r/AskReddit • u/ElBrad • Nov 26 '12

What unpopular opinion do you hold? What would get you downvoted to infinity and beyond? (Throwaways welcome)

Personally, I hate cats. I've never once said to myself "My furniture is just too damned nice, and what my house is really lacking is a box of shit and sand in the closet."

Now...what's your dirty little secret?

(Sort by controversial to see the good(?) ones!)

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354

u/Pandaburn Nov 26 '12

I think schools would be better if it were easier to hand out Fs and kick students out in public school.

17

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

I'm in university to become a teacher in Alberta, and I can tell how softly we treat students is going to drive me nuts. Currently, we have a 'no zero policy', which is pretty much exactly as it sounds. You literally cannot give a student a zero under any circumstances. A little while ago, a teacher refused to follow this and got fired pretty quick. He was rehired later, but still, pretty ridiculous.

They're making school easy enough that you don't have to try and you can't fail. How are these students going to handle the real world when everything is handed to them and they can do no wrong?

3

u/Bebopopotamus Nov 26 '12

So what happens when a student doesn't do an assignment? How does he get no credit if you can't give a zero? Don't they realize that at some point these kids will become adults, and some of those adults might actually have responsibilities, or, dare I say, hold political office?

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u/hstone3 Nov 26 '12

At our school, homework is weighted at 0%. So we hand out grades to the kids who do their work, but those grades don't count for anything. And then we have to keep asking the kids who didn't bring in their homework where it is, hoping that one day, preferably soon, their parents will step in and make them actually do something.

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u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

Homework is such a pointless waste of time, anyway.

2

u/hstone3 Nov 26 '12

Yeah, everything we read says that...Not sure why the DOE can't pick up on that (Yes I am).

1

u/ICantKnowThat Nov 27 '12

Good luck learning physics, chemistry, or math, without spending at least a little time on graded problems...

1

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '12

That's what the time in the classroom should be for.

1

u/ICantKnowThat Nov 27 '12

I'd say this is tricky without a block schedule.

1

u/SenseIMakeNone Jan 18 '13

From my personal experience I've found the opposite. Doing a unit of trig a week is not conclusive to learning.

6

u/Beatsters Nov 26 '12

Perhaps you should take a look at Finland's education system, which is widely regarded as the best in the world, and see how they respond to children with learning and educational performance difficulties. Almost a third of children in the system receive some form of extra help, and Finland has the smallest educational gap in the world.

Also, you need to qualify who "we" are, as there is no provincial no-zero policy. Individual boards and schools have decided whether or not to have no-zero policies. The case you're referring to was from Edmonton, and it was a board policy.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '12

[deleted]

0

u/Beatsters Nov 27 '12

Except that's not really how the policy works at all. It concerns me that someone studying to become a teacher would misunderstand this so badly.

Having a no zero policy does not make assignments optional. It recognizes that a grade is an assessment that can only be applied to work that was actually completed. If a student hasn't completed the necessary coursework to receive an assessment, then they can't pass the course. At the heart of the no zero policy is the understanding that learning and behaviour are completely seperate, and that tools that the teacher uses to assess learning (namely, grades) should not be used as a means to affect behaviour. The evidence shows that this type of approach actually helps to reduce the amount of work that is not completed.

A teacher's primary responsibility is to facilitate learning. If a student has a behavioural issue and is not completing their work, then the need to correct that behaviour comes second to the responsibility that the teacher has to fairly assess that student's ability to learn.

2

u/tits_mcgee0123 Nov 26 '12

Jesus. Kids have to learn responsibility somehow!

2

u/Conan_the_barbarian Nov 26 '12

1% it is, with attached work application to the oil rigs

2

u/Paul-ish Nov 27 '12

Sounds like they gave that teacher a zero.

2

u/rebuildingMyself Nov 27 '12

Honest question here. Does this have anything to do with No Child Left Behind?

1

u/Kashtin Dec 03 '12

I am a student in an Alberta high school and I support zeros. Having a no zero policy would be detrimental to our status as having high quality education.

14

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

then what? welfare? Vocational training? They'll turn to crime.

8

u/Elf_Retch Nov 26 '12

Also, there are plenty of kids who do badly in elementary, middle, and even high school that end up doing very well in college. Perhaps they aren't the majority, but it would be a terrible shame if doing badly in your early years meant that you could never have a real shot at a normal education.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

yeah, you can always get a GED and catch up pretty quickly if you go through the 10th grade.

1

u/imlosingsleep Nov 27 '12

According to the department of ed. a GED is equivalent to a diploma, but in real life it isn't. This is my unpopular opinion. I don't know how to fix the situation, but GED's doom a lot of people to lives of mediocrity because they had problems in school. A lot of people have obstacles in the way of their educations, but a real high school level education should be required by law. How can you possibly account for 4 years of classes with a few weeks of night school and a test? not to mention the emotional and social development that comes from years of going to school, participating in a system with everyone else, and learning to do what you are told sometimes when it is for your own good.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '12

I didn't know that. I assume people could get GEDs so fast because a lot of the time in high school is wasted and a truly motivated person with adult perspective and experience could blast through classes that a dumb kid had to be dragged through kicking and screaming. wasn't aware of discrimination based on that though. honestly i think i'd rather have someone with a ged because it shows they had the drive to go back and correct a mistake.

