David Alan Mamet (/ ˈ m æ m ɪ t /; born November 30, ) is an American playwright, film director, screenwriter and blogger.com won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays Glengarry Glen Ross () and Speed-the-Plow (). He first gained critical acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway s plays: The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo The average quality score at our professional custom essay writing service is out of The high satisfaction rate is set by our Quality Control Department, which checks all papers before submission. The final check includes: Compliance with initial order details. Plagiarism. Proper referencing What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me? HAMLET Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed As from the body of contraction
David Mamet - Wikipedia
Pour lire cet article en français, cliquer ici. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading. Three Main Effects of Grading, wag the dog essay.
Researchers have found three consistent effects of using — and especially, emphasizing the importance of — letter or number grades:. One of the most well-researched findings in the field of motivational psychology is that the more people are rewarded for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward Kohn, More strikingly, study after study has found that students — from elementary school to graduate school, and across cultures — demonstrate less interest in learning as a result of being graded Benware and Deci, ; Butler, ; Butler and Nisan, ; Grolnick and Ryan, ; Harter and Guzman, ; Hughes et al.
Thus, anyone who wants to see students get hooked on words and numbers and ideas already has reason to look for other ways of assessing and describing their achievement.
Students of all ages who have been led to concentrate on getting a good grade are likely to pick the easiest possible assignment if given a choice Harter, ; Harter and Guzman, ; Kage, ; Milton et al. The more pressure to get an A, wag the dog essay, the less inclination to truly challenge oneself.
Thus, students who cut corners may not be lazy so much as rational; they are adapting to an environment where good grades, not intellectual exploration, are what count.
One series of studies, for example, found that students given numerical grades were significantly less creative than those who received qualitative feedback but no grades. The more the task required creative thinking, in fact, the worse the performance of students who knew they were going to be graded.
In another experiment, students told they would be graded on how well they learned a social studies lesson had more trouble understanding the main point of the text than did students who were told that no grades would be involved.
Even on a measure of rote recall, the graded group remembered fewer facts a week later Grolnick and Ryan, More Reasons to Just Say No to Grades, wag the dog essay. The preceding three wag the dog essay should be enough to cause any conscientious educator to rethink the practice of giving students grades.
Moreover, the basis for that grade is as subjective as the result is uninformative, wag the dog essay. Moreover, research has long been available to confirm what all of us know: any given assignment may well be given two different grades by two equally qualified teachers.
It may even be given two different grades by a single teacher who reads it at two different times for example, see some of the early research reviewed in Kirschenbaum et al. In short, what grades offer is spurious precision — a subjective rating masquerading as an objective evaluation. Grades distort the curriculum. The tail of assessment thus comes to wag the educational dog.
Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning. Add up all the hours that teachers spend fussing with their grade books. Then factor in all the mostly unpleasant conversations they have with students and their parents about grades.
Grades wag the dog essay cheating. Again, we can continue to blame and punish all the students who cheat — or we can look for the structural reasons this keeps happening. Researchers have found that the more students are led to focus on getting good grades, the more likely they are to cheat, even if they themselves regard cheating as wrong Anderman et al. Consider this lament, which could have been offered by a teacher in your district:. Kirschenbaum et al.
Apart from the wag the dog essay unfairness of this arrangement, wag the dog essay, its practical effect is to teach students that others are potential obstacles to their own success.
Some students might be motivated to improve their class rank, but that is completely different from being motivated to understand ideas. It is the type of motivation that counts, not the amount.
Grade Inflation. and Other Distractions. Most of us are directly acquainted with at least some of these disturbing consequences of grades, yet we continue to reduce students to letters or numbers on a regular basis. The practical difficulties of abolishing letter grades wag the dog essay real. But the key question is whether those difficulties are seen as problems to be solved or as excuses for perpetuating the status quo.
It is also striking how many educators never get beyond relatively insignificant questions, such as how many tests to give, or how often to send home grade reports, or what grade should be given for a specified level of achievement e. Common Objections. First, it is said that students expect to receive grades and even seem addicted to them. Many teachers are loath to give up what is essentially an instrument of control.
But even to the extent this instrument works which is not alwayswe are obliged to reflect on whether mindless compliance is really our goal. Who would be more reluctant to give up grades than a teacher who spends the period slapping transparencies on the overhead projector and lecturing endlessly at students about Romantic poets or genetic codes?
of Another objection: it is sometimes argued that students must be given grades because colleges demand them. But in any case the premise of this argument is erroneous: traditional grades are not mandatory for admission to colleges and universities. See Sidebar A. Making Change. The first step for an administrator, therefore, is wag the dog essay open up a conversation — to spend perhaps a full year just encouraging people to think and talk about the effects of and alternatives to traditional grades.
