A very minor vent - written work in every class. What do you think?

[SKL]

My kid has 2 B's going right now:  one in PE and one in music.  (Otherwise she has all A's.)

 

The PE grade is because she got a B on a paper-and-pencil test about basketball rules.

 

The music grade is because she got a B on an in-class essay about Johann Sebastian Bach.

 

It kind of bugs me that they have to have written work / essays in every single class, even the ones that aren't supposed to be academic.  My kid is a Presidential Fitness Award winner, loves gym and exercise, plays a pile of sports (including basketball), always comes prepared, and is in great shape.  You would think gym would be an easy A for her - the only easy A she could really hope for, since academic learning is hard for her.  Then in music - she gets A for class participation and musical assignments, plays instruments, voluntarily joined the school musical and the choir programs [many hours of extra work for no reward], bla bla bla.  Why should her music grade be about whether she is good at writing?

 

I am all for a greater emphasis on the 3 Rs, but in every graded subject?  (And all of my kids' classes are graded - all hit the GPA except for band [which kinda sucks since my kids' band grade is like 130%].)

 

I dunno, I think that as a kid I would find this arrangement demoralizing.

[rdj2027]

My son who has zero athletic ability in addition to some physical issues always had an A in PE because of written work.  It bothered my greatly because it a) was not a measurement of physical ability or fitness b) they did not exercise much since the written work usually took up at least 30 minutes of class.  Same in art, he has no talent or ability whatsoever but his essays earned him As.  I not only find it demoralizing for those children who truly excel in those areas but to me it also distorts the picture of the student.  Last semester he took a ceramic  class at the local high school and had to work very hard for the C he ended up with.  That is an objective grade and for him a real achievement.

 

 

[City Mouse]

Many states have specific odjectives that must be covered in PE such as knowing rules of specific games and health topics. Even back I the dark ages when I was I. School, we had some written tests. Art class can include learning about artists and art history, not just the creation of a perfect art piece. I can't saw that I would really want my student to be graded on the quality of his art work and fail art class.

[pkbab5]

If it's not high school, then the grades don't matter yet.  This is a good time for them to learn how to deal with getting a lower grade.  Figure out a way for your kid to learn from it now, before the grades count.  Plenty of things in life will be unfair and demoralizing, they need to learn how to overcome being demoralized and come out on top.

[Dmmetler]

FWIW, I hated it as a music teacher. This is generally mandated from above. It frustrated me because often kids who truly could demonstrate music knowledge and concepts could not necessarily write a good essay in response to "The Four Seasons", and it's damned hard to write a good essay on a composer using resources that are on a 5th grade reading level and don't require several years of music theory and a thorough understanding of music literature to comprehend well. There is a place for written work in music, but it's in my college music history and literature class, not my 4th grade general music class!

 

And when you have 800 students, being required to have three graded written samples from each every 6 weeks takes a lot of teacher time to grade. Doing the writing in-class when you only have an hour a week with the kids is a real time sink, because many kids can easily take an hour to write a paragraph. Assigning it as homework basically makes it parent work, which I hate to do. I tended to make such work a very small part of the grade.

Edited February 13, 2017 by dmmetler

[kiwik]

I think it is odd to have a grade in PE or have to write anything for it at that level either.  I think my kids get comments on their reports about attitude and effort for PE plus awards for playing in teams or winning long jump or whatever but mostly they go and learn a bunch of skills, play a bunch of games then go back inside and do something else.  Highschool or even intermediate where there is a health component maybe?  What is the purpose in grading PE?

Edited February 17, 2017 by kiwik

[Renai]

I think it is odd to have a grade in PE or have to write anything for it at that level either.  I think my kids get comments on their reports about attitude and effort for PE plus awards for playing in teams or winning long jump or whatever but mostly they go and learn a bunch of skills, play a bunch of games then go back inside and do something else.  Highschool or even intermediate where there is a health component maybe?  What is the purpose in grading PE?

 

I know in our state, they're requiring end-of-course exams in every class that don't already have objective grades like in math, etc. This includes elementary school pe, art, and music. It has proven to be a pain to many a fine arts teacher that is in K-6.

 

ETA: Oh, and it has something to do with the teacher evaluations, a portion of the rating comes from student data. At least in our state.

Edited February 17, 2017 by Renai

[SKL]

I agree that it's silly for gym to get a letter grade that affects GPA (I don't know if this is typical nowadays - it wasn't in earlier generations - though GPA in elementary school wasn't a thing either then).

 

Another wee little vent - the teacher already decided in advance to give all the kids a 93% in effort - which is A-.  My kid's gym average is 92% (B+).  If she was getting a grade that reflected her individual effort, it would be an A.  Whatever, right?  I know it's not a big deal but it would be a nice boost for my hard-working kid to get the recognition.  She works her tail off to get As in the academic subjects.  A 4.0 just once would be nice ....

Edited February 17, 2017 by SKL

[Have kids -- will travel]

I can't believe your school gives GPAs in elementary.

 

My kid is six, and he hasn't gotten a "grade" yet. Effort is marked in every subject, and at the end of the year, he has either met the grade requirements, exceeded those requirements, or not yet reached the requirements. I get that's not fifth grade, but the school doesn't grade 7-year-olds either. 

 

A GPA sounds awful.

[historically accurate]

Well, I got my one and only D in PE in 5th grade; I had all A's in all subjects. I think I got S's in K-3 for satisfactory - if we tried we got an S in any subject in K-3 (E was for Excel and U was for Unsatisfactory). I got a C in 4 (I think), a D in 5th, and a B in 6th. My D wasn't for writing though - it was for my complete and utter lack of athletic ability. And, no, just trying hard didn't matter. I finally got my clutzy body together in 6th and pulled out a B (now that I have a dd who has had PT over the years for hypotonia, I know what my problem was). I don't think our GPA counted although we were graded and then tracked in 7th, so maybe our GPA affected our tracking.

 

My friend in high school lost the valedictorian position because she got a B in PE, so it counted then. I went to a school that didn't send GPA's or class rankings to colleges, although that didn't stop colleges from calculating one for us.

 

I am sorry about your dd's experience; poor girl is obviously trying hard. 

[ealp2009]

What grade it this? This seems unreasonable at the elementary level.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SKL]

I can't believe your school gives GPAs in elementary.

 

My kid is six, and he hasn't gotten a "grade" yet. Effort is marked in every subject, and at the end of the year, he has either met the grade requirements, exceeded those requirements, or not yet reached the requirements. I get that's not fifth grade, but the school doesn't grade 7-year-olds either. 

 

A GPA sounds awful.

 

Yeah, in our school they actually start GPAs in 1st grade, and they announce who got 4.0 (also honor and merit roll) how many periods at the year-end assembly (also starting in 1st grade).  I found it strange too.  GPA started in 9th when I was a kid ....

 

[SKL]

Well, I got my one and only D in PE in 5th grade; I had all A's in all subjects. I think I got S's in K-3 for satisfactory - if we tried we got an S in any subject in K-3 (E was for Excel and U was for Unsatisfactory). I got a C in 4 (I think), a D in 5th, and a B in 6th. My D wasn't for writing though - it was for my complete and utter lack of athletic ability. And, no, just trying hard didn't matter. I finally got my clutzy body together in 6th and pulled out a B (now that I have a dd who has had PT over the years for hypotonia, I know what my problem was). I don't think our GPA counted although we were graded and then tracked in 7th, so maybe our GPA affected our tracking.

 

My friend in high school lost the valedictorian position because she got a B in PE, so it counted then. I went to a school that didn't send GPA's or class rankings to colleges, although that didn't stop colleges from calculating one for us.

 

I am sorry about your dd's experience; poor girl is obviously trying hard. 

