We're all told to be 'polite' about our students on the report cards. This means, usually, that we can't call a spade a spade when it comes to the students who are disrespectful little pricks all the time. We have to pussyfoot around everything; "uncontrollable" becomes "energetic," "constantly interrupts" becomes "enthusiastic," "disrespectful" becomes "independent," "loud-mouthed little asshole" becomes "high-spirited."

And no mark can be bad. It's literally impossible to get an F in anything, for any student. The lowest grade I can give is "improvement needed." And even then I'm told by my boss not to use it, and to give "average" as the lowest score for any student in a category. How can "average" be the lowest?!? We're literally teaching our children that the only kind of success is being better than other people.

It's this ridiculous overachieving culture where every student has to be the best at everything. Nobody is allowed to be average, nobody is allowed to be doing just plain 'ol fine. Academic inflation. University graduates can't even find a damn job.

Comments

ty said…
touche. in korea, the academic pool smells like piss and needs some serious cleaning. i wanted to tell the parents of one kid "kevin is a dick-bag. as far as school is concerned, he is a lost cause. he might, however, make an excellent criminal. if you really want to invest in his future, buy him a ski mask and a crowbar." this got turned into "kevin is sometimes distracted, but shows lots of potential" or some placating bullshit so the parents might retain some small hope their son is on his way to being an academic powerhouse.
10:05 PM
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