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xp
I am a teacher. Report card marks are due Tuesday. ICK.
Now for the RANT ...

Deadlines kill me. The marks due date always seems to sneak up on me, but the biggest problem is that my students haven't handed in their work, