Correcting a child - is it disheartening?

[testuser]

During a meeting with our son's school we noticed that there were a number of mistakes in his class work that were not marked / underlined (as we'd have expected it to be done...).

Apparently the new trend in IB schools is that teachers do not mark all the class work and kids peer-mark each other. While I have issues with this being done in early stages, it is not my major concern.

We asked our school to send our son's class work home and we were told that they would not send it home - because amongst various reasons they "do not believe it is desirable or appropriate to correct each and every error" and "it is disheartening".

We'd really like for him to bring his classwork home so we can review and help him see what mistakes have been made and work with him on weekends to correct them.

My question: Do you feel correcting a child's mistakes and making sure he is equipped to not make them again is disheartening?

Does this just raise a generation of kids that cannot handle criticism and being told that they've made mistakes?

I just don't get it ....

 

[ashlea]

P.S. I am really Hullexile!

- If a child does not know they have made a mistake how can they learn?
- If the parents do not know what their child is doing how can they help?

So I would say the school approach is wrong. However, I would say it does depend on how the parents review the homework and mistakes. If it is in a pushy and critical way then perhaps it is better if the parents don't get involved.

 

[testuser]

I agree - last thing we need to do is to reduce the kid to a mess, but should the school not be then providing some guidance to parents and make them partners in their kid's education?

 

[Movingin07]

This sounds ludicrous to me. I'll point out here that I'm neither a teacher nor a parent, but I AM an employer. And I seem to spend rather a lot of my time correcting employees reports! I have no qualms at all about editing (redlining) pages and pages of awful drafting if I need to send it to a client. So if these people have not learnt in school how to draft clear English, nor learnt how to accept criticism of their work, they are in for a rough ride.
Certainly, our teachers used to circle everything and it was how we learnt. I think this approach is wrong.

 

[testuser]

So, at what age does it magically become ok to redline or point out mistakes? On GeoExpat, some of the teachers made a valid point - to start with correcting the most obvious and common mistakes and to correct groups at a time.

Another point that is being missed in what I posted was that the school feels that they should not send the classwork home as it would lead to some how turning our child into a demoralized misfit down the road.

 

[testuser]

( also discussed on GeoExpat on - Correcting a child's classwork? - Hong Kong GeoExpat )

 

[MommyTo3]

I tend to think a little more middle of the road. I see the same at my child's (IB school). It depends on what they're working on. In general teachers want children to write down their ideas, express themselves, inquire, research, etc. even though this means that they make mistakes.

While doing English (language) or spelling, this is obviously different and then the focus is on the actual spelling and things are being marked accordingly. However, in the IB children do a lot of inquiring and I get the impression that teachers don't want spelling and/or writing skills to be a hurdle while inquiring. It shouldn't limit them. Work does get marked but not necessarily every single word and/or sentence structure in these cases. However, based on tests, assessment, etc. some children will get extra spelling help if necessary. Plus they'll all get words (spelling patterns) related to the inquiry added as home work, etc. They'll still improve but they try not to create a limiting factor.

I remember having -3 scores (seriously, normally just from 1-10 scores when I grew up) for German when I was in high school because my teacher was able to find multiple mistakes in a word (e.g. plural, spelling, etc.), even at that age I found that simply silly.

While doing homework with my child at home, I always let her spell the way she thinks it's correct. I have her reread, pick her brain, and see if she really thinks that's the proper way. I'll leave it, but on the bottom of the page (or on a white board) I'll tell her the correct spelling. Because I don't want the teacher to think she can do things that she cannot do. It's her home work, not mine, but I will tell her how to write it in the end, but she cannot change it.