Would you be tempted to help your kids inflate their grades?
Hacking Into a School Computer to Change Your Kids' Grades Is a Major Parenting FAIL
We all want our kids to get good grades. How else can we brag about them at dinner parties
will we feel like they're being prepped for the real world? Now the big
question is: how far would you go to make sure it happens? Here's
hoping you'd draw the line before you get to this mom's level.
Pennsylvania cops say Catherine Venusto actually hacked into the computers at her kids' school so she could change their grades. Well, hacked is giving her a little too much credit. A former secretary of the district, apparently Venusto had a password. But still ...
I think these allegations rank her right up there on top of the "idiot parents" list, don't you? The cops say she changed her daughter's failing grade to a "medical exception," and boosted her son's 98 to a 99 (as if he REALLY needed it).
Last time I checked, the reason we're proud of our kids when they get a good grade is because it represents something worth applauding. It means they actually know the material in a certain course. And, Lord willing and the creek don't rise (seriously, I've always wanted an excuse to use that phrase), they will actually be able to put all that "learnin'" to use one day.
Go ahead and call me a hard@ss, but I actually loved that my daughter's teacher last year was tough on her. The fact that she graduated from first grade actually knowing something made up for every single homework fight. EVERY one.
I can't say I never wish a magic "perfect grade" fairy came to my house. But then I think about all those kids whose parents' brag about their kid who makes such good grades ... but the kid is really kind of a dullard because his parents' do it all. Thanks but no thanks.
What about you? Would you be tempted to help your kids inflate their grades?
I cant say I would ever be tempted to do something like this. I bet those kids arent to proud of their mother.
I would not do something like that.
If I wanted their grades up I would work with them where they are struggling and see if I could help them in that way.
Nope. I never put much in store in grades in the first place. It was a joke when I was in school and it's an even bigger joke now.
Grades do not measure learning, intelligence, character, curiosity (in fact, I think there's an inverse correlation with curiosity and grades), or natural ability.
All grades measure is how well a child can be trained to sit down, shut up, and passively accept rigidly controlled monotonus busy work, and how well they can memorize and regurgitate on test day.
I'm not the kind if mom who would do anything remotely like this.
We are a Montessori family and so never dealt with grades but I have seen the stress levels that some of my friends and their children have had to deal with in terms of grades and the ramifications of those grades. That kind of stress and the lack of control over the situation is probably what leads to the kind of problem cited in the OP. I do not believe there is any test or grade that can appropriately determined whether or not a student, either child or adult, has mastered a certain body of study. The only real determination that can be made is seeing if the student can use the information, knowledge, techniques or skills in a practical application when they have completed the course of study in real life situations. At our school we sometimes admitted children that had attended more traditional schools and I never remember a single instance in which the grades they had gotten were a very accurate measure of their mastery of a particular subject. Even when my son went off to university I gave little credence to grades and continued to ask him what I consider the all important question, "What did you learn and can you apply that knowledge in a practical way?" It is the only true measure in my opinion.
Luke 10:25-29
- Cafe Amber
on Jul. 20, 2012 at 5:51 AM