[Newsbot]

Title: Teacher who gave zeros threatened with termination
Category: Misc CDN
Posted By: ShepherdsDog
Date: 2012-06-26 00:00:41
Canadian

[ShepherdsDog]

The union and their lawyers should have fun with this. The principal may be the one who ends up looking for a new job in the end.

$1:

Lynden Dorval was told in a letter he received last week from Ron Bradley, principal of Ross Sheppard High School, that he is facing termination.

After criticizing Dorval for not returning unmarked exams, assignments and lab reports after he was suspended — and not leaving lesson plans for his replacement — Bradley informs the physics and science teacher that his job is on the line.

"I find it utterly reprehensible that you would sit on these exams and assignments for weeks without alerting the school," Bradley wrote in the letter, which is dated June 18th.

"Your behavior is unbefitting a professional. It is also ironic in light of your very public pronouncements about your concern for the welfare of your students.

"Your habitual refusal to obey lawful orders, your repeated insubordination, and your obvious neglect of duty force me to consider recommending termination of your teaching contract with Edmonton Public Schools."

__________________________________________________________________________


Dorval, who received national attention for refusing to abide by the school's no-zero policy, said on Monday that he found Bradley's letter "puzzling."

"He doesn't ask me to do anything," Dorval said. "He doesn't ask me to respond to it in any way or explain everything. It's just a threat."

The tests were written the week before Dorval was suspended on May 18th. He says he was distracted by his suspension hearing and intended to mark the work on the weekend.

"Then I was basically kicked out of school. I was given my suspension letter on Friday, told to give my keys back, accompanied to my room, my classroom to pack up and leave," he said.

"Of course, when I got home I just threw everything into the corner, piled it up, and didn't think of it again."

Dorval eventually returned all the material to the school after he was asked to send it back.

[Newfy]

All this bull about not failing kids in school because it damages their confidence etc needs to stop. These children will leave school ill prepared for the real world. It's the same for school sports days over here in the UK, which have mostly become glorified fun days because the powers that be have decided that children shouldn't be competitive. Give me strength.

[bootlegga]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

The union and their lawyers should have fun with this. The principal may be the one who ends up looking for a new job in the end.

Nope, the school board covered its ass very well, documenting every occasion where Dorval gave out zeroes to students. That's counted as insubordination by almost any measure and he's almost certainly going to be out a job.

It's too bad, because when this issue came to light in May, it created outrage in the vast majority of parents and adults in Edmonton and across Alberta. Some polls on websites around town were in the 80-90% support for Dorval. University professors even chimed in, saying that if EPSB students don't hand in assignments, they will get a zero and they will fail, even if some local high schools won't fail them.

However, the school board - with the support of Alberta Education - has stuck to its guns and says this policy is a good one. They argue that zeroes affect marginal students more than everyone else and causes some of them to just give up and take up a life of crime! Ridiculous isn't it?

What's even worse is that it's not just for assignments - it's also in effect for tests. So if a kid only answers 5 out 50 questions, you can only mark him/her on those 5 questions!

IMHO, this system basically sets kids up for failure later in life - when they get to university or out in the corporate world, their professors/bosses will have no qulams showing them the door.

[Prof_Chomsky]

Until this ridiculousness ends our children will get continually more confident and exponentially dumber.


“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” ~ Charles Bukowski

My nephew came home with a report card this week that used works like “usually” and “sometimes” and “often”. It was 2 full pages of text that didn’t tell me a darn thing about how well he was doing in anything, or give me a benchmark of where he should be at his age. WTF do we send kids to school for if we can’t even know how they are doing and what they need to correct???

[PublicAnimalNo9]

I remember when I used to look south and laugh at America's educational system.


I'm not laughing anymore.

[BartSimpson]

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

Until this ridiculousness ends our children will get continually more confident and exponentially dumber.


“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” ~ Charles Bukowski

My nephew came home with a report card this week that used works like “usually” and “sometimes” and “often”. It was 2 full pages of text that didn’t tell me a darn thing about how well he was doing in anything, or give me a benchmark of where he should be at his age. WTF do we send kids to school for if we can’t even know how they are doing and what they need to correct???

This is why I detest centralized education bureacracies and that's because they frequently impose practices and curriculums that are designed to dumb-down children with the intent of producing compliant and stupid adults who can be easily brainwashed by the dominant media.

