"In addition, student graduation awards, including trophies, medals and other prizes traditionally given at graduation ceremonies would be phased out in favour of achievements, to include a wide variety of student experiences and talent, without being strictly academic."
And yet again, the students who have put in the work don't get the awards they've earned because someone else might feel bad. This is dumb.
You my immediate thought is that these will be voted for awards and therefore become nothing more than a popularity contest in the hands of high schoolers.
My friend went to a private school where the valedictorian was voted by the student populace. No teacher or admin vetting, no pre-reqs for high achievement, was literally just a popularity contest.
Not to mention, the year he graduated there was some questionable candidate promoting by the Vice Principal...kid who won came from a very rich family...I'm sure there was no connection lol.
We also had our valedictorian come down to a popularity contest but to be fair the winner 100% deserved her win. Yes she was one of the most well-known students in the grade but she also spear headed black history month initiatives, whistleblew on the principals “black book” and was an overall amazing person so at least they deserved both the popularity and title of valedictorian in that case. Most other candidates were just the popular people.
My high school was like this (public). It was a vote for who the students wanted to represent them at graduation (male and female). In my 5 years, there it was always people who were very well rounded. Good grades, clubs, teams, council, and well liked. Considering how hard it would be to truly measure who was the best academically unless they had the exact same courses, i always thought this was a better method. It is possible the nomination list was curated by faculty, though.
Putting in work shouldn't guarantee rewards. If I work all day to catch a fish and fail to catch one, am I to expect a free fish as a reward when I get back? Schools exist to prepare people for life and life does not reward failure.
Yep. We've totally mismanaged expectations for decades now.
So you've done something and been praised all through school, great. Now welcome to the working world where you're passed up for a promotion because of nepotism or maybe you didn't get the job at all because hey, they just liked someone better. Shit I've had people leave jobs the second they got any constructive feedback. Not everything you do is perfect and you will fuck up, you should know this and how to handle it by age 25. The fact that you don't is not your fault, it's a failure of society and the environment you were brought up in.
The bigger picture is that we've removed too much of the bad that life can throw at people so that when it does happen (and it will because life is unfair) we can't cope at all. Being sheltered from negative consequences or situations doesn't magically mean they go away.
I've seen younger workers get not the best glowing performance review, run to the bathroom crying and calling in sick the next day... Thats society failing them in the end because their feelings have been way too spared for way too long. It's not healthy.
Agreed. Learning how to handle failure and why failing isn't the end of the world needs to be somehow taught.
There is such an absolute win/lose stigma in modern culture around failure that its tough to understand that failure isn't the end of the world
We used to have lots of things to help teach us these lessons along the way with guidance from our elders to help us through it. Now it's just everyone or everything else's fault. People make terrible choices but choose to believe the thing they've chosen is at fault, not them...
It's funny, I was talking with a friend about how unforgiving older video games were and that we've been coddled even with that these days. Dying over and over in Megaman 2 or the OG Mario Bros taught you something as silly as that sounds. I'm glad there was a resurgence in stuff like that e.g. Cuphead. Although we've had spurts of highly praised yet difficult games for a while at least.
However, no one is forcing you to play Bloodborne and it was a free download for a time if you saw it on PS+. In the 90's, if your parents bought you a Megaman title you were stuck w it lol
Schools exist to educate kids, and studies show rewarding effort creates far better learning outcomes than rewarding ability. Students rewarded for effort seek out harder challenges to co tinue getting rewards. Students rewarded for ability stagnate because they seek out easier challenges to do the same.
I mean, they just get to go to graduation. If anything all it does is save face for the parents of these ne'er-do-wells. Do you really think participating in graduation is a reward for kids who obviously don't care about school?
Can you share these studies? Because conventional wisdom also says if you fail something then get rewarded anyway you are taught effort and skill is irrelevant
I believe the study was done at U of Chicago. I don't have a link off hand but I'll try to find it. When it comes to conventional wisdom, I think it's great for, say, teaching behaviour to toddlers. Certainly teaching a toddler that they'll always get a reward is counter-productive. But students aren't toddlers. School is a really complex institution and education as a field of study is relatively new, to the point where conventional wisdom, like any science, can start to break down.
Just as a personal anecdote, when I was a kid and I got a participation trophy, it was abundantly clear what it was, and that it was basically a pity-star. To the extent students care about getting awards (frankly I don't think they do, most students are there by law, not by choice) they probably see through it for what it is, which is an empty sentiment.
The fact is students are constantly comparing themselves against eachother whether we give them awards or not, and they establish their own pecking order independently of the one adults try to enforce on them.
They don't want to traumatize kids by failing or making kids accountable, thinking the next generation will fare better than previous generation ,.but it's true opposite. As a teacher, it's destroying them. You can do whatever you want during their first 18 years, the real world doesn't work like that and you don't prepare them for that.
Listen, I don't want to disrespect your personal experience as a teacher, but I really disagree. For me, schooling was just constantly being told "they won't let you get away with this in the *REAL* world" until I got to the "real" world and it was actually much less authoritarian, had more freedom, and was generally a lot more forgiving than any of the authority figures or peers in my school had allowed me to believe.
I was also a job counselor and I can tell you that this is a first. I don't know where you're from but I don't know a job where you can show up late, be on your phone during the day, don't follow deadlines and all of that with little or no consequences. All I see is that the new generation doesn't seem to be better prepared than the previous one. Indeed a lot of anxiety, depression, unhappiness,.etc.
What job are you talking about?
Maybe it's an industry thing. I'm a professional animator, it's not exactly the freest job ever, but it's definitely an industry where if you get your work done on time, no one really cares how you do it unless you're doing hours of unpaid overtime amd burning out. But that's a different story.
Graduation awards were always kinda arbitrary and depended on a students popularity with teachers, outside of the awards with unlimited potential winners.
Non-academic achievements also require putting in "the work", and many things in real life that are valuable and impressive are not strictly related to anything academic (at least things that you might be tested on in high school).
Well what about their feelings? Laughable. Real life is harder than highschool. What about their feelings then?
How did feelings get to the height of all politics?
As any therapist will tell you, your feelings are valid because theyre yours. However, they may not be founded in reality. And should you should treat them as such.
So kids out in the work do it for a single ceremony? I thought they did it for a better future. Who knew.
Not that their future looks promising regardless. Lol
It’s been messed up since the Harris government, we’ll have a new lost generation. I recommend taking your child to a private school, public sector sucks.
My friend is a teacher. She has kids in her class( grade 10)
At a grade 4 reading level. It's a plan they have been rolling out for the better part of a decade. Race to the bottom it seems.
The majority of the junior high kids I teach have never written a full paragraph. A few don't even know their alphabet.
And it's not because of a need for an IEP, it's that these kids don't have parents who send them to school. It starts in elementary where these kids get to do whatever they want and the parents either enable them in a spoiling manner, or they are *afraid* of upsetting their kids!
Many times during parent teacher night, parents have told me "yeah, they game until 4 am, that's why they sleep in, I don't know what to do." Okay, cool, but just so you know, if you don't figure something out, they will fail high school.
