manage not to do anything unsafe or stupid, and meet the competencies, then she'll pass. If she doesn't, she won't.

[fireheart]

Many school in the US have issues with those kinds of policies. A very good friend of mine quit teaching in a private school because she was not allowed to give a zero for work that wasn't done or turned in, and was forced to change grades for the pwecious spawn of EW's with money who never ever got less than an A on anything. Public schools can run into similar problems, according to other friends who teach. YMMV depending on the school district and whether or not the administration has a spine.

This, along with the fact that apart from a select few schools, all of them are religious, is the exact reason why I am planning on avoiding the private system if I can help it. I will tough it out in the Outback for a few years if I have to.

(In my state, teachers who get the disadvantaged schools or have worked in the country for a few years, get a better chance of being placed in a better school. If you're working special needs, you get more options than if you don't. That is NOT the reason why I went into special ed. though)

Although, I heard from somewhere the other day that out of 10,000 kids who completed their high school certificate across the country, the private school kids outperformed the public school kids. OK, we already know that (I can hear the "WELL DUH" from miles away). However, once at university, by the end of the first year, the private school kids either dropped out, or ended up receiving LOWER GPA scores than their public school counterparts. On top of that, once you're in, you're in. You get graded the exact same way. As it turned out, the public school kids turned out to be more resilient than their private school counterparts. By the end of the degree, the two groups were equally good.

I went back to school these last few years, and even classes of adults can't get this crap right. I was editing a group paper and a 35 year old woman had cited a Wikipedia talk page as a source.

SERIOUSLY?!

[TheCheerfulTreeRat]

We can't write qd for every day, because it's too similar to qid or four times a day.

We have to put a zero before a decimal to clarify the dose, but not AFTER a whole number in case the decimal is over looked (making 5.0 turn into 50).

Sounds like a damn good idea! Especially in a high pressure environment where time and accuracy matter, and affect peoples lives.