In 2009 Statistics Canada released the results of a study called Persistence in Post-Secondary Education in Canada. It found that 14 per cent of university students drop out in their first year. The reasons the students cited? Failure to meet deadlines, poor academic performance and inadequate study habits.
And where did they learn those poor habits? In elementary and high school.
Those reasons are pretty much the things that could earn high school students a zero mark, except that in some school districts – including the Greater St. Albert Catholic and Sturgeon – teachers aren’t allowed to give that mark.
In the case of Ross Sheppard teacher Lynden Dorval, he was suspended for giving out zeros.
In the midst of the ongoing controversy over the no-zero policy, it’s interesting to note that most students themselves understand the need to learn to do the work. It’s the so-called experts who don’t get it.
Graduating students understand that failure to do the work shouldn’t be rewarded. Teachers pushing students through the system without said students actually learning is a slap in a face to all those students who are there to learn and who honestly earn their graduation. And those students who are merely pushed through the system either don’t either bother going to university – many probably couldn’t even pass entrance exams – or make up the bulk of that 14 per cent who drop out their first year.
Yet the so-called experts, like the two PhD students at the University of Toronto writing in the Edmonton Journal, continue to make excuses for those students who are unwilling to buckle down and do the work.
No question some students need help for various reasons. And for the most part teachers are there to provide that help. But the bottom line is the student has to care. All the help in the world isn’t going to be enough if students are not willing to do their share.
And if, at the end of the road, there is no punishment for not doing the work, for not handing in assignments, then there is no incentive driving the student to actually learn.
Which raises the question: When did coddling students, protecting the self-esteem of students become more important than their education? The problem begins early in elementary where students are passed to the next grade regardless of their academic achievement, simply because there is a culture among educators that we can’t harm little Jenny’s ego by holding her back while her peers move on. Personal self-esteem now receives a higher priority in most schools than actual performance.
By the time a student is in high school he or she has to know there are consequences, that despite what the so-called experts and school administrators say, there is such a thing as failure. It happens to be a part of life.
For the Sturgeon school division to say, as it does in its policy, that zero does not indicate the degree of student understanding, is missing the mark. It may not indicate the degree of understanding but it certainly indicates that the student understands that he or she can ignore all the teacher’s urgings and demands to complete their assignment, with no real punishment.
And for a St. Albert Catholic division spokesperson to say that awarding zeros “supports a culture that communicates that failure is an option,” is just out of touch with the real world where failure is a very real option.
That’s something many students learn in their first year of university.
High school graduating students themselves – those who actually do the work –say a zero is a simple but powerful way to teach students that there are no rewards, in school or in life, for work you haven’t done.
The no-zero policy tarnishes the credibility of all graduating students. It is unfair to those students who do the work and do it on time. It is time schools lived up to their responsibilities – ensuring students actually learn the subject matter being taught and preparing students for life beyond the schools’ sheltered walls.