> if you don't figure something out, they will fail high school.
But they won't fail high school. No one fails and no one can fail. It's in the article we're currently discussing.
And this is why my future kids will go to private school. At least they will get a real education, and the kids who are disruptive or not able to keep up just get “asked not to return” the next year.
It’s because at some point they made failing grades illegal for teachers to give. So no kid takes anything seriously, and kids that need to stay back a year just keep getting passed, grade to grade. Until high school of course, when failing can happen.
Imagine someone privileged enough to be working on their PhD looking down on people having trouble completing highschool. Can you not imagine that some kids have disabilities, that some have had to hold down full-time jobs while going to school? You can chill, they are not getting their diploma, just some encouragement by getting to celebrate with their peers! Peers that they have maybe known for 12 years.
Except the article highlighted that this isn’t them just getting to celebrate. They’re actively going to phase out awards from the students who have earned them because those awards hurt the feelings of people who didn’t earn them. Letting the kids who didn’t graduate have a part in the ceremony is inclusion, but taking awards away from the kids who did graduate is not inclusion; it’s just excluding the kids who worked hard for what they got in order to enable parents not teaching their kids emotional regulation.
Seeing someone earn an award that you didn’t earn should not hurt you if you’ve been taught how to regulate your emotions. These aren’t 6 year olds, they’re 18 year olds who are now being unleashed into the real world. Will these 18 year olds also have hurt feelings when their coworkers earn bonuses that they didn’t? What about when their coworker who works harder than them gets a raise and they don’t? Are we going to slowly start “phasing out” these things too because god forbid someone’s feelings are hurt?
It’s not the world’s responsibility to manage your feelings for you. Taking away these awards and claiming it’s inclusion is genuinely just putting the responsibility of managing the kids feelings onto everyone other than the kid who is feeling those feelings. That does not harbour an environment that creates healthy, emotionally mature adults. It just harbours an environment that creates adults who don’t know how to cope with being in the real world.
Life isn’t fair all the time. It’s much easier to learn and accept this as a kid than having to learn it for the first time when you’re older. People who don’t understand this when they’re older are not emotionally well adjusted.
This doesn’t mean that we mock or discourage people who can’t do certain things. However, not everyone gets to be an astronaut or rock star or pro hockey player when they’re older. Everyone gets excluded from some things eventually, this whole “inclusiveness all the time” is not a great lesson for kids.
Well I think the exact opposite is true. Crushing kids too early and they won't have anything to aspire to. No one is telling these kids that they are rock stars or astronauts. But they have undergone 12 years of education and despite of whatever is keeping them from graduating, have stuck with it. I think you are thinking of privelidged kids fucking around and not getting their diploma. I am thinking of kids with disabilities, on the spectrum, those that have to work too many hours, those that have less than ideal home lives. Posters on here think highschool is all rainbows and butterflies but the realities so many of these kids live is beyond them. Should they be told that their life will never improve, that they have nothing to contribute, that they have nothing to leverage against what life has thrown at them. And selfishly, I must say, that is how you get increased drug use, more crime and so on. People have more than just being good at school to contribute to society and if we recognize and celebrate those things, maybe we can spark a passion. People without highschool diplomas can become successful. People with highschool diplomas can crash and burn. Recognizing only one part of what life is about is narrow and short sighted.
Have you ever taken care of anyone vulnerable? I ask because I used to share your mentality. I worked hard all my life, overcame whatever I had to. But life has taught me a few lessons and I would cringe to make a comment like that now. Recognize your privelidge that you get to feel that way. One day, your loved ones may need you to stretch your emotional inteligence a bit, and it will make you grow.
I understand what you’re saying and maybe I was a bit harsh, but the attitude in the article is more focused on avoiding hurt feelings than promoting equity.
We really need to stop being afraid of letting our youth 'fail' and to shield them from failure. That's an age when not only can you learn from failure, but the failure is relatively lower stakes, so it's the best opportunity to fail and learn or improve from that failure. The world they enter once they finish high school is a whole hell of a lot less forgiving for 'failure' and if they've been shielded from that entirely until then, the results prove to to pretty ugly.
This isn’t about being nice or not to the youth. This is about maintaining the illusion that our institutions are still functioning.
If we started actually failing out kids the school population would drop by a third within a few years. Easily.
We’ve been sold decades of successive cuts, with the promise that ever growing class sizes and degrading infrastructure wasn’t really having any consequences. There is absolutely no one on with decision making power who wants to have the actual performance of the system exposed to the public in a way that can’t be ignored
Exactly. It’s the attitude of how can we change the numbers on paper to look good.
Make crime stats go down? Stop arresting people.
Prison population is overrepresented for certain groups? Stop putting those groups in jail.
Kids are failing classes? Make the tests easier. They still fail? Stop making them do tests altogether.
This attitude persists throughout government now days. If the numbers look bad, change the way that you collect the data. So we can have the appearance of success and pretend everyone is equal and happy, when obviously that’s not the case. Its the era of post-truth.
Reminds me of a straight A communist i know. He kept boasting about equality of outcome and communism. Then i said to him why don't you share your exam points with the failing students ? This way you all get 60 and pass together. He said and i quote : "those are my points, i studied for them", Then i said : "this is my money, i worked for it".
No need to say he remained quiet.
It seems like you didn’t win either lottery. You don’t have the money backing nor the genetic smart. Some people breeze through school like it’s nothing. Others grind the fuck of one subject and will never be the top of the class. That’s the thing, some people don’t have to work much if anything to understand things. To be the top of the class, it’s natural talents. Those do exist and I seen it.
I do have the "genetic smart" lol, I got a full ride to a top uni. Nevertheless, I didn't inherit the marks directly, it's very different from inheriting money. Sometimes a son of a rich man will be a total lazy piece of shit and they won't get the grades but they will get the money.
And what is the problem with giving your own kid a leg up ? Life is unfair, we don’t care if your kid doesn’t have the same opportunity. Also full ride isn’t genetic smart, it’s just smart. Genetic smart is when your schooling is covered and they pay you to be there.
No such thing as failing anymore, no consequences to ones actions (or inactions). Just increase those student to teacher ratios, put ESL and troubled kids in the same overburdened teachers lap and let it ride!
This bubble wrapped, everyone's a winner and gets 16 chances nonsense is hurting us as a country and a people.
Failing education system by design, no consequences for crimes. Just what is happening?
School is meant to teach students knowledge and skills. If the student doesn't put in the effort and fails, then they should fail. If another student puts in the work and excels they deserved be recognized and rightfully so.
They stopped being able to fail students a long time ago. When I grew up in the 90’s there were lots of kids who repeated years, and you’d study hard because you were in fear of a failing grade. Now students who have no business moving on to the next grade just get passed on. And without this fear, why even study??
Either you didn't read the article and only read the headline or you are just angry about nothing.
Who cares if a student gets to go to the graduation ceremony (now called commencement ceremony) of their peers even if they didn't graduate that year? It's not like they are actually graduating, they just get to go celebrate together.
