Friday, July 01, 2005
Nothing lower than a 50 from Casey Bartholomew
My favorite radio station NewsRadio 94-3 WSC-FM runs a few of my favorite shows. The Casey Bartholomew Show is one that is scheduled to run from 3pm until 7pm weekdays. I normally pick up part of it on my way home everyday from work. The Casey Bartholomew is not my favorite show on WSCFM but I do try to give him a chance everyday. Yesterday Casey nailed a hot button issue with me. He brought up the subject of how teachers are pass kids who may not deserve is by giving the kids nothing lower than a 50 or 60 grades. Yes, this is happening. Most people in the general public never hear about these policies because it would not look good for one of our prize winning school districts to be exposed for padding the numbers. The underlying motivation is probably more likely geared towards the feelings of the children. Yes, one more example of how our society tries to keep our children happy at all cost.
What does this really cost? We end up with a society of people who think that everything should be handed to them because that is what they were taught in school. The Casey Bartholomew Show did a great job of pointing this fact out yesterday. I was so pleased with Casey's subject that I actually called in to participate. Casey had a teacher call in who did not seem to realize that this kind of thing was going on in schools. I could not leave this notion unchallenged. My wife did teach third grade for a few years in public school. Her grade book was checked by the administration to be sure that she was not giving anything lower than a 50. My wife detested this notion in most cases, but was forced to go along with it by the administration of her school. She believes that there are special cases that might warrant giving a grade, but those a few and far between. For instance, maybe a truly special needs child has been put into a mainstream classroom. While I am of the opinion that most kids with special needs do not belong in mainstream classrooms, they are getting put into them. That is a subject for another day.
There were two points that I wanted to make by calling the Casey Bartholomew Show yesterday. The first was to give Casey some support against this teacher who called in who was either in denial or just living in a fantasy land. The second was to say that much of the blame should be put on the parents. The parents are mostly to blame for child who is riding the system and getting grades less than the knowledge and capabilities will permit. The system is pretty messed up, but an involved parent would know what their children is actually doing. Parents should be at every meet the teacher night and should be scheduling regular conferences to follow up on their child's progress. A parent should want to know why their child is skimming by. If their child is consistently getting Cs and Ds then they should take a look at the teacher's grade book. When the teach shows a long list of 50s and 60s then the parent should want to know what kind of work their child is passing in to get these grades. Most teachers who are in the situation of being forced to give minimum grades are more than happy to tell a parent when I child is turning in nothing and getting a 50. Most teachers what to help these kids. They are certainly not in it for the money.
I want to thank Casey for bring up this subject. The Casey Bartholomew has potential, but many times I will switch over to NPR or listen to a CD on the way home because Casey is off on a subject that just rubs me the wrong way. Sometimes I actually think his show's catch phrase should be "Talking about the things Casey really cares about" rather than the actual show catch phrase "Talking about the things you really care about." Casey actually hung u on me the day before yesterday when I called to suggest a change of subject. The subject was really not that bad, but it was rather that Casey was doing a ton of name calling. He was calling teen age girls who get breast implants as graduation presents from their parents some pretty nasty names. He also went off pretty good yesterday on the teacher who was obviously out of touch with reality. Casey called him stupid along with yelling at the guy for a minute or so. While Casey does have the right to defend himself, the practice of belittling callers with name calling is not appealing to me. The fact that Casey does expose some of our society's ignorance and what I call over tolerance is often appealing to me.
What does this really cost? We end up with a society of people who think that everything should be handed to them because that is what they were taught in school. The Casey Bartholomew Show did a great job of pointing this fact out yesterday. I was so pleased with Casey's subject that I actually called in to participate. Casey had a teacher call in who did not seem to realize that this kind of thing was going on in schools. I could not leave this notion unchallenged. My wife did teach third grade for a few years in public school. Her grade book was checked by the administration to be sure that she was not giving anything lower than a 50. My wife detested this notion in most cases, but was forced to go along with it by the administration of her school. She believes that there are special cases that might warrant giving a grade, but those a few and far between. For instance, maybe a truly special needs child has been put into a mainstream classroom. While I am of the opinion that most kids with special needs do not belong in mainstream classrooms, they are getting put into them. That is a subject for another day.
There were two points that I wanted to make by calling the Casey Bartholomew Show yesterday. The first was to give Casey some support against this teacher who called in who was either in denial or just living in a fantasy land. The second was to say that much of the blame should be put on the parents. The parents are mostly to blame for child who is riding the system and getting grades less than the knowledge and capabilities will permit. The system is pretty messed up, but an involved parent would know what their children is actually doing. Parents should be at every meet the teacher night and should be scheduling regular conferences to follow up on their child's progress. A parent should want to know why their child is skimming by. If their child is consistently getting Cs and Ds then they should take a look at the teacher's grade book. When the teach shows a long list of 50s and 60s then the parent should want to know what kind of work their child is passing in to get these grades. Most teachers who are in the situation of being forced to give minimum grades are more than happy to tell a parent when I child is turning in nothing and getting a 50. Most teachers what to help these kids. They are certainly not in it for the money.
I want to thank Casey for bring up this subject. The Casey Bartholomew has potential, but many times I will switch over to NPR or listen to a CD on the way home because Casey is off on a subject that just rubs me the wrong way. Sometimes I actually think his show's catch phrase should be "Talking about the things Casey really cares about" rather than the actual show catch phrase "Talking about the things you really care about." Casey actually hung u on me the day before yesterday when I called to suggest a change of subject. The subject was really not that bad, but it was rather that Casey was doing a ton of name calling. He was calling teen age girls who get breast implants as graduation presents from their parents some pretty nasty names. He also went off pretty good yesterday on the teacher who was obviously out of touch with reality. Casey called him stupid along with yelling at the guy for a minute or so. While Casey does have the right to defend himself, the practice of belittling callers with name calling is not appealing to me. The fact that Casey does expose some of our society's ignorance and what I call over tolerance is often appealing to me.
