Oh dear lord, in a rant like that you really want to check your spelling.
I recently received an assignment (from a college student) who wrote at the top: Professor Unknown.
I crossed out the offending word and wrote my name there, but I just let it slide since it was rather funny.
Am I being too nice?
Do I get 10% of the points for putting my name on the test?
Kids need to learn to pay attention to details and make sure they can follow instructions. If you don’t have some kind of penalty for not putting your name on the test then they never really learn the reprocussions of not putting their name on their test. More importantly, the teacher says she/he spelled this out as policy from the beginning so they have every right to enforce that policy. Better this happens in 7th grade than in 11th grade when GPA has a much bigger impact on your life…and in addition to that, learning to follow basic rules and instructions is important for your ability to function later in life. The policeman who pulls you over for changing lanes in an intersection isn’t going to give a damn that you don’t remember if your driving instructor mentioned it or not, you will still be punished for not following that rule.
(Emoticon: Also not allowed in papers.) I’d agree, if I were handing it to you as an assignment and you’d set that criterion for this draft. However, we (SDMB) appear to be entrenched in an argument about font and color at this point.
If the student has met all other requirements, he or she may still earn 90% on the assignment. My experience is that a paper with no name also tends to have multiple other failures to follow instructions. I once had a parent of a high school student yell at me because “it wasn’t fair to deduct 2 points for every spelling error!” His daughter had lost 32 points on a 1-page paper. Sorry; part of my job was to teach spelling. Part of my job now it to teach following instructions and the creation of professional products.
From 10th grade on up we had these grading guidelines for english
misspelled word - letter grade off
three punctuation errors - letter grade off
no outline - letter grade off
That was it. They graded english papers like math quizzes. You could get an a for writing the style of the Dick and Jane books.
Hamlet’s dad died.
See Hamlet mope.
His girlfriend drowned.
See Hamlet mope some more.
See Hamlet fight with swords.
See Hamlet die.
Die Hamlet die.
See everyone die.
The rest is silence.
As you can see it really impoved my writing skills.
No name? How’d you know who to give the total-minus-10% grade to? Zero credit.
As if everybody on this board has always filled out applications/forms without missing a box, or forgetting to sign a page, or not dating it or whatever.
The teacher is anal and the kid just forgot…cut some slack here.
I still resent a high school teacher…we had a semester long assignment…write a theme paper on a subject of your choice. We had to go to the library and research (turn in proof on note-cards) and check out the books (turn in copies of check out) and then write a draft (include it with final) and then turn in the final paper. Sounds good, right?
So I did the work, wrote a 15 page theme paper, typed it myself (long before computers) and turned it in.
The SOB gave me a “D” on the paper. Why? I had four spelling errors within the 15 pages. Only AFTER the fact, did he say he graded all papers on spelling errors alone. Not on content, not on work done, not on style. The guy next to me, who, who only wrote a four page theme paper, got a “C” for having only three spelling errors.
Plus, as mentioned, how hard is it to determine which kid forgot to sign their paper?
Yes, I have. So have most of us, I’d wager. And guess what? There are real-world consequences for such forgetfulness. School shouldn’t be any different; one of its aims is to prepare students for dealing effectively with the real world.
I actually won’t deduct anything if one of my students (when I teach at University) fails to put their name on a test. I will however make them prove that it is their test by a writing sample. I can see the point of those who might want to be harsher, but I personally can think of a student being so nervous they forget to put their name - and I know I did it myself at least once. YMMV.
With respect, stuff gets turned in with a missing name or whatever in the real world on occasion. Anything critically important hopefully gets reviewed by more than one person and it gets caught. It’s possible, but I’ll bet rare, that a single omission costs that much in real terms unless it’s a legal contract - in which case, again, typically several people review it. Today I reviewed a “final draft” of a report my assistant did which had a sentence which was of the form "The final differential rail charge " - that’s it, no other words, in the concluding sentence. If I missed it, I would blame myself as much, since I was the reviewer and I was the one to stamp it.
