So I read in the Chronically Horrid yesterday that the Halifax Regional School Board is cancelling exam exemptions because they don’t want students coming to school if they’re sick…
Apparently if kids have a high attendance rate (less than 6 unexcused absences per term), many schools allow them to choose one exam per semester that they don’t have to write.
Most schools have 4 terms of 2.5 months each. Taking into account things like inservices, weekends, and holidays, that’s about 55 days of school. SO if they miss one day every 2 weeks without a note, they can choose whatever exam they don’t want to write. (I assume that if they have a note, and most of them can forge a guardian’s signature by the age of 12, that’s an “excused” absence and doesn’t count as missed time).
Well when I went to school, we were expected to go to school every day, AND write our exams. All of them. And if we failed, we failed. These kids today have it too easy. I say, “go to school, AND study, AND write your exams you entitled little bastards”.
No wonder they ask for a starting wage of $10/hour at their first fast food job…
—I had to walk to school uphill both ways in a blizzard…
This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2009.
10 dollars an hour is less than 2 dollars higher than minimum wage, and barely enough to wipe your ass with for most people.
I assume if you don’t write an exam your final grade is based on your other assignments. Good students will already have a good mark, so not writing an exam is a nice perk. Bad students will be failing anyway and will have to write the exam no matter how much they go to school if they want to pass. Borderline passing students may want to take the pass by not risking writing the exam and their stellar attendance would help to ensure some information goes in their heads, even if they aren’t tested on it.
Exams are useless for determining what someone really learned anyway. If you want to know what someone actually got out of a class, test them on it a year later. That will differentiate between what they learned and what the memorized/crammed.
If getting out of an exam gets more kids in class, I think it’s a fair trade.
unfortunately even if you have a shitty mark and your attendance is good you can choose not to take the exam…my son went to citadel and even though he had great marks he missed too many days…so he wrote the exams and that was ok with me…some of his compatriots were barely passing but since they always were in attendance no exam for you…sad
I got exemptions in high school for excellent attendance. The theory is that you learn more when you come to class vs never showing up and missing out on valuable information. And I think an excused absence still counts as an absence. When I was in high school the only things that didn’t count were school related activities, and we only got to exempt exams that were at the end of the semester, not the term. (2 semesters per year, each semester had 2 terms with a “mid-term” exam at the end of the first term)
Also, my first job in fast food was at age 16, and I made $5.90 an hour… and after that I went to university, got a degree and an advanced diploma, and now have a job in my field. So I would say that choosing not to do a couple of exams didn’t really hurt me in the long run.
Exemptions are for finals only. They are referring to High School where there are 2 semesters. That means 12 total absences per year AT MOST. That’s not much compared to how many classes HS students often skip. Get a grip.
What’s really sad is that students actually cannot fail a grade anymore. Those who technically fail get an “administrative pass” because it’s thought that kids suffer more from not being kept with the other kids their age if they’re left behind to repeat a grade. I’m inclined to disagree with this theory. This is in junior high and under mind you, I’m not sure if it’s true for high school. When I was in high school the dude who sat in front of me in grade 10 English was 20 years old. Clearly things have changed, haha.
One quote on CBC was from a student who, after having an exemplary attendance record, was fearful of failing if she were forced to do the exam. I wondered how she believed she would fail if she was in class all of the time. Even through osmosis she should have been able to learn enough to get a passing grade.
It all seems like a bogus value to teach the kids: Just show up and you’ll pass. We won’t grade you on anything and you don’t need to learn anything, just show up. But then that goes along with the sports values nowadays: Just show up, you don’t have to win or even finish, and we’ll give you a medal. What utter bullshit!
back in my days of jr/hg school, we had to have less than 6 days missed and a grade of over 80 to be exempt. needless to say, I only wrote one exam through the 5 years it was implemented…. which completely fucked me over the first year of university because they make you write the damn thing anyways.
don’t let them skip a test… give them practice WRITING tests. Really knuckling down and thriving under pressure.
So, we shouldn’t reward good behaviour? Just because it happened 30 years ago, it doesn’t mean it was good. Also, there was a time that you didn’t need a high school education to get a job, was that good? Honestly? The only way they could make it better is if they have above a 85% (which in my mind is a decent grade, it’s an A-) then, exempt them if they have good attendance. Finally, 10 bucks an hour isn’t a great wage by the way. It’s certainly not a living wage. Remember, there are a lot of people in this province who (sadly, I might add) live on minimum wage. Those jobs are not limited to just kids, you know.
I think the point about sick kids going to school so they would be excempt was passed over. If kids are sick with the flu (swine or other) then they should be home not going to school and infecting other students.
Show up at school and you will pass no exam required.
Do we have to wonder why these same kids think that all they have to do is show up at work to get a pay cheque.
12 unexcused absences a year is considered “high attendence”? What the fuck? When I was in high school you couldn’t get more than one or two in (and trust me, I tried) before you were nabbed.
In any case, exemptions from writing exams are nothing more than a shot in the foot. Only the keeners will qualify, and it’s the keeners who will most likely end up going to university. Ergo, they will suffer in the long run because they don’t have experience writing long tests under pressure.
Then again, high school is a joke and doesn’t prepare anyone for university, so…
Exemptions are based only on attendance now. Even one UNexcused absence will disqualify you. The conditions are (or rather were last year, when there were exemptions)- 1) no more than 6 EXCUSED (sick) absences, 2) no more than 2 “lates”, 3) ZERO unexcused absences, and 4) a passing mark in the course one wants an exemption from.
I used to be really “invested” in the whole idea of public education, as my first career was with a school board in another province.
Nowadays, almost everything about public schools makes me ill. The watered-down pap that passes for curricula, the mindless busywork, the idiotic policies and politics, the generic fast-food/mass-culture attitude.
Trust me, ALL of this has been the case for at least 40 years. Nothing about this “attendance/exemption” issue is new. It’s just more of the same old bullshit. It is much easier to count days present or absent than it is to actually teach challenging, worthwhile subject matter to kids with different interests, learning styles and abilities—all at the same time.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a believer in the value of REAL education, especially for those who need it most and who may not have had the same opportunities as others.
But I only teach adults now because I just could not take one more day of all the time-wasting administrative game-playing that does nothing but suck valuable energy and resources away from actual LEARNING.
I never thought I would think this way, but I have completely changed my mind about private schools, and yes, even homeschooling if it will help a kid get the education they need to get by as an adult.
I went went to Citadel and used my exemptions every time. It encouraged me to go to school and do well, and an award at the end for doing so.
I think taking away that privilege just makes kids stop caring completely and saying they’re ‘sick’ and couldn’t go or just not care completely and not show up at school.
Believe me, the exemptions made even the slackers care about their attendance and grade…. but now even the keen kids, won’t care..
I wonder how much or a drop the average will go down this year….
i’m not laying any blame on anyone group…but when my son was in french immersion grade 12 his french was better than the teachers…rather disheartening and yes ruby jane i understand completely
When I was in high school we had final exam exemptions (no semester system — all year classes) if we had a high class average and the teacher thought we were a “good” student.
I never wrote one final exam my entire three years there 🙂