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HK - Crazy OCD marking of maths for P2 student!

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  1. #101
    Quote Originally Posted by justjoe86:
    True in many cases. However there is indeed a WhatsApp group and it is full of parents infuriated with the same teacher.

    Re the clock hands, check the images and you'll see the hands were indeed placed between the numbers and not directly at the numbers. Just not quite to the accuracy desired. Quite difficult to get it accurate considering the notches between numbers go up in intervals of 12 minutes (surely they should've been 10 or 15 if they wanted such accuracy)
    Then it is definitely something that you can bring up on you next teacher-parent meeting. They might take your suggestions for future improvement or might give you a reason for their approach. The reason might be simpler than what you thought, whether you agree with it or not.

    Last year my boy, when he was on P1, came home one day to tell us that his teacher had punished him by putting him to seat on a plastic stool chair. He sat on the stool chair for several days, and eventually got depressed. We asked him to speak to his teacher and ask for his chair back, but he was afraid. So we talked with his teacher. What happened was that my boy was playing with his chair, rocking it and lying on its back. Seemed that he even fell down or almost did, and that was the reason why the teacher put seated him on the stool chair. We told the teacher that he didn't understand the reason, and the fact that he got seated on a different chair made him depressed. His teacher apologized saying that she didn't know he got so affected because of that, and that she changed his chair just for safety reason. The next day the teacher spoke with my son, made him promise to try to sit still, and gave him his chair back. I don't think my son kept his promise, but at least he never got "punished" with that again.

  2. #102
    Quote Originally Posted by cendrillon:
    The biggest issue here is the non-linearity of the grading. You get it 90% correct and only get 20% of the marks. That part is definitely insane. The teacher needs to be introduced to the 80/20 rule

    As for the marking on the clocks, at first I thought this was pedantic too, but I think I understand the reasoning. The teacher wants half past 4 to point exactly half way between, a quarter to 7 to be after the half way line, and 10 minutes past 10 to be before the half way line. It doesn't have to be exact, just correct relative to the half way point.

    So I think the reasoning of the teacher makes sense. I would say as a way of separating say A students from B students this seems reasonable, sort of like an advanced extra challenging section in an exam, provided the students were taught this in class.

    I'm not trying to defend the HK school system here or the teacher, I'm just saying that the teacher's reasoning is internally consistent and not self-contradictory. Also you do need some way to distinguish A students from B students. If they didn't do this given the typical level in Hong Kong likely everyone would get an A.

    In fact the more I think about this the more it makes sense to me. Every student that gets 100% on an exam has sort of been failed by the grading system as a feedback mechanism, because it hasn't presented a path for them to strive further, or to measure their progress past that point.

    The proof of whether the marking system is working correctly is probably in the distribution. If grades are correctly distributed around B/C with the right percentages in each bucket then as a mechanism for feedback to the student the marking system is working, at least for the majority of the students that haven't saturated at A or F. Although with this huge non-linearity my guess is that the marking is pushing everyone together into the D bucket. I guess it's very egalitarian if nothing more.

    Another very important thing here is how these grades are being interpreted by the students. If they're demotivating that's a bad thing, if they inspire the students to strive more and push their boundaries that's great.
    More than just distinguish A students from B students, I think those extra challenging questions might be used to find out who is smart enough to be placed on their advanced sections for "gifted" students. Those distintions usualy starts on P3.

  3. #103

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    Talk to the teacher and the principal. I am a registered educational psychologist. It sounds like it is something that needs to be sorted out for your child and other students too.


  4. #104

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    Terrible

    Brings me memories of my shitty history teacher in a Russian school. In the 5th grade he asked me what metals people used before iron. I answered "bronze and copper", which was the correct answer according to a textbook. He said that I was wrong ang gave me an "F". The correct answer was supposed to be "copper and bronze" because copper was first. That made me really upset because he didn't ask to name them in chronological order.

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  5. #105

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tea addict:
    Terrible

    Brings me memories of my shitty history teacher in a Russian school. In the 5th grade he asked me what metals people used before iron. I answered "bronze and copper", which was the correct answer according to a textbook. He said that I was wrong ang gave me an "F". The correct answer was supposed to be "copper and bronze" because copper was first. That made me really upset because he didn't ask to name them in chronological order.
    The reasoning behind this is that bronze is an alloy of copper and zinc, so logically you can't smelt bronze before you discover copper. A lot civilizations in fact skip bronze age and go directly to iron because they don't have access to zinc.

    Still a horrible way to grade a fifth grader though.

  6. #106

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    I thought math is a subject which doesn't leave much leeway for creative answers, it has to be pedantic and as strict as possible to see who can really grasp it. It's not like humanities. You cannot bend math or its not what it's supposed to be... It sucks for kids to get bad grades when they try but maybe this shows only few can grasp it and move forward. Many adults these days study math and have problem with its 'rigor' which is scary and funny at once.


  7. #107

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    Quote Originally Posted by sinespe:
    The reasoning behind this is that bronze is an alloy of copper and zinc, so logically you can't smelt bronze before you discover copper. A lot civilizations in fact skip bronze age and go directly to iron because they don't have access to zinc.

    Still a horrible way to grade a fifth grader though.
    Yea, I was aware of that. Had he asked to name them in chronological order I would.
    Last edited by Tea addict; 02-04-2018 at 09:06 AM.
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  8. #108

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tea addict:
    Yea, I was aware of that. Had he asked to name them in chronological order I would.
    Perhaps you should have replied that you answered in Alphabetical order and if he wanted a specific order he should have specified it in the question! The fact you still remember this shows what an impact unfairness has on people.
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  9. #109

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    If the OP's daughter and her fellow-pupils have learnt where the hands of a clock are placed at different times, they know more than many adults, including some professional illustrators.

    Look at the clock on the front cover of the MTR's annual report. How many marks would it get!

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