This stuff may be boring...

texburgher:

I send my sons to public school. I do this, in part, because I want to support public education. After six years at this, I’m almost out of illusions about what it means to “support” public education.

Yesterday, Jack came home with good news. There had been a quiz - a ten-question, fill-in-the-blanks quiz about a book he’d read. Upon returning the corrected quizzes to the students, his teacher explained that she doesn’t like to grade everything with A’s, B’s, C’s, etc, and she offered an explanation of the scoring system she’d used for this quiz. There were three possible scores, she said: a frowning face, a smiling face, and a star. A frowning face was meant to indicate that the student had exhibited *ahem* room for improvements. Naturally enough, a smiling face should be taken to indicate satisfactory performance. A star, she explained, was reserved for the best of the best. Students who’d received stars, she said, should feel particularly proud of their excellent performance.

Jack, he told me excitedly, had received a star! As he reached into his backpack for the evidence of bragging rights, he was nothing if not proud. He pulled the quiz from his bag, spun around, presented it to me, and smiled broadly as he waited for me to respond. At the top of the paper: a star. Then, with no mention whatsoever from his teacher, were Jack’s ten answers, seven of them spelled just so:

Loveing
Softley
Ex clamed
Discribed
Quilities
Inteeligent
Beacuse

This is a loveing story beacuse in it Geoff shows us the quilities of the inteeligent grading system at his son’s school. He quietly and softley discribed the issues whereas I think he should have Ex clamed them loudly.