Youth of Today

[woolymonkey]

Spidermonkey came home with a note. He has to miss his GCSE Science and Maths this afternoon and cycle over to the other campus with his guitar so his long-split-up band, Late Start, can, wait for it...

....mime to an old recording of themselves so the Creative Arts and Music and Media (CRAMM) Diploma class can shoot a music video.

Then they do it again next week except they'll be missing English and French.

I wouldn't be that bothered but he's already screwed up an English assessment on Romeo and Juliet because he was on a Science trip while they were watching the movie (yes, I know) and couldn't remember what the Friar does.*  So doing a speaking assessment on the Friar's character must have felt like being a LibDem defending coalition policy on the Today programme.

Is this what dumbing down looks like, or just excellent preparation for life in modern Britain?

The older monkey generation, on the other hand, benefits from a good old-fashioned regime of regular bollocksing from the head teacher.  She's always haranguing us about the importance of regular attendance, not letting our children waste their time, turn up late, skive off homework, hang out on Parker's Piece at lunchtime...  Apparently, every percentage point dropped from the perfect 100% attendance = -1GCSE grade.**  Spider's friend M had 28% attendance last term due to his tonsils going zombie on him.  He's predicted A*s across the board.  
Optional bonus maths question.  What grades would M be predicted if he'd had 87% attendance?)

More useful question.  Can anyone recommend a good Romeo and Juliet --with the akshul words wot Shakespeare writ-- that I could buy/borrow/download for Monkey education purposes?

One last question.  The Friar: what is he good for?


*To be honest, neither can I.
**Or something.

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Last week a rep from the attendance unit at my uni told us they were tracking attendance against fail rates so they can demonstrate to students the way in which poor attendance leads to failure."


I asked: "But what will you do if you find it doesn't?"

There was a very *long* pause.

As far as my 22 years of teaching is anythign to go by, not handing in work (where the tutor is actually conscientious about feedback) leads to failure. Lack of attendance on the other hand effects the student only if they are a weak student. The strong students do just fine.

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

I agree. But then I work for a uni where attendance is optional but handing in work and giving proper feedback on it are not. Not that tutorials don't help, especially the weaker students, as you say. But it's the whole package of motivation, commitment,organisation... not just rounding people up to get bums on seats.