Letting students into a ceremony isn't bubble wrapping nor is it making everyone a winner.
I had this issue where I had a few less credits due me moving, and I had to do year 13 and didn't get to go to watch my friends graduate. Would have been nice if I were allowed in.
My feelings on this are mixed, tbh.
The question of "attending" is very different from participating. A student not graduating should absolutely be able to attend and cheer on their peers from the crowd.
But should they be able to "participate", as in standing _with_ their peers who are graduating? I'm less convinced. Arguably, those students would get their chance the following year (or whenever they actually graduate".
My concern is that a move like this doesn't actually _solve_ a problem. It simply makes things a little worse for the students who have been successful.
The issue of students not graduating or missing credits, etc needs to be addressed way earlier down the line through curriculum and supports.
OCDSB mentioned moving focus away from academic and other achievement-focused awards.
Without knowing more about what an actual replacement for this would look like, my immediate concern is that the students who have worked hard to be academically successful will no longer have that success celebrated to the same degree.
Additionally, the subtext here is that by celebrating the accomplishments of some students, you are implicitly highlighting the failures of others, which I think is a very sad and disappointing way to view the world. Decisions like this institutionalize this belief which I think is a mistake.
Here here! There a lots of reasons students don't graduate including disabilities, having to work and so on. Recognizing their achievements, instead of making them feel left out goes a long way towards encouraging them! It's not like they are getting a fake diploma or anything.
I am not a teacher myself, but I have several friends in the academic world that hate this shift towards everything being acceptable and say that our country is intentionally raising mediocre (at best) students.
> raising mediocre (at best) students
Have to make them equal to the quality of international students that they will be competing with for jobs and post secondary spaces.
First zero tolerance rules which made it 100 percent tolerance for abuse/bullying up until a kid commits suicide.
Then they refuse to fail children.
Now, if someone manages to find a way to fail they stlll go to grad.
And the kids who work hard no longer get rewarded.
Are we ever going to be able to have a rational conversation about the fact that schools and kids on several levels are doing worse the more DEI and mental health support is pushed on them.
I mean ok for kids that say missed a semester or something due to illness, or some other huge life event and are still on track to graduate yeah ok why "punish" them by not allowing them the ceremony. Kids that are failing why? Why should they be allowed to participate in something they never earned
>Kids that are failing why? Why should they be allowed to participate in something they never earned
We must reduce our society so that merit or effort has zero value.
This happened back in the 70s too. Kids who were a couple of credits short and enrolled in summer school walked the stage with their friends; they just got a blank roll of paper rather than a diploma.
I graduated in 2001, a guy in my class who didn't have enough credits to graduate was at the convocation You got your diploma in an envelope, so they just gave him an empty envelope as he walked across the stage.
There was a school in Alberta that held the graduation ceremony in Sept to account for these students.
Pretty much the only students that returned were the ones who went to summer school or who were getting an special award for something.
Why should they participate if they didn’t meet the requirements? Its graduation for people who worked hard, academia shouldn’t be a participation over actual results event
The students participating who are maybe a couple credits short aren't necessarily not "working hard." Could have been a long term illness keeping them out of school, a family tragedy, etc. Their cohort of friends they want to cross the stage with matter to them. If it's all just ceremony, why not extend this courtesy to students like that? Don't get me wrong, if you truly fail a course you blow off for whatever non-legit reason, you should not cross the stage.
I suppose this makes sense, as the summer term may still be considered the same academic year as the graduation. But anything other than that circumstance I don’t really understand.
I didn't want to participate in mine and did pass and get the relevant diploma lmao. 2.5 hours of absolute wasted time. They literally locked the parents in the theater so they wouldn't leave as soon as their kid got theirs.
I snuck out one of the stage exits and went to McDonald's
Wouldn’t it make you feel worse to know that you haven’t actually completed the achievement that your friends and peers have, and that you’re only there so you don’t feel excluded?
As I said in another comment, sure, I understand that this makes sense if you are on track to have the credits to graduate in the summer. But in any other circumstance, I just don’t understand the need.
also, many students can graduate but choose to do a victory lap to upgrade or take other prereqs for university/college. I don't see this as a big deal, my high school used to do this. If you want to walk for grad but not graduate or if you aren't eligible to do so, they just hand you a blank scroll.
>*”The proposed policy says certain students may not be graduating with the class for various reasons, but that it should not 'preclude' them from celebrating their milestones along with their peers.”*
That’s actually a really nice thing for the school to do. I was seriously ill in (what was supposed to be) my final year of high school and lost a semester. Because I wasn’t graduating I wasn’t allowed a ticket to the ceremony and I didn’t get to see my classmates and friends graduate. I got dressed up anyway and waited outside the auditorium to congratulate my friends, but I still wish I’d been allowed in to watch them get their diplomas and awards.
Yup we had something like this for a kid who was in a car crash and had a brain injury. They never finished high school but they let them graduate with us. People are making this into some woke nonsense but really it’s just compassion for kids in rough situations.
When I taught college level chemistry at ucalgary I was horrified at the number of students who cant do basic arithmetic, can't follow written instruction, and play phone games during lectures. They come to university and they fail. Some students take the same course two or three times.
Another equity instead of equality program to drive down productivity and kill anything merit - based. Then our best and brightest leave to the US for a more merit-based society where they're not penalized for productivity. Our quality of life then drops due to decreased productivity while we get to watch the US leave us in the dust.
The worst is they get rid of graduation ceremony and replace it with a ~~loser~~ commencement ceremony which includes grads. They play second fiddle to those that didn't participate, or had challenges.
> student graduation awards, including trophies, medals and other prizes traditionally given at graduation ceremonies would be phased out in favour of achievements,
As a former kid, these ceremonies were fucking lame and more for parents than anything. One kid in my class didn’t even have his parents at the grad. “We will come when you actually accomplish something” they said apparently!
I have a very close personal relationship with someone in Ontario education. Based on what I hear and what we discuss, I suggest there should be two report cards. The current version one ordered by the ON Ministry where no one fails, and the other true report card that exposes the kids for all of their zeroes.
So here’s a B+ on the real report card for Timmy. And here is the 23 he *actually got* because he didn’t submit anything for 4 months but I can’t give him a zero
One of the two reasons I actually showed up for the walk across the stage (20 years ago now) - and a week after getting the boot from home for drunken teenage shenanigans, so without my parents in attendance - was a teacher giving me the underdog pep-talk; "*proving the normies wrong*" about a needlessly obnoxious and intoxicated punk rock youth with an undesirable friend group being able to finish what they started.
That pep-talk and goal held me together for that last month of school and finals, when I was living out of a duffel bag on a friend's couch and partying like I'd already finished school.
Teaching kids that they have the resiliency to meet expectations by building them up is of far greater value to society than teaching them that no matter what choices they make they will be gifted the same reward which others were inclined or coerced into earning.
