DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Teacher who gave students zeroes becomes a folk hero

He's become a folk hero.

Mr. Dorval, 61, has spent 35 years in the classroom. He has a reputation as an able and respected teacher. His principal and his school board, on the other hand, regard him as a troublemaker. A week and a half ago, the school board, at the principal's request, took the highly unusual step of suspending him for unprofessional behaviour and for “negatively impacting student achievement.”

Did they catch him smoking dope with students? Letting them skip class? Slipping neo-Nazi propaganda into the lesson plan? No, no, and no. What he did was worse than that. He gave them zeroes. Zero on a quiz if they missed it without a good excuse; zero on assignments they never handed in.

A zero-tolerance policy toward zeroes is among the many fads that have swept the education system. This progressive notion holds that students should be graded only on the work they do, and not be penalized for the work they don't do. The theory is that if you punish them for bad behaviour, they might get too demoralized and just give up. The reality, argues Mr. Dorval, is that students respond to incentives just like the rest of us. Once they realize there are no consequences for slacking off, a certain number will slack off.

Mr. Dorval's principal, Ron Bradley, brought in the no-zeroes policy a year and a half ago. Mr. Dorval disagreed with it, so he kept dispensing zeroes. Students could erase them by simply completing the work. This grading policy has been amazingly effective. “If I give someone a zero I show how it will affect his final mark. They come up to me and say, 'Please, when can I make up this quiz?' I put the onus on them. By the end of the year, my zeroes are almost non-existent.”

The physics teacher says a lot of other teachers also disagreed with the new marking policy. But they were too intimidated to speak up. He's nearing retirement so he figured he has less to lose. Despite repeated reprimands, he persisted, until he was summoned to a meeting with the school board and sent home to await his fate. He says he expects to be terminated.

No-fail grading policies (which have been tried, and abandoned, in many other places) arose from the same self-esteem movement that brought us prizes for all. The idea is that kids who feel good about themselves will succeed. The problem is that they will eventually encounter the real world, where self-esteem won't get you far if you don't show up or do the work. Politicians and school boards also like no-fail policies because they are desperate to improve graduation rates. That's a real problem in Edmonton, where young men have a habit of dropping out to take lucrative jobs in the oil patch. Edmonton's education superintendent has boasted that his goal is to increase graduation rates to 100 per cent.

Fortunately, the public doesn't want Mr. Dorval fired. They want to give him a medal. After he went public with his story last week, talk-show phone lines began ringing off the hook. School trustees and the Education Minister were flooded with angry e-mail. The response shows just how out of touch the education establishment is with public opinion. When the Edmonton Journal ran an online poll asking readers whether teachers should be allowed to give zeroes, it was deluged with votes – more than 12,000 at last count. Nearly 97 per cent of respondents said yes.

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If kids never learn that they can fail, how will they ever learn to succeed?

What is the incentive for a kid to achieve if his achievement is reduced to be on par with those who hardly try, or don't try at all?

I am glad that parents are finally starting to see the idiocy that our education system has embraced. Maybe sanity will start to work its way across this country.

If the kids fail the schools dont get and federal money. Its about politics, not education.

Is it the education system of this country or Canada? From the article it sounds like he is in Edmonton.

It's a Canadian link, but similar concepts are followed here.

We're so afraid of hurting their little ego's in public schools, that we fail to educate them on the basic principles in life.

As someone else said above, you don't learn success without first learning failure. You only get out of life and work what you put into it, and if you want to do the bare minimum, the expect to live with the bare minimum. And then don't whine that others have more than you.

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If kids never learn that they can fail, how will they ever learn to succeed?

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That sums it up perfectly.

OK, then maybe sanity will drip down on our heads from above?

This made me think of my 11th grade history class. Throughout school, I was known as this genius who never applied himself...though I still argue I just wasn't thoroughly stimulated. You can't call a kid who would read related stuff in class lazy.

Anyhow, in this class, I simply refused to do a single homework assignment, but I got a 95% or higher on every in class quiz/test, and got something in the high 90s on a paper that allowed me to pick my own topic etc. What I wouldn't do were these worksheet type things that I could have done in 5 minutes or less, but there was one a day, and I considered it a complete waste of time. I think it was my way of showing that I was bored with the structure.

Well, the last week of class, the teacher held me over. She actually sat and calculated my grade as is, without the daily assignments, and with them. She let me explain why I didn't do them and offered to give me 80% credit if I completed them before the end of the week. I did and ended up with a B+ vs a D.

I think the pandering toward mediocrity not only lets slackers get through without learning the importance of effort, but also allows those at the top to simply shut it down due to not being properly stimulated. I really think in the above instance, and in many others throughout my public schooling, I rebelled against the system, not due to laziness, but because it didn't stimulate me. I think a no zero policy doesn't teach the importance of completing tasks simply for the sake of being responsible.

If those zeros weren't given to me, and I hadn't had that meeting I would have never learned a much more important lesson than what the classwork provided. There are several procedures I see as unnecessary in my work, but I still know I have to do them...in part due to that day.