Sorry.
It appears I’ve been unduly harsh as I wasn’t aware of modern educational standards and marking policies, which if the following is any guide is an extension of the nonsense that you can’t play musical chairs at a five year old’s birthday party because all the kids miss out apart from the last one to grab a chair; every kid on a sport team has to get what they know is a meaningless ‘participation award’ no matter how useless they are on the team; we can’t score kids’ football etc games because it introduces the evil of competition (even though the kids all know who’s winning) and might hurt some fragile child’s feelings (or more probably their fragile over-ambitious parent’s feelings) and so on.
Then again, all the standard (now seen as appallingly violent) games of my childhood (e.g. hoppo bumpo, horses and riders, brandy, and British bulldog mostly played at my school on a hard surface with occasional moderately serious injuries such as broken limbs) were huge fun which we played at every opportunity during school breaks from early primary school. They have long been outlawed in our schools, to the extent that our schools often won’t let kids go on the monkey bars over the soft fall base in case they hurt themselves. The lazy little *****s probably wouldn’t do it anyway, as most of them are flat out stuffing about with their mobile phones, presumably texting the kid about two feet away from them.
God help this generation, and their risk averse, litigious and unreasonably demanding parents, if they have to get jobs where there is a bit of competition and nastiness and you can be marked to zero and sacked for poor performance and not turning up, never mind these cossetted clowns getting into a war!
A FLORIDA high-school teacher who was sacked for giving students zeros when they didn’t turn in homework has been flooded with support after her farewell message left on the class whiteboard went viral.
Diane Tirado said the West Gate K-8 School in Port St Lucie had a “no zero” marking policy, meaning the lowest possible grade a student could receive was 50 per cent.
The 52-year-old was sacked on September 14.
The following day, she snapped a photo of her leaving message and shared it on Facebook. “Bye Kids,” it said.
“Mrs Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life! I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50 per cent for not handing anything in. (Love) Mrs Tirado.”
The post, which has been shared more than 2000 times, generated outrage. One Facebook user said it showed what was “wrong with our society today”.
“The people that will run our future (are) the people still getting credit for doing nothing,” she said.
Ms Tirado, a teacher of 17 years, started working at the school in July. She told local TV station WLOS she gave students two weeks to complete a notebook project, and some didn’t turn it in.
It was only then she found out about the marking policy. “NO ZERO’s (sic) — LOWEST POSSIBLE GRADE IS 50%,” the Student and Parent Handbook says in bold red letters.
“If there’s nothing to grade, how can I give somebody a 50 per cent?” she told the TV station. “I’m arguing the fact that you don’t get something for nothing. I want the policy changed, and it’s not just here.”
She added that there was a zero per cent grade for “incomplete” work on the same marking table, adding to the confusion.
Her termination letter didn’t state a specific reason, only that she was still on probation and could be sacked without cause. Ms Tirado said she couldn’t sue, but she wanted to “spread the word”.
“I’m so upset because we have a nation of kids that are expecting to get paid and live their life just for showing up and it’s not real,” she told the TV station.