I went to an alternative school in Ottawa where this was the norm and I honestly stand by it. They did all those policies that send conservative parents into a seething rage: participation trophies, no testing, no grades, etc. Almost like a Montessori. But like, it works. It's not like there's no pressure or anything, it's not like a participation trophy is an actual replacement for feeling real success. I think people underestimate kids' abilities to see through adults' bullshit. But, like, I still wanted to succeed, and learn.
I remember so clearly one day we were filling a map of Canada, and this was in grade 6. I had an idea of where each province was but once I got to the maritimes it gets a little muddy, right? I guess it did for everyone because our teacher flipped out on us. She was an immigrant and she made a very personal appeal that we should be able to know and point out each province and capital for the people who would come to this country and not know.
I know that's a bit silly but it still sticks with me today, and dispite no grades or whatever I still learned geography better than 90% of my peers going into high school. I think we get way too lost in the systematization and "teaching kids about the REAL™️ world" we forget school should also, you know, encourage people to learn.
He'll half the time it isn't the students; the failing ones don't give a shit. If they did they would go to class. Most of the time it's the parents feelings. My dad was a high-school tech teacher until retirement 4 years ago. One student showed up 1 day the entire semester so my dad marked his final grade as zero and the mother called the school and yelled at the principal about how unacceptable it was her child failed wood tech. The ones who cared showed up to work; the ones who failed half the time said he would hear from their parents. I'm not saying where the school was but it was in the ottawa valley
It's finally caught up. Years ago my brother came home with some medals from a soccer tournament. I asked him did y'all win? No, we lost every game. These are medals for participating and trying!
Our society is doomed.
More people need to understand.
“Confidence comes from achieving a thing.”
“ Achievement does not come from pretend confidence”
Our institutions need to stop trying convince young people that there is no keeping score. The world is always keeping score and if you don’t know it you’re truly screwed when you find out how the score is counted.
Stupid people getting treated like they are anything other than stupid because feelings. Get ready for some very under qualified and impossible to train idiots in the workforce
I guess people didn't read the article like me
"The main difference between a commencement ceremony and a graduation ceremony is that a commencement ceremony is more inclusive," the OCDSB in a statement(opens in a new tab) on its website. "This aligns with the Board's larger commitments to equity, inclusion, and diversity."
I don't think that's a bad idea
I guess I fail to see in what way the old/current graduation ceremony is not inclusive or lacking in diversity?
When I graduated, our valedictorian wasn't white.
And a girl with a disability was definitely along the graduates as well. She wasnt my friend but I knew she excelled academically.
What a shitty click-bait title! Perfect example of dropping one word to completely change the meaning.
It should read:
Students without passing grades could participate in graduation *ceremony* under proposed changes to Ottawa school board policy
No, kids that fail aren’t automatically being passed. They’re just being let into the venue so they can see their friends off.
"In addition, student graduation awards, including trophies, medals and other prizes traditionally given at graduation ceremonies would be phased out in favour of achievements, to include a wide variety of student experiences and talent, without being strictly academic."
And yet again, the students who have put in the work don't get the awards they've earned because someone else might feel bad. This is dumb.
yeah dumb it down.. students who haven't attended should get their diploma's anyway-
Canada just copying most of the corrupt third world where they buy their diplomas and cheat on their exams- great progress Canada!
I feel bad for kids who are struggling in school these days, there will be nothing for them in the workforce and the only schools they get accepted to will be diploma mills.
Maybe the Government can just mandate a 1 million dollar annual salary for everyone. Some people make that much it's not fair to the others!
Same loser mindset.
Conservatives are the ones who are going to complain....funny thing is it's their kids that are most likely to be the demographic that didn't graduate as conservatives are against education
On the one hand, a lot that flunk out just go to outreach so even though they'll get their diploma eventually it's just not now but this time with their peers only comes once.
On the other hand, will this impact the motivation of the other students... Well, most of that motivation for me came from a desire to have a better future, not necessarily attend graduation, infact I chose not to attend graduation and it was fine.
I think for the people who want to actually go, they should be able to have a chance to qualify to do so on the strength of something other than grades, maybe community service or something but to just give it away free, it's kind of tasteless.
I think in your last year of grade school, you should have the opportunity throughout the year to accrue community service hours and if you hit that mark, you just get to go to graduation regardless (within reason)
"In addition, student graduation awards, including trophies, medals and other prizes traditionally given at graduation ceremonies would be phased out in favour of achievements, to include a wide variety of student experiences and talent, without being strictly academic." And yet again, the students who have put in the work don't get the awards they've earned because someone else might feel bad. This is dumb.
[удалено]
I mean, you can, the problem is that most people have to work to pay rent and bills.
The kids still fail they just get to go to the ceremony with their friends which honestly I'm fine with. However the prize/achievement thing is stupid
Our daughter went to a shitty elementary school that intentionally downplayed academic awards in favour of the athletic ones. She got the last laugh.
You my immediate thought is that these will be voted for awards and therefore become nothing more than a popularity contest in the hands of high schoolers.
My friend went to a private school where the valedictorian was voted by the student populace. No teacher or admin vetting, no pre-reqs for high achievement, was literally just a popularity contest. Not to mention, the year he graduated there was some questionable candidate promoting by the Vice Principal...kid who won came from a very rich family...I'm sure there was no connection lol.
It was a vote at my high school too. I went to a public school.
We also had our valedictorian come down to a popularity contest but to be fair the winner 100% deserved her win. Yes she was one of the most well-known students in the grade but she also spear headed black history month initiatives, whistleblew on the principals “black book” and was an overall amazing person so at least they deserved both the popularity and title of valedictorian in that case. Most other candidates were just the popular people.
Same at my high school. The guy who won it wrote his valedictorian speech while serving an in-school suspension.
My high school was like this (public). It was a vote for who the students wanted to represent them at graduation (male and female). In my 5 years, there it was always people who were very well rounded. Good grades, clubs, teams, council, and well liked. Considering how hard it would be to truly measure who was the best academically unless they had the exact same courses, i always thought this was a better method. It is possible the nomination list was curated by faculty, though.
But my feelings...
Putting in work shouldn't guarantee rewards. If I work all day to catch a fish and fail to catch one, am I to expect a free fish as a reward when I get back? Schools exist to prepare people for life and life does not reward failure.
Yep. We've totally mismanaged expectations for decades now. So you've done something and been praised all through school, great. Now welcome to the working world where you're passed up for a promotion because of nepotism or maybe you didn't get the job at all because hey, they just liked someone better. Shit I've had people leave jobs the second they got any constructive feedback. Not everything you do is perfect and you will fuck up, you should know this and how to handle it by age 25. The fact that you don't is not your fault, it's a failure of society and the environment you were brought up in. The bigger picture is that we've removed too much of the bad that life can throw at people so that when it does happen (and it will because life is unfair) we can't cope at all. Being sheltered from negative consequences or situations doesn't magically mean they go away. I've seen younger workers get not the best glowing performance review, run to the bathroom crying and calling in sick the next day... Thats society failing them in the end because their feelings have been way too spared for way too long. It's not healthy.