I missed a page when I filled out the dozens of pages for my last re-fi on my mortgage and guess what - they didn’t charge me an extra 10% on the interest rate.
Give me one example, in the “real world”, where you would be punished for accidentally neglecting to fill in a blank, or missing a signature?
Sheesh, man, it can cost your real money and even get you fired if you forget to sign your name in real life. A 10% slap on the wrist is just instilling some basic double checking of important documents.
I didn’t say “punishment”, I said “consequences”. But, I suppose you could call an overdraft fee for not putting down a purchase in your check register a punishment of sorts. Forget to sign a check you mail to pay a bill and it will be returned to you; your payment might then be late as a result and you’ll be charged a late payment fee. If you forget to put your name or social security number on your tax return, do you think the IRS will process it? If you learn early that mistakes have consequences, you are more likely to be careful and try to avoid making them.
Not signing a credit card.
Not signing a passport.
Not signing a cheque.
Not signing credit card…you would be amazed how many people haven’t signed theirs and it is usually kindly noticed by a bank employee or someone else who takes your card and notices. Then you sign it. End of story.
Not signing a passport…hmm, my guess is they will notice it when you check in at the airport and they will ask you to sign it…I doubt you will be arrested.
Not signing a check…geez, people try that trick every day when they haven’t got the money in the account…the check comes back and you sign it and send it back in. Should you then be late in payment, and need to pay a late fee, well that could be a “punishment” so, I will give you that one.
OK…I get your point and I don’t want to spend weeks on this thread disputing the fact that it is important to sign your name…of course it is, but usually it is at the bottom of a check, or bottom of a contract or whatever. It is a final act and a moment to consider.
However, if a kid who is in a hurry to do the exam they studied for neglects to write their name at the top of a piece of paper, they are not exactly headed on a sleigh-ride to hell for gross negligence.
If forgetting to write your name on a homework assignment was the biggest problem in schools today, life would be good.
It seems like overkill to me unless there’s a particular student with a recurring problem in this area. In fact, if I were the teacher, that’s probably how I’d approach it. Forget once, get a warning. Forget twice, lose 10%. Forget a third time, and I’ll forget you handed the test in at all.
Let’s just pretend for the moment that the purpose of school is to teach, and that the purpose of testing is to determine if that learning has taken place. Taking 10% off a grade for not writing one’s name does not advance either of those goals. If you want “consequences” make the kid stay after school and help you with scut work to make up for the fact that his carelessness has cost you time.
This thread really shows teachers in a bad light and reinforces my view that the US education system needs to be blown up and started over.
It’s overkill, IMO. There are other ways to teach consequences to a seventh-grader for “housekeeping” type errors–i.e., things that are not directly linked to their command of and effort within the discipline being tested. “Everyone who leaves his name off a test has to write a two-page essay on the importance of paying attention to details.” Something like that.
The kid is not whacked on his grade for anything other than his command of the subject, and the point is still made. The other approach smacks of the unreasonable authoritarian “because I say that’s the rules” nonsense we have sometimes (not often) encountered with my son’s more egocentric teachers. “There are consequences to things like this.” Right. Let’s expel him. That’ll really teach him.
Sorry if I have the outsider’s lack of empathy here. But when I hear teachers say, “It’s not my job to find out whose paper this is,” my reaction is, yes, yes it is your job. It’s annoying, I’m sure. But it’s part of your job, just like it’s part of my job to deal with inadvertent errors that other people sometimes make on the projects I manage. You can assign consequences to minor things like this. But when I balance this in my mind, the hours and hours of works that go into preparation for a final exam, factored against leaving one’s name of the exam, does not filter through my mental algebra to say that 10% off is generous. And the teachers that would simply fail the student? Sheesh.
I suppose that the logical outcome is that people who are seriously good at the subject will bypassed by people who remember to write their name.
A bit like de-selecting a talented sniper because they do not polish their rifle butt.
I would have given the kid hell, but deducting anything, in this case, sounds like giving tortoises skateboards.