Go on, give everyone an A+, Mr. Rancourt
The Globe and Mail today has the most interesting story I've read in ages – it seems a University of Ottawa professor Denis Rancourt has been suspended (and arrested on campus and charged with trespassing) for being radical.
Erin Anderssen of the Globe and Mail writes:
"On the first day of his fourth-year physics class, University of Ottawa professor Denis Rancourt announced to his students that he had already decided their marks: Everybody was getting an A+. It was not his job, as he explained later, to rank their skills for future employers, or train them to be “information transfer machines,” regurgitating facts on demand. Released from the pressure to ace the test, they would become “scientists, not automatons,” he reasoned."
The self-described 51-year-old anarchist is fighting back and has posted his side of the story on YouTube. This idea of not doling out grades is interesting to me as I sit here at 9:31 in the morning, laid off from my job as a newspaper editor. I should be at work, WORKING, but instead, today, I will finish painting my hallway that was done, but then the paint, (please excuse my anger here) god-damn bubbled and now I have to do it again. I will buy some 1% milk for cereal and go run on a treadmill and check in with the companies (harass, actually) that I'm hoping will hire me.
How did I get laid off? How did I become one of the thousands of people with no job? See, the biggest thing about being laid-off is that it's not fair. I graduated high school with a 94.6% average. I went to Queen's University, one of the top schools in the country. I graduated with a BAH. My last year of university, I also worked full-time at The Whig-Standard, school during the day, work at night and on weekends. I busted my butt for eight years at the paper and received accolades, pats on the back, award nominations. All I wanted in return for my hard work and perseverance since Grade 9 was a good job, a good salary, and some coworkers who I could share a chuckle with. Instead, I'm in PJs, wondering, literally, what it all means now.
And here's where I trace the problem to: School. Elementary school and high school.
Kids learn very early on how to play the system. In group work, when there's two smart kids, the class a-hole and a kid who tries really hard but can't manage anything more than a 60%, the two smart kids take over, push the a-hole completely out of the system and let the try-hard do something, but not too much. When I was in school, part of the Ontario curriculum had groups of four each assigned a role: One person was the writer, one person was the "thinker," the person who came up with ideas. So far, so fair. Those two jobs worked in tandem. But then – I know some of you will remember this – one person was the encourager. It was his/her job to say: "C'mon guys. Good thinking. You're really thinking hard on this one. Nice penmanship, Sarah." And the other job was for someone to be the timer. Yup, if you have 20 minutes, the timer gave us time updates. Guess what job the a-hole got? The timer. The smart kids never cared if the other two piggy-backed on their 95% because they got 95% too.
In high school, by the time I'd reached Grade 11, I'd dropped all the maths, sciences and geography classes and took only drama, music, English, French, history and sociology classes. Why struggle through a chemistry class and get a 65% when you take English and easily get a 90%? Why, because now that I'm 31, I wish I had more of a math and science background – but high school is a marks game. You need the best marks to get into the best school so you can get the best job. (Allegedly).
But I had the best marks and went to one of the best schools and now I have no job.
It happened when I was in high school and it happens today: Kids are given the most insane/inane projects. Bristol board projects on Macbeth. Ooooh, good cut-and-paste, Jimmy. Too bad you're 18 and in Grade 12 English.
Nice title page. It's worth 10% of your mark? Title pages are very important in the real world. I did them every day in my job, I swear.
But one of the biggest problems with high school (and I know geography and socio-economic status play into this) is that people my age were taught (wrongly, of course) that smart kids went to university and, well, the others went to college.
I vividly remember taking personality tests that lead everyone in our classes to job descriptions for doctor, lawyer, journalist, writer, dentist, teacher. Did anyone ever tell us that elevator repair people can make $100,000 a year?
Not once in five years of high school (when school in Ontario went from Grade 9 to Grade 13) did any teacher, guidance counsellor or guest speaker, tell us to do anything other than get good grades and get into university.
No one presented college as an option. If you were in "advanced" classes, you went to university. No one said take a year off and work, or travel.
Yes, as 18 and 19 year olds we should have had the independence and smarts to make these decisions on our own, but since kindergarten we were groomed for university – and it takes a brave spirit to abandon the flock and go out on his own.
I was not that kid. But could I have been?
I also had close friends whose parents wouldn't chip in for school unless they took what the parents wanted them to take. Guess what happened when the kids who wanted to study art were forced into sciences? Or the kids who wanted to go to a small school were forced to go to their parents' large alma maters? They dropped out, failed, struggled.
Sure, some kids will abuse Denis Rancourt's A+ system – but that's part of the whole experience, isn't it? It's part of learning.
As I sit here, still unemployed 21 minutes later, I say the economy is showing us we need to think outside of the box and consider all options. And when it's time for my son to go to school in 16 years, we will encourage him to do whatever he wants: College, chef's school, design school, travel the world, do an exchange, apprenticeship, go to Queen's University (which, for the record, I did love, but mostly because I made the experience what I wanted it to be and spent the majority of my time working at the student newspaper).
It's good to shake things up.
And to conclude, this is a shout out to high school teachers who did rock the boat, who did treat us like adults, who did give us some freedom to explore, play and learn: Mr. Court, Mr. Baird, Mr. Jones - you guys were my faves.