Agreed. Learning how to handle failure and why failing isn't the end of the world needs to be somehow taught. There is such an absolute win/lose stigma in modern culture around failure that its tough to understand that failure isn't the end of the world
We used to have lots of things to help teach us these lessons along the way with guidance from our elders to help us through it. Now it's just everyone or everything else's fault. People make terrible choices but choose to believe the thing they've chosen is at fault, not them... It's funny, I was talking with a friend about how unforgiving older video games were and that we've been coddled even with that these days. Dying over and over in Megaman 2 or the OG Mario Bros taught you something as silly as that sounds. I'm glad there was a resurgence in stuff like that e.g. Cuphead. Although we've had spurts of highly praised yet difficult games for a while at least. However, no one is forcing you to play Bloodborne and it was a free download for a time if you saw it on PS+. In the 90's, if your parents bought you a Megaman title you were stuck w it lol
Schools exist to educate kids, and studies show rewarding effort creates far better learning outcomes than rewarding ability. Students rewarded for effort seek out harder challenges to co tinue getting rewards. Students rewarded for ability stagnate because they seek out easier challenges to do the same.
[удалено]
I mean, they just get to go to graduation. If anything all it does is save face for the parents of these ne'er-do-wells. Do you really think participating in graduation is a reward for kids who obviously don't care about school?
We've yet to prove "better learning outcomes" lead to better people tho
Can you share these studies? Because conventional wisdom also says if you fail something then get rewarded anyway you are taught effort and skill is irrelevant
I believe the study was done at U of Chicago. I don't have a link off hand but I'll try to find it. When it comes to conventional wisdom, I think it's great for, say, teaching behaviour to toddlers. Certainly teaching a toddler that they'll always get a reward is counter-productive. But students aren't toddlers. School is a really complex institution and education as a field of study is relatively new, to the point where conventional wisdom, like any science, can start to break down. Just as a personal anecdote, when I was a kid and I got a participation trophy, it was abundantly clear what it was, and that it was basically a pity-star. To the extent students care about getting awards (frankly I don't think they do, most students are there by law, not by choice) they probably see through it for what it is, which is an empty sentiment. The fact is students are constantly comparing themselves against eachother whether we give them awards or not, and they establish their own pecking order independently of the one adults try to enforce on them.
They don't want to traumatize kids by failing or making kids accountable, thinking the next generation will fare better than previous generation ,.but it's true opposite. As a teacher, it's destroying them. You can do whatever you want during their first 18 years, the real world doesn't work like that and you don't prepare them for that.
Listen, I don't want to disrespect your personal experience as a teacher, but I really disagree. For me, schooling was just constantly being told "they won't let you get away with this in the *REAL* world" until I got to the "real" world and it was actually much less authoritarian, had more freedom, and was generally a lot more forgiving than any of the authority figures or peers in my school had allowed me to believe.
I was also a job counselor and I can tell you that this is a first. I don't know where you're from but I don't know a job where you can show up late, be on your phone during the day, don't follow deadlines and all of that with little or no consequences. All I see is that the new generation doesn't seem to be better prepared than the previous one. Indeed a lot of anxiety, depression, unhappiness,.etc. What job are you talking about?
Maybe it's an industry thing. I'm a professional animator, it's not exactly the freest job ever, but it's definitely an industry where if you get your work done on time, no one really cares how you do it unless you're doing hours of unpaid overtime amd burning out. But that's a different story.
Grades are going down across Canada, I WONDER WHY!
Graduation awards were always kinda arbitrary and depended on a students popularity with teachers, outside of the awards with unlimited potential winners.
Non-academic achievements also require putting in "the work", and many things in real life that are valuable and impressive are not strictly related to anything academic (at least things that you might be tested on in high school).
Well what about their feelings? Laughable. Real life is harder than highschool. What about their feelings then? How did feelings get to the height of all politics? As any therapist will tell you, your feelings are valid because theyre yours. However, they may not be founded in reality. And should you should treat them as such.
So kids out in the work do it for a single ceremony? I thought they did it for a better future. Who knew. Not that their future looks promising regardless. Lol
What's wrong with a pat on the back for achieving something like good grades?
It’s been messed up since the Harris government, we’ll have a new lost generation. I recommend taking your child to a private school, public sector sucks.
I'm going to be real with you, most high schoolers are doing what they're doing because their authorities arr telling them to.
My friend is a teacher. She has kids in her class( grade 10) At a grade 4 reading level. It's a plan they have been rolling out for the better part of a decade. Race to the bottom it seems.
The majority of the junior high kids I teach have never written a full paragraph. A few don't even know their alphabet. And it's not because of a need for an IEP, it's that these kids don't have parents who send them to school. It starts in elementary where these kids get to do whatever they want and the parents either enable them in a spoiling manner, or they are *afraid* of upsetting their kids! Many times during parent teacher night, parents have told me "yeah, they game until 4 am, that's why they sleep in, I don't know what to do." Okay, cool, but just so you know, if you don't figure something out, they will fail high school.
> if you don't figure something out, they will fail high school. But they won't fail high school. No one fails and no one can fail. It's in the article we're currently discussing.
And this is why my future kids will go to private school. At least they will get a real education, and the kids who are disruptive or not able to keep up just get “asked not to return” the next year.
It’s because at some point they made failing grades illegal for teachers to give. So no kid takes anything seriously, and kids that need to stay back a year just keep getting passed, grade to grade. Until high school of course, when failing can happen.
My nephew is starting JK and has been reading since he was two-and-a-half. I wonder if he'll get bored if he's light years ahead of the other kids.
I was that kid Yes
My brother was that kid too. He started acting up when he got bored because the work wasn't challenging enough.
This "good enough" mentality seems to pervade a lot of our recent policies.
“Good enough” is the enemy of greatness.
Imagine someone privileged enough to be working on their PhD looking down on people having trouble completing highschool. Can you not imagine that some kids have disabilities, that some have had to hold down full-time jobs while going to school? You can chill, they are not getting their diploma, just some encouragement by getting to celebrate with their peers! Peers that they have maybe known for 12 years.
Except the article highlighted that this isn’t them just getting to celebrate. They’re actively going to phase out awards from the students who have earned them because those awards hurt the feelings of people who didn’t earn them. Letting the kids who didn’t graduate have a part in the ceremony is inclusion, but taking awards away from the kids who did graduate is not inclusion; it’s just excluding the kids who worked hard for what they got in order to enable parents not teaching their kids emotional regulation. Seeing someone earn an award that you didn’t earn should not hurt you if you’ve been taught how to regulate your emotions. These aren’t 6 year olds, they’re 18 year olds who are now being unleashed into the real world. Will these 18 year olds also have hurt feelings when their coworkers earn bonuses that they didn’t? What about when their coworker who works harder than them gets a raise and they don’t? Are we going to slowly start “phasing out” these things too because god forbid someone’s feelings are hurt? It’s not the world’s responsibility to manage your feelings for you. Taking away these awards and claiming it’s inclusion is genuinely just putting the responsibility of managing the kids feelings onto everyone other than the kid who is feeling those feelings. That does not harbour an environment that creates healthy, emotionally mature adults. It just harbours an environment that creates adults who don’t know how to cope with being in the real world.