This can happen in individual classes, as teachers facilitate discussions about how students regard grades, as well as in evening meetings with parents, or on a website — all with the help of relevant books, articles, speakers, videos, and visits to neighboring schools that are farther along in this journey.
For example, a high school might start by freeing ninth-grade classes from grades before doing the same for upperclassmen. Another route to gradual change is to begin by eliminating only the most pernicious practices, such as grading on a curve or ranking students. Although grades, per se, may continue for a while, at least the message will be sent from the beginning that all students can do well, and that the point wag the dog essay to succeed rather than to beat others.
Rather, abolishing grades opens up possibilities that are far more meaningful and constructive. Administrators should be prepared to respond to parental concerns, some of them completely reasonable, about the prospect of edging away from grades.
The real problem is that almost all kids including yours will come to focus on grades and, as a result, their learning will be hurt.
If parents worry that grades are the only window they have into the school, we need to assure them that alternative assessments provide a far better view. High school administrators can do a world of good in their districts by actively supporting efforts to eliminate conventional grading in elementary and middle schools. Working with their colleagues in these schools can help pave the way for making such changes at the secondary school level.
In the Meantime. Finally, there is wag the dog essay question of what classroom teachers can do while grades continue to be required. The short answer is that they should do everything within their power to make grades as invisible as possible for as long as possible. Helping students forget about grades is the single best piece of advice for creating a learning-oriented classroom.
When I was teaching high school, I did a lot of things I now regret. But one policy that still seems sensible to me was saying to students on the first day of class that, while I was compelled to give them a grade at the end of the term, I could not in good conscience ever put a letter or number on anything they did during the term — and I would not do so.
I would, however, wag the dog essay, write a comment — or, better, sit down and talk with them — as often as possible to give them feedback. So I said that anyone who absolutely had to know what grade a given paper would get could come see me and we would figure it out together.
An amazing thing happened: as the days went by, fewer and fewer students felt the need to ask me about grades. They began to be more involved with what we were learning because I had taken responsibility as a teacher to stop pushing grades into their faces, so to speak, whenever they completed an assignment.
But I have seen teachers who were more willing to give up control, more committed to helping students participate in assessment and turn that into part of the learning. Wag the dog essay who work with their students to design powerful alternatives to letter wag the dog essay have a replacement ready to go when the school finally abandons traditional grading — and are able to minimize the wag the dog essay of such grading in the meantime.
SIDEBAR A: Wag the dog essay Concerns About College Derail High School Learning? Here is the good news: college admissions is not as rigid and reactionary as many people think. In truth, the people charged with making these decisions are often just a few years out of college themselves and, after making their way through a pile of interchangeable applications from 3.
Given that the most selective colleges have been to known to accept home-schooled children who have never set foot in a classroom, wag the dog essay, secondary schools have more latitude than they sometimes assume. Of course, if more and more high schools abandon traditional grades, then the universities will have no choice but to adapt, wag the dog essay.
This is a change that high schools will have to initiate rather than waiting for colleges to signal their readiness. Wag the dog essay relatively few colleges actually insist on this practice. When a NASSP survey asked 1, admissions officers what would happen if a high school stopped computing class rank, only 0.
Even more impressive, some high schools not only refuse to rank their students but refuse to give any sort of letter or number grades. I have spoken to representatives of most of the following schools, and all assure me that, year after year, their graduates are accepted into large state universities and small, highly selective colleges.
In the meantime, feel free to contact any of these successful grade-free wag the dog essay schools:. SIDEBAR B: A Letter for Colleges. Students in other schools spend much of their time and mental effort keeping track wag the dog essay their grade-point averages, figuring out what is required for an A and then doing only that and no more. Our students not only think clearly — they take joy in doing so. precisely because their efforts have not been reduced to letters or numbers.
We believe that these data, together with the personal essay you may request and the interview we hope you will conduct, will give you a rich and complete portrait of this applicant such that a list of grades would add little in any case. Anderman, E, wag the dog essay. Griesinger, and G. Beck, H. Rorrer-Woody, and L. Benware, C. Butler, R. De Zouche, D, wag the dog essay. Grolnick, W. Harter, S. and Guzman, M.
Mark Knopfler - Wag the Dog (1997) main title theme
, time: 3:28From Degrading to De-Grading - Alfie Kohn
David Alan Mamet (/ ˈ m æ m ɪ t /; born November 30, ) is an American playwright, film director, screenwriter and blogger.com won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays Glengarry Glen Ross () and Speed-the-Plow (). He first gained critical acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway s plays: The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo The average quality score at our professional custom essay writing service is out of The high satisfaction rate is set by our Quality Control Department, which checks all papers before submission. The final check includes: Compliance with initial order details. Plagiarism. Proper referencing A school’s use of letter or number grades may encourage what I like to call a “bunch o’ facts” approach to instruction because that sort of learning is easier to score. The tail of assessment thus comes to wag the educational dog. 6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning
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