There might be more(or not)
Erin Anderssen of the Globe and Mail writes:
"On the first day of his fourth-year physics class, University of Ottawa professor Denis Rancourt announced to his students that he had already decided their marks: Everybody was getting an A+. It was not his job, as he explained later, to rank their skills for future employers, or train them to be “information transfer machines,” regurgitating facts on demand. Released from the pressure to ace the test, they would become “scientists, not automatons,” he reasoned."
The self-described 51-year-old anarchist is fighting back and has posted his side of the story on YouTube. This idea of not doling out grades is interesting to me as I sit here at 9:31 in the morning, laid off from my job as a newspaper editor. I should be at work, WORKING, but instead, today, I will finish painting my hallway that was done, but then the paint, (please excuse my anger here) god-damn bubbled and now I have to do it again. I will buy some 1% milk for cereal and go run on a treadmill and check in with the companies (harass, actually) that I'm hoping will hire me.
How did I get laid off? How did I become one of the thousands of people with no job? See, the biggest thing about being laid-off is that it's not fair. I graduated high school with a 94.6% average. I went to Queen's University, one of the top schools in the country. I graduated with a BAH. My last year of university, I also worked full-time at The Whig-Standard, school during the day, work at night and on weekends. I busted my butt for eight years at the paper and received accolades, pats on the back, award nominations. All I wanted in return for my hard work and perseverance since Grade 9 was a good job, a good salary, and some coworkers who I could share a chuckle with. Instead, I'm in PJs, wondering, literally, what it all means now.
And here's where I trace the problem to: School. Elementary school and high school.
Kids learn very early on how to play the system. In group work, when there's two smart kids, the class a-hole and a kid who tries really hard but can't manage anything more than a 60%, the two smart kids take over, push the a-hole completely out of the system and let the try-hard do something, but not too much. When I was in school, part of the Ontario curriculum had groups of four each assigned a role: One person was the writer, one person was the "thinker," the person who came up with ideas. So far, so fair. Those two jobs worked in tandem. But then – I know some of you will remember this – one person was the encourager. It was his/her job to say: "C'mon guys. Good thinking. You're really thinking hard on this one. Nice penmanship, Sarah." And the other job was for someone to be the timer. Yup, if you have 20 minutes, the timer gave us time updates. Guess what job the a-hole got? The timer. The smart kids never cared if the other two piggy-backed on their 95% because they got 95% too.
In high school, by the time I'd reached Grade 11, I'd dropped all the maths, sciences and geography classes and took only drama, music, English, French, history and sociology classes. Why struggle through a chemistry class and get a 65% when you take English and easily get a 90%? Why, because now that I'm 31, I wish I had more of a math and science background – but high school is a marks game. You need the best marks to get into the best school so you can get the best job. (Allegedly).
But I had the best marks and went to one of the best schools and now I have no job.
It happened when I was in high school and it happens today: Kids are given the most insane/inane projects. Bristol board projects on Macbeth. Ooooh, good cut-and-paste, Jimmy. Too bad you're 18 and in Grade 12 English.
Nice title page. It's worth 10% of your mark? Title pages are very important in the real world. I did them every day in my job, I swear.
But one of the biggest problems with high school (and I know geography and socio-economic status play into this) is that people my age were taught (wrongly, of course) that smart kids went to university and, well, the others went to college.
I vividly remember taking personality tests that lead everyone in our classes to job descriptions for doctor, lawyer, journalist, writer, dentist, teacher. Did anyone ever tell us that elevator repair people can make $100,000 a year?
Not once in five years of high school (when school in Ontario went from Grade 9 to Grade 13) did any teacher, guidance counsellor or guest speaker, tell us to do anything other than get good grades and get into university.
No one presented college as an option. If you were in "advanced" classes, you went to university. No one said take a year off and work, or travel.
Yes, as 18 and 19 year olds we should have had the independence and smarts to make these decisions on our own, but since kindergarten we were groomed for university – and it takes a brave spirit to abandon the flock and go out on his own.
I was not that kid. But could I have been?
I also had close friends whose parents wouldn't chip in for school unless they took what the parents wanted them to take. Guess what happened when the kids who wanted to study art were forced into sciences? Or the kids who wanted to go to a small school were forced to go to their parents' large alma maters? They dropped out, failed, struggled.
Sure, some kids will abuse Denis Rancourt's A+ system – but that's part of the whole experience, isn't it? It's part of learning.
As I sit here, still unemployed 21 minutes later, I say the economy is showing us we need to think outside of the box and consider all options. And when it's time for my son to go to school in 16 years, we will encourage him to do whatever he wants: College, chef's school, design school, travel the world, do an exchange, apprenticeship, go to Queen's University (which, for the record, I did love, but mostly because I made the experience what I wanted it to be and spent the majority of my time working at the student newspaper).
It's good to shake things up.
And to conclude, this is a shout out to high school teachers who did rock the boat, who did treat us like adults, who did give us some freedom to explore, play and learn: Mr. Court, Mr. Baird, Mr. Jones - you guys were my faves.
Labels: academic freedom, globe and mail, Laid off, school
There might be more(or not)
