After lurking for a while, this is finally my first post! Warning: I am long winded!!
Thank you so much Nikki20!! As a 1st grade teacher I love to hear that kind of stuff. I have met too many parents that need to get a swift kick "you know where" for not doing what they need to do to help their child succeed. It is amazing at the type of disparities and gaps that I see. I too have a child (only 15 months) and you better believe he'll be prepared. We do flashcards, read daily and he loves to write/scribble. Any type of preparation is wonderful and only benefits the child more.
We have heard about this madness too and the debate has gotten to our district. Our issue is more so of displaying lower grades. They (school board) made this big stink about having an abundance of student work displayed. It's believed that their work shows their effort in class, that they belong and that they have something of thier own to "show off" to parents and classmates. It becomes a double edged sword really. They want each child to have at least 1 piece of work posted in the room. That's okay. Now, they are debating if we should allow the bad grades to be posted. The problem is that if you have a child that is a low performing student/s that will usually get that bad grade, then that child will never have anything up. So, the child can either feel embarrassed because they have bad grades posted or feel bad because their work is never displayed. Parents usually want to see what they've done, good or bad, so for now I continue to put up the good, the bad and the ugly. We always have to try to find a bright spot no matter how bad the grade, so even if a 1 (or d/f) is put up, they do get a positive comment or something that will help them improve their work for next time. I agree with a previous poster that it does get the child motivated to do better. I like Eclipse's permission slip idea of "opting out" of having work posted. Then if you never have anything up, it's you and your family's business. The parents who caused this mess should stop trying to steal the shine from kids and parents who actually work hard to achieve. If thier low performing child ever scored 100% or an A+ I bet they'd want EVERYONE to know about it. For middle and high school, I think it would be good to use those i.d. numbers if you need to post grades. Kids are more cruel at that age. I believe It's good to show a range of grades because all of my students are different and they all need to be represented.
