The Becker Blog

There’s a story that’s been circulating around the airwaves in the last few weeks about a teacher who’s been suspended for giving zeros to students who don’t submit work. The suspension is for not doing as he’s told. This school district has decided that students shouldn’t get zeros.

Now, let me say right up front that I think for the most part, students should get zeros for work not submitted (of course there are exceptions – zero-tolerance rules are stupid). I also applaud the teacher for standing by his principles even when his principal won’t (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Quite predictably, much of the professional education community has joined the administration in dumping on the teacher.

Professionals Don’t Use Marks to Motivate | Canadian Education Association (CEA).

Apparently, it is wrong to think of grades as being earned. Apparently, current groupthink says we should be excusing work not submitted and trying harder to cajole students into doing their work, because after all, education is all about motivating students and making them feel a sense of accomplishment (even if they haven’t accomplished anything). I’ll come back to this and go through some of the finer points later. I disagree with much of what is said, but it says it in typical education-ese and deserves a response. It is unfortunate that this article is written without forming logical arguments – the main argument is an ad hominem fallacy. “Professionals” don’t give zeros. Presumably that means that someone who does give a zero can’t be a professional.

 Here’s a well-written response from a long-time university professor.

There are several Facebook groups that have sprung up in support of this teacher. This is one.

This week a grade 11 student from Edmonton has started a petition supporting the giving of zeros and to reinstate Mr. Dorval  (not one of Mr. Dorval’s students I might add).

There is even some suggestion that this no-zero policy is driven by a desire to retain funding.

And still the education establishment insists that it’s bad to give zeros. Some are even saying students shouldn’t be graded at all. (!) What we are supposed to be doing is giving them the information they need to get better. The argument against seems to be largely based on the assumption that grading is punitive. When pushed, most arguments turn into reducto ad absurdum or some other fallacy.

It may surprise you to know that I do NOT approve of competition between students, or, for that matter most forms of competition. That is not the same as being against assessment and the measurement of learning.

I think learning is important. I have been teaching at the university level more or less for 33 years, with the occasional time out for babies, a PhD, and a book. I have spent most of that time teaching some thing (as opposed to meta-teaching: teaching about teaching). I have taught, quite literally, thousands of students – and a few of them still keep in touch.

There are many things wrong with how grading often gets done.
Getting rid of grading does not solve the problem.

Yes, of COURSE getting a zero is discouraging.
Giving no zeroes does not solve the problem. The problem isn’t with the zero, it’s with what happened to result in that zero.

Zeros indicate that the work was not done, NOT the there was no learning.

I’ve got a lot more to say about this, but I’ll leave that for another blog. In the mean time, I have chores to do.  Curiously, if I avoid feeding and watering my animals, they don’t do well. Real life rarely assesses based only on what you did and not what you failed to do. Feeding them really well half the time results in sick (or dead) animals.

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