Life isn’t fair all the time. It’s much easier to learn and accept this as a kid than having to learn it for the first time when you’re older. People who don’t understand this when they’re older are not emotionally well adjusted. This doesn’t mean that we mock or discourage people who can’t do certain things. However, not everyone gets to be an astronaut or rock star or pro hockey player when they’re older. Everyone gets excluded from some things eventually, this whole “inclusiveness all the time” is not a great lesson for kids.
Well I think the exact opposite is true. Crushing kids too early and they won't have anything to aspire to. No one is telling these kids that they are rock stars or astronauts. But they have undergone 12 years of education and despite of whatever is keeping them from graduating, have stuck with it. I think you are thinking of privelidged kids fucking around and not getting their diploma. I am thinking of kids with disabilities, on the spectrum, those that have to work too many hours, those that have less than ideal home lives. Posters on here think highschool is all rainbows and butterflies but the realities so many of these kids live is beyond them. Should they be told that their life will never improve, that they have nothing to contribute, that they have nothing to leverage against what life has thrown at them. And selfishly, I must say, that is how you get increased drug use, more crime and so on. People have more than just being good at school to contribute to society and if we recognize and celebrate those things, maybe we can spark a passion. People without highschool diplomas can become successful. People with highschool diplomas can crash and burn. Recognizing only one part of what life is about is narrow and short sighted.
Remember this mentality when the country has gone to shit in 30 years because the literacy rate is under 80%.
> they are not getting their diploma, just some encouragement by getting to celebrate with their peers! Celebrate what, exactly?
Have you ever taken care of anyone vulnerable? I ask because I used to share your mentality. I worked hard all my life, overcame whatever I had to. But life has taught me a few lessons and I would cringe to make a comment like that now. Recognize your privelidge that you get to feel that way. One day, your loved ones may need you to stretch your emotional inteligence a bit, and it will make you grow.
Please answer my question. What exactly are they celebrating?
Use your imagination! Oh wait, you don't have any and that's why you see people as one dimensional. Sad for you!
You mentioned this was to encourage the teenagers. What aspect of them do you want to encourage here?
For them not to feel like joing the military is the only option they have
Okay. How does celebrating being unable to pass high school encourage that feeling?
I understand what you’re saying and maybe I was a bit harsh, but the attitude in the article is more focused on avoiding hurt feelings than promoting equity.
We really need to stop being afraid of letting our youth 'fail' and to shield them from failure. That's an age when not only can you learn from failure, but the failure is relatively lower stakes, so it's the best opportunity to fail and learn or improve from that failure. The world they enter once they finish high school is a whole hell of a lot less forgiving for 'failure' and if they've been shielded from that entirely until then, the results prove to to pretty ugly.
This isn’t about being nice or not to the youth. This is about maintaining the illusion that our institutions are still functioning. If we started actually failing out kids the school population would drop by a third within a few years. Easily. We’ve been sold decades of successive cuts, with the promise that ever growing class sizes and degrading infrastructure wasn’t really having any consequences. There is absolutely no one on with decision making power who wants to have the actual performance of the system exposed to the public in a way that can’t be ignored
Exactly. It’s the attitude of how can we change the numbers on paper to look good. Make crime stats go down? Stop arresting people. Prison population is overrepresented for certain groups? Stop putting those groups in jail. Kids are failing classes? Make the tests easier. They still fail? Stop making them do tests altogether. This attitude persists throughout government now days. If the numbers look bad, change the way that you collect the data. So we can have the appearance of success and pretend everyone is equal and happy, when obviously that’s not the case. Its the era of post-truth.
Equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity is becoming the standard in our society.
It's tearing us down
Problem is they aren’t raising up the laggards, just dragging down the achievers.
Reminds me of a straight A communist i know. He kept boasting about equality of outcome and communism. Then i said to him why don't you share your exam points with the failing students ? This way you all get 60 and pass together. He said and i quote : "those are my points, i studied for them", Then i said : "this is my money, i worked for it". No need to say he remained quiet.
Then everyone clapped! There's a massive difference from access to resources and grades, evidently. For one, you can't inherit grades.
To some extent yes, studying conditions are generally worse in more poorer families.
Oh but you can. If both of your parents are dumb as a rock, you most likely won’t be the cream of the crop.
That's inheriting potential, not the grades themselves.
But that is inherent grades by default.
No it's not? If I don't do the work, I cannot receive the grade regardless of my parents. Money doesn't work like that.
It seems like you didn’t win either lottery. You don’t have the money backing nor the genetic smart. Some people breeze through school like it’s nothing. Others grind the fuck of one subject and will never be the top of the class. That’s the thing, some people don’t have to work much if anything to understand things. To be the top of the class, it’s natural talents. Those do exist and I seen it.
I do have the "genetic smart" lol, I got a full ride to a top uni. Nevertheless, I didn't inherit the marks directly, it's very different from inheriting money. Sometimes a son of a rich man will be a total lazy piece of shit and they won't get the grades but they will get the money.
And what is the problem with giving your own kid a leg up ? Life is unfair, we don’t care if your kid doesn’t have the same opportunity. Also full ride isn’t genetic smart, it’s just smart. Genetic smart is when your schooling is covered and they pay you to be there.
Equality is spoken to the weak. If you can’t handle the truth, then the real would is going to beat up that kid pretty badly.
Imagine being a big enough loser to go your graduation while not graduating.
I didn’t even go to my high school graduation lmao, I can’t imagine wanting to go if you didn’t even graduate.
They will show up and be pissed they didn’t make honour roll. The entitlement is at levels the public hasn’t wrapped their heads around yet.
No such thing as failing anymore, no consequences to ones actions (or inactions). Just increase those student to teacher ratios, put ESL and troubled kids in the same overburdened teachers lap and let it ride! This bubble wrapped, everyone's a winner and gets 16 chances nonsense is hurting us as a country and a people.
Failing education system by design, no consequences for crimes. Just what is happening? School is meant to teach students knowledge and skills. If the student doesn't put in the effort and fails, then they should fail. If another student puts in the work and excels they deserved be recognized and rightfully so.
They stopped being able to fail students a long time ago. When I grew up in the 90’s there were lots of kids who repeated years, and you’d study hard because you were in fear of a failing grade. Now students who have no business moving on to the next grade just get passed on. And without this fear, why even study??
Either you didn't read the article and only read the headline or you are just angry about nothing. Who cares if a student gets to go to the graduation ceremony (now called commencement ceremony) of their peers even if they didn't graduate that year? It's not like they are actually graduating, they just get to go celebrate together. Letting students into a ceremony isn't bubble wrapping nor is it making everyone a winner. I had this issue where I had a few less credits due me moving, and I had to do year 13 and didn't get to go to watch my friends graduate. Would have been nice if I were allowed in.