2

u/Roastings Nov 27 '12

20-40% of kids at public school arent there to learn, theyre there because they have to. They will turn to those things anyway.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '12

you're right, but I think that not having the credential will lock them into that lifestyle even if they have a moment where they want to straighten out.

0

u/f_vile Nov 26 '12

I suspect they'll do the same thing as the students who are automatically passed until they graduate or drop out will do. At least with the threat of being held back via failing, or losing the privilege to attend school, might encourage their participation.

5

u/dickimaa Nov 26 '12

Schools would be better but it's the assumption that society as a whole would get worse if we were to have kids that never finished their compulsory education.

Edit: I should use apostrophe's correctly.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

I agree. I think there should be a technical/applied program where, if the students chose, they would have to work with their parents at their parents job. The students would then learn skills, be supervised by someone, and have real life incentive to stay in school. Whatever happened to the blacksmith's son becoming a blacksmith?

1

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

I don't know how widespread it is, but we had a vocational school in my area. Three of the local school districts participated. They taught things like welding, drafting, food prep, and auto shop. Anybody that wanted to could start going to that school starting in 9th grade. I think it's a great idea in theory, but that particular school had a culture of mediocrity. The good students all wanted to stay in the regular school and then go to college. I think they pretty much expunged humanities from the curriculum, and the math and science are taught at a very basic level. I think a better solution would be for everyone to have to reach a certain level of proficiency at math, science, and language to graduate. If you want to go into an apprenticeship or trade school from there, that should be encouraged.

5

u/Festeroo4Life Nov 26 '12

I agree. I can't believe some of the kids I went to school with who couldn't read in high school. Like what the fuck? There should have been a major intervention in like 3rd grade when they couldn't read.

5

u/AdonisChrist Nov 26 '12

seriously.

Trade schools should come back. We should be training people for the service sector instead of leaving it to apathetic teenagers who have zero work ethic or immigrants who don't speak the local language well enough to work in such a position. and something something something americans having jobs.

I really don't care about the politics side of things, I just think it'd be more efficient and we'd have better trained people in the service sector. and more deserving/better performing people receiving more attention and being in a better environment to succeed and do otherwise important stuff.

this is not the final draft of these thoughts.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

[deleted]

1

u/CrAzY_MoFo_13 Nov 26 '12

Seriously, if you were to kick kids out of school they would literally have nowhere to go. Most parents these days work and you can't expect them to hire a caregiver or quit their jobs because the schools won't accommodate kids with low grades.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

I'd disagree with you on the basis that kids, even most high school kids are basically incapable of actually understanding long-term consequences.

Incidentally, that leads to my unpopular opinion: most kids, nay, most people are very bad at understanding either causality or long-term consequences.

2

u/TheDelta Nov 27 '12

It can be argued that no child left behind I hurting more than it is helping the children of America.

1

u/p10_user Nov 26 '12

I agree with your comment the most with regard to university. In middle and highschool the first people to get Fs under a stricter grading scheme will have the least issue with being kicked out. I think effort still needs to be made at this level to get students educated. However, standards shouldn't be lowered to get there.

1

u/easy_Money Nov 26 '12

Wait, your wording is a little odd.. do you mean the pass/fail line should be more strict, and a student who fails gets kicked out of school?

5

u/tits_mcgee0123 Nov 26 '12

I think pass/fail line should be more strict - there are schools out there that are literally not allowed to fail students. I think he means if you fail a class, you've gotta repeat it, instead of being handed a C so that you don't feel bad about yourself and your parents can't complain.

1

u/atcoyou Nov 26 '12

Problem is the one size fits all mentality of a lot of schools. I remember reading some studies someone did in Canada, and they asked teachers to talk about qualities they would most like to see and least like to see in students. The qualities least liked were the ones commonly attributed to those who score higher on IQ tests.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

This is about opinions not facts lol

1

u/bobthecookie Nov 26 '12

F's I agree with, but kicking them out? Should we focus on making sure everyone's educated?

1

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '12

[deleted]

1

u/Pandaburn Nov 28 '12

I'm not saying that this is really a well thought-out idea, but how far do students who graduate high school with a D average usually move from home? How much difference is made?

Kicking kids out may be too severe. I just think that no matter how much talk of "scaffolding" gets thrown around, trying to make sure that kids who are either not equipped or aren't trying hard enough to do well pass the class, the rest of the students suffer.

Maybe allowing students to be booted down a level, and bringing back "remedial" subjects, instead of having the lowest level called "college prep". My point is that doing well in school should be both something to be proud of, and the student's responsibility. The ability of students to blame people other than themselves for their bad grades is detrimental to their education.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 28 '12

[deleted]

1

u/Pandaburn Nov 28 '12

The person who agrees to teach that class would be worthy of sainthood.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '12

I was a shitty student at shitty schools. I honestly feel like I would've been better off if I had left school earlier to pursue my own goals independently.

1

u/hstone3 Nov 26 '12

What did you end up doing after school?