 

I always got a sucky (though passing) grade in PE, but it was because I hated gym and I couldn't stand my gym teachers, and I didn't try very hard to hide that.  :P  I was actually pretty athletic, but my attitude did me in.

 

Gym did affect our GPA in high school.  By then I managed Bs in gym, which was probably why my GPA was only 3rd in my class IIRC.  (Gym grade in the GPA has always been a peeve of mine.)  But even in high school, they didn't announce individual results to the whole school like that, except of course the valedictorian and salutatorian in 12th.

[SKL]

What grade it this? This seems unreasonable at the elementary level.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

5th grade.

 

[wintermom]

My kid has 2 B's going right now:  one in PE and one in music.  (Otherwise she has all A's.)

 

The PE grade is because she got a B on a paper-and-pencil test about basketball rules.

 

The music grade is because she got a B on an in-class essay about Johann Sebastian Bach.

 

It kind of bugs me that they have to have written work / essays in every single class, even the ones that aren't supposed to be academic.  My kid is a Presidential Fitness Award winner, loves gym and exercise, plays a pile of sports (including basketball), always comes prepared, and is in great shape.  You would think gym would be an easy A for her - the only easy A she could really hope for, since academic learning is hard for her.  Then in music - she gets A for class participation and musical assignments, plays instruments, voluntarily joined the school musical and the choir programs [many hours of extra work for no reward], bla bla bla.  Why should her music grade be about whether she is good at writing?

 

I am all for a greater emphasis on the 3 Rs, but in every graded subject?  (And all of my kids' classes are graded - all hit the GPA except for band [which kinda sucks since my kids' band grade is like 130%].)

 

I dunno, I think that as a kid I would find this arrangement demoralizing.

 

While it does seem overkill to have writing in many different subjects, the 2 assignments you listed are genuinely part of their subject matter. Not all PE has to be done with the body. There is a LOT of knowledge required in the field, and it makes sense to have some knowledge assessed by writing the answers. The same with music; history, music theory are part of the knowledge base and are usually assessed through written work.

 

Just take a quick look through the courses offered at college in both these fields of study. There are a lot of practical skills and just as much theoretical knowledge.

Edited February 21, 2017 by wintermom

[SKL]

While it does seem overkill to have writing in many different subjects, the 2 assignments you listed are genuinely part of their subject matter. Not all PE has to be done with the body. There is a LOT of knowledge required in the field, and it makes sense to have some knowledge assessed by writing the answers. The same with music; history, music theory are part of the knowledge base and are usually assessed through written work.

 

Just take a quick look through the courses offered at college in both these fields of study. There are a lot of practical skills and just as much theoretical knowledge.

 

We aren't really worrying about college just yet - we have 7.5 years left to get ready for that.

 

I am not saying there should be no written work in music, but it seems a shame that one single in-class essay can have such a big impact on the music grade.

 

Similarly the gym grade.  I managed to obtain 2 graduate degrees and 2 professional licenses without ever having taken a written test on basketball skills.  I am all about academics, but for kids who have learning difficulties, it would be nice if there were one or two elementary school classes they could attempt without this kind of stress.

 

I guess reasonable minds can differ ....

[wintermom]

We aren't really worrying about college just yet - we have 7.5 years left to get ready for that.

 

I am not saying there should be no written work in music, but it seems a shame that one single in-class essay can have such a big impact on the music grade.

 

Similarly the gym grade.  I managed to obtain 2 graduate degrees and 2 professional licenses without ever having taken a written test on basketball skills.  I am all about academics, but for kids who have learning difficulties, it would be nice if there were one or two elementary school classes they could attempt without this kind of stress.

 

I guess reasonable minds can differ ....

 

Definitely something to speak with the teachers about.

 

If your dd has LDs, wouldn't there be something in place at her school to address these? Again, perhaps bring it up with the specific teachers in question.

 

I'm guessing that your degrees weren't in Kinesiology or coaching then, because mine were and I did have to write tests on basketball and other physical skills. I'm sure you wrote tests in other subjects related to your degrees, though.