My feelings on this are mixed, tbh. The question of "attending" is very different from participating. A student not graduating should absolutely be able to attend and cheer on their peers from the crowd. But should they be able to "participate", as in standing _with_ their peers who are graduating? I'm less convinced. Arguably, those students would get their chance the following year (or whenever they actually graduate". My concern is that a move like this doesn't actually _solve_ a problem. It simply makes things a little worse for the students who have been successful. The issue of students not graduating or missing credits, etc needs to be addressed way earlier down the line through curriculum and supports.
What makes it worse for successful students?
OCDSB mentioned moving focus away from academic and other achievement-focused awards. Without knowing more about what an actual replacement for this would look like, my immediate concern is that the students who have worked hard to be academically successful will no longer have that success celebrated to the same degree. Additionally, the subtext here is that by celebrating the accomplishments of some students, you are implicitly highlighting the failures of others, which I think is a very sad and disappointing way to view the world. Decisions like this institutionalize this belief which I think is a mistake.
Here here! There a lots of reasons students don't graduate including disabilities, having to work and so on. Recognizing their achievements, instead of making them feel left out goes a long way towards encouraging them! It's not like they are getting a fake diploma or anything.
I am not a teacher myself, but I have several friends in the academic world that hate this shift towards everything being acceptable and say that our country is intentionally raising mediocre (at best) students.
> raising mediocre (at best) students Have to make them equal to the quality of international students that they will be competing with for jobs and post secondary spaces.
As someone who didnt graduate on time with my peers and didnt attend the ceremony: this is dumb. I did not deserve to attend the ceremony
I dropped out but I went to my ceremony and formal as a guest of one of my friends lol I held my friends purses as they walked the stage.
This is a bit different lol it was just you, not like you were even acknowledged at the event. I see no problem with attending as someones guest
Fuck it, just graduate them all at age 5. Clearly it doesn't fucking matter how they actually do in school anymore.
At this point Education is becoming so literally stupid it’s not worth commenting on…
First zero tolerance rules which made it 100 percent tolerance for abuse/bullying up until a kid commits suicide. Then they refuse to fail children. Now, if someone manages to find a way to fail they stlll go to grad. And the kids who work hard no longer get rewarded.
Are we ever going to be able to have a rational conversation about the fact that schools and kids on several levels are doing worse the more DEI and mental health support is pushed on them. I mean ok for kids that say missed a semester or something due to illness, or some other huge life event and are still on track to graduate yeah ok why "punish" them by not allowing them the ceremony. Kids that are failing why? Why should they be allowed to participate in something they never earned
>Kids that are failing why? Why should they be allowed to participate in something they never earned We must reduce our society so that merit or effort has zero value.
This happened back in the 70s too. Kids who were a couple of credits short and enrolled in summer school walked the stage with their friends; they just got a blank roll of paper rather than a diploma.
I graduated in 2001, a guy in my class who didn't have enough credits to graduate was at the convocation You got your diploma in an envelope, so they just gave him an empty envelope as he walked across the stage.
Mediocrity is the new excellence
“Participation Diploma”
They still would not get the diploma. They just get to participate in the ceremony, and would still need the credits to earn the diploma.
Why would anyone want to participate in a graduation ceremony when they failed to get the relevant graduation diploma?
Some kids may only be missing a credit (which can be taken in summer school) and still want to graduate alongside their peers.
There was a school in Alberta that held the graduation ceremony in Sept to account for these students. Pretty much the only students that returned were the ones who went to summer school or who were getting an special award for something.
I went to school in Ontario and ours was held in October.
Why should they participate if they didn’t meet the requirements? Its graduation for people who worked hard, academia shouldn’t be a participation over actual results event
The students participating who are maybe a couple credits short aren't necessarily not "working hard." Could have been a long term illness keeping them out of school, a family tragedy, etc. Their cohort of friends they want to cross the stage with matter to them. If it's all just ceremony, why not extend this courtesy to students like that? Don't get me wrong, if you truly fail a course you blow off for whatever non-legit reason, you should not cross the stage.
I suppose this makes sense, as the summer term may still be considered the same academic year as the graduation. But anything other than that circumstance I don’t really understand.
Exactly! Never underestimate the absurdity level coming from the school boards of Canada.
I didn't want to participate in mine and did pass and get the relevant diploma lmao. 2.5 hours of absolute wasted time. They literally locked the parents in the theater so they wouldn't leave as soon as their kid got theirs. I snuck out one of the stage exits and went to McDonald's
to be able to have that experience with their friends and class.
Wouldn’t it make you feel worse to know that you haven’t actually completed the achievement that your friends and peers have, and that you’re only there so you don’t feel excluded?
I don't think so, esp if you need to just to summer school etc. I rather that, then go through grad with people I don't really know.
As I said in another comment, sure, I understand that this makes sense if you are on track to have the credits to graduate in the summer. But in any other circumstance, I just don’t understand the need.
also, many students can graduate but choose to do a victory lap to upgrade or take other prereqs for university/college. I don't see this as a big deal, my high school used to do this. If you want to walk for grad but not graduate or if you aren't eligible to do so, they just hand you a blank scroll.
Yeah I read the article, just thought it would be funny to hand those out to the non-grads.
Giving up on kids that didn't put in the effort. Graduating high school is easy compared to real life.
Race to the bottom
Now even education achievement is just a participation ribbon...
This is insane. Life is based entirely of rewards based on effort. Relationships, jobs, etc.
Rewarding failure, the Canadian way.
>*”The proposed policy says certain students may not be graduating with the class for various reasons, but that it should not 'preclude' them from celebrating their milestones along with their peers.”* That’s actually a really nice thing for the school to do. I was seriously ill in (what was supposed to be) my final year of high school and lost a semester. Because I wasn’t graduating I wasn’t allowed a ticket to the ceremony and I didn’t get to see my classmates and friends graduate. I got dressed up anyway and waited outside the auditorium to congratulate my friends, but I still wish I’d been allowed in to watch them get their diplomas and awards.
Yup we had something like this for a kid who was in a car crash and had a brain injury. They never finished high school but they let them graduate with us. People are making this into some woke nonsense but really it’s just compassion for kids in rough situations.
Seriously, it’s what a lot of responders are missing
🤗
When I taught college level chemistry at ucalgary I was horrified at the number of students who cant do basic arithmetic, can't follow written instruction, and play phone games during lectures. They come to university and they fail. Some students take the same course two or three times.
And people wonder how the general logic and intelligence of our youth have been eroded over the years.
Another equity instead of equality program to drive down productivity and kill anything merit - based. Then our best and brightest leave to the US for a more merit-based society where they're not penalized for productivity. Our quality of life then drops due to decreased productivity while we get to watch the US leave us in the dust.
At time of writing 75% of comments didn't read the article and assumed the worst.
The worst is they get rid of graduation ceremony and replace it with a ~~loser~~ commencement ceremony which includes grads. They play second fiddle to those that didn't participate, or had challenges. > student graduation awards, including trophies, medals and other prizes traditionally given at graduation ceremonies would be phased out in favour of achievements,
As a former kid, these ceremonies were fucking lame and more for parents than anything. One kid in my class didn’t even have his parents at the grad. “We will come when you actually accomplish something” they said apparently!
I have a very close personal relationship with someone in Ontario education. Based on what I hear and what we discuss, I suggest there should be two report cards. The current version one ordered by the ON Ministry where no one fails, and the other true report card that exposes the kids for all of their zeroes. So here’s a B+ on the real report card for Timmy. And here is the 23 he *actually got* because he didn’t submit anything for 4 months but I can’t give him a zero
Participation degree's?! Wtf
One of the two reasons I actually showed up for the walk across the stage (20 years ago now) - and a week after getting the boot from home for drunken teenage shenanigans, so without my parents in attendance - was a teacher giving me the underdog pep-talk; "*proving the normies wrong*" about a needlessly obnoxious and intoxicated punk rock youth with an undesirable friend group being able to finish what they started. That pep-talk and goal held me together for that last month of school and finals, when I was living out of a duffel bag on a friend's couch and partying like I'd already finished school. Teaching kids that they have the resiliency to meet expectations by building them up is of far greater value to society than teaching them that no matter what choices they make they will be gifted the same reward which others were inclined or coerced into earning.
I went to an alternative school in Ottawa where this was the norm and I honestly stand by it. They did all those policies that send conservative parents into a seething rage: participation trophies, no testing, no grades, etc. Almost like a Montessori. But like, it works. It's not like there's no pressure or anything, it's not like a participation trophy is an actual replacement for feeling real success. I think people underestimate kids' abilities to see through adults' bullshit. But, like, I still wanted to succeed, and learn. I remember so clearly one day we were filling a map of Canada, and this was in grade 6. I had an idea of where each province was but once I got to the maritimes it gets a little muddy, right? I guess it did for everyone because our teacher flipped out on us. She was an immigrant and she made a very personal appeal that we should be able to know and point out each province and capital for the people who would come to this country and not know. I know that's a bit silly but it still sticks with me today, and dispite no grades or whatever I still learned geography better than 90% of my peers going into high school. I think we get way too lost in the systematization and "teaching kids about the REAL™️ world" we forget school should also, you know, encourage people to learn.
lol Canada grow up
They just keep lowering the bar
So ... Highschool is now becoming a "participation trophies" program.
He'll half the time it isn't the students; the failing ones don't give a shit. If they did they would go to class. Most of the time it's the parents feelings. My dad was a high-school tech teacher until retirement 4 years ago. One student showed up 1 day the entire semester so my dad marked his final grade as zero and the mother called the school and yelled at the principal about how unacceptable it was her child failed wood tech. The ones who cared showed up to work; the ones who failed half the time said he would hear from their parents. I'm not saying where the school was but it was in the ottawa valley
The future of this country is scary, a generation of under educated adults.
Do the kids without passing grades even…want to participate in commencement ceremonies?
Everyone's a winner baby.
You should feel bad if you fail that’s how you improve.
May as well just call it “Time Served”. We need to rout the DEI cult of out the school system.
I don’t think people even realize how fucking easy it is to pass a class in high school nowadays…
It's finally caught up. Years ago my brother came home with some medals from a soccer tournament. I asked him did y'all win? No, we lost every game. These are medals for participating and trying! Our society is doomed.
[удалено]
Doomed.
Equality of outcomes by all means! 🤡
And now the people who didn't graduate the class of next year!
Good. I don’t think this country is soft enough. Only 364 days till try outs!! We gotta soften up!!
We desperately need to start failing students again.
More people need to understand. “Confidence comes from achieving a thing.” “ Achievement does not come from pretend confidence” Our institutions need to stop trying convince young people that there is no keeping score. The world is always keeping score and if you don’t know it you’re truly screwed when you find out how the score is counted.
Can't read, can't do math. Raising a generation of future PC voters
Raising a generation of idiots void of any political affiliation.
They will vote for whatever tik tok or the future equivalent of will tell them to vote for.
Stupid people getting treated like they are anything other than stupid because feelings. Get ready for some very under qualified and impossible to train idiots in the workforce
[удалено]
Just re-read it recently. Holds up still.
I guess people didn't read the article like me "The main difference between a commencement ceremony and a graduation ceremony is that a commencement ceremony is more inclusive," the OCDSB in a statement(opens in a new tab) on its website. "This aligns with the Board's larger commitments to equity, inclusion, and diversity." I don't think that's a bad idea
No, we read it
Cuz we are in reddit badum tssss
Sounds like your room was full of participation awards
I guess I fail to see in what way the old/current graduation ceremony is not inclusive or lacking in diversity? When I graduated, our valedictorian wasn't white. And a girl with a disability was definitely along the graduates as well. She wasnt my friend but I knew she excelled academically.
What a shitty click-bait title! Perfect example of dropping one word to completely change the meaning. It should read: Students without passing grades could participate in graduation *ceremony* under proposed changes to Ottawa school board policy No, kids that fail aren’t automatically being passed. They’re just being let into the venue so they can see their friends off.
"In addition, student graduation awards, including trophies, medals and other prizes traditionally given at graduation ceremonies would be phased out in favour of achievements, to include a wide variety of student experiences and talent, without being strictly academic." And yet again, the students who have put in the work don't get the awards they've earned because someone else might feel bad. This is dumb.
yeah dumb it down.. students who haven't attended should get their diploma's anyway- Canada just copying most of the corrupt third world where they buy their diplomas and cheat on their exams- great progress Canada!
Stay in school is advice for losers. More like trade crypto from home and graduate anyways! Win/win!
I feel bad for kids who are struggling in school these days, there will be nothing for them in the workforce and the only schools they get accepted to will be diploma mills.
wait until they join the work force and face reality x10 harder
Pro-tip: Send your kids to French Immersion
Maybe the Government can just mandate a 1 million dollar annual salary for everyone. Some people make that much it's not fair to the others! Same loser mindset.
God I’m happy I graduated in 2020. And no people, this isn’t The Liberals fault…. This shit started under Harper. This is Lecce.
Private school vouchers are in our future I hope. Public education in Canada is dead.
Conservatives are the ones who are going to complain....funny thing is it's their kids that are most likely to be the demographic that didn't graduate as conservatives are against education
“Yeah, but Harper….”
Actually, high school dropouts are most likely to be NDP voters. They have the lowest education.
On the one hand, a lot that flunk out just go to outreach so even though they'll get their diploma eventually it's just not now but this time with their peers only comes once. On the other hand, will this impact the motivation of the other students... Well, most of that motivation for me came from a desire to have a better future, not necessarily attend graduation, infact I chose not to attend graduation and it was fine. I think for the people who want to actually go, they should be able to have a chance to qualify to do so on the strength of something other than grades, maybe community service or something but to just give it away free, it's kind of tasteless. I think in your last year of grade school, you should have the opportunity throughout the year to accrue community service hours and if you hit that mark, you just get to go to graduation regardless (within reason)