Here's a quote from a right-wing fanatic on that topic:

$1:

Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis, two economists, in their work on the American educational system some years back... pointed out that the educational system is divided into fragments. The part that's directed toward working people and the general population is indeed designed to impose obedience. But the education for elites can't quite do that. It has to allow creativity and independence. Otherwise they won't be able to do their job of making money.

When you look at centralized education in that lens you see the evil that is being perpertrated upon the young and you realize that the only and best thing to do here is to dismantle the education bureacracies and to return the control of education to the lowest local level possible.

[Unsound]

My wife had Mr. Dorval as a teacher. To the best of my recollection he is the only teacher I've ever heard her say anything good about...

[Lemmy]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

When you look at centralized education in that lens you see the evil that is being perpertrated upon the young and you realize that the only and best thing to do here is to dismantle the education bureacracies and to return the control of education to the lowest local level possible.

That statement pretty much sums up my research over the past ten years, though I think the word "evil" is an exaggeration, in terms of it being perpetrated on students. The real evil is being perpetrated on the taxpayer. Kids are still getting good educations, but if we could wipe out the bureaucracy, we'd get a lot more bang for our buck. Teachers are doing great jobs, by and large, despite the yolk of redtape and political correctness that they're saddled with.

[BartSimpson]

Lemmy Lemmy:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

When you look at centralized education in that lens you see the evil that is being perpertrated upon the young and you realize that the only and best thing to do here is to dismantle the education bureacracies and to return the control of education to the lowest local level possible.

That statement pretty much sums up my research over the past ten years, though I think the word "evil" is an exaggeration, in terms of it being perpetrated on students. The real evil is being perpetrated on the taxpayer. Kids are still getting good educations, but if we could wipe out the bureaucracy, we'd get a lot more bang for our buck. Teachers are doing great jobs, by and large, despite the yolk of redtape and political correctness that they're saddled with.

Evil is evil even if it is committed with the best of intentions.

[herbie]

People just noticed? I've had years of high school grads who can't make change, read a round clock or add up their time-sheets working at my store.
They were hired because the other applicants were even worse.

[Unsound]

herbie herbie:

People just noticed? I've had years of high school grads who can't make change, read a round clock or add up their time-sheets working at my store.
They were hired because the other applicants were even worse.

Is it really that bad? I hear stories like this all the time but test results show that we, albertans/edmontonians atleast, are still at or near the top in the world. Of course, the contents of the tests isn't something I know amuch about.

That aside, even when I think about the young people I know they're not that dumb. My step-daughter is 14 and it seems to me she's mostly learning the right kinds of things.

Admittedly I was a little bit horrified when she saw some pamphlets I had from a visit to Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie and had no idea what any of it meant... but I reminded myself that she wasn't born yet when the wall came down and that they probably just hadn't got to the cold war yet in Grade 7 social

[Prof_Chomsky]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

Until this ridiculousness ends our children will get continually more confident and exponentially dumber.


“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” ~ Charles Bukowski

My nephew came home with a report card this week that used works like “usually” and “sometimes” and “often”. It was 2 full pages of text that didn’t tell me a darn thing about how well he was doing in anything, or give me a benchmark of where he should be at his age. WTF do we send kids to school for if we can’t even know how they are doing and what they need to correct???

This is why I detest centralized education bureacracies and that's because they frequently impose practices and curriculums that are designed to dumb-down children with the intent of producing compliant and stupid adults who can be easily brainwashed by the dominant media.

Here's a quote from a right-wing fanatic on that topic:

$1:

Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis, two economists, in their work on the American educational system some years back... pointed out that the educational system is divided into fragments. The part that's directed toward working people and the general population is indeed designed to impose obedience. But the education for elites can't quite do that. It has to allow creativity and independence. Otherwise they won't be able to do their job of making money.

I couldn’t possibly agree more with you (oh no, it’s habit forming lol).

But I do disagree that it means we should privatize anything. Public education is a must in any society. We just let it run away. Poor teachers. Curriculums designed to make obedient little workers. Catering to the lowest denominator. All of those things NEED to be changed. Public education has to be saved. Private education isn’t the answer or you will get different classes of people and screw children into being stuck in their born social class forever.

[BartSimpson]

Professor, just thought you should know that the text I quoted (about the two economists) was from an interview with Noam Chomsky.

So don't feel too bashful about agreeing with me here because I was agreeing with your namesake.

It's hard for left-leaning liberals to argue in favor of their education bureacracy when even Noam Chomsky thinks it stinks like dog sh*t.

[Dragon-Dancer]

The board are the ones who should be fired for coming up with stupid policies.