2 Comments
User's avatar
Uncle Dan's avatar

grades are funny things. so subjective. like olympic figure skating. i've heard, but not sure if it's true, that there is a lot of underlying, subtle pressure for teachers (from admin) to "move" kids along, especially the "bad" ones. i can see how that pressure might exist as no one (not the least of which the school) wants a bad kid to hang around. sort of like move them along and eventually society will deal with them. did you experience that (overtly or covertly or otherwise) in your experience?

Expand full comment
Greg Fournier's avatar

Definitely. But it wasn’t just administrators etc. who wanted to move them along. Oftentimes, as a teacher, I couldn’t bear the thought of having to deal with the same kid the next year. That internal pressure alone is enough to warp a student’s grades and move them along, despite their not deserving it.

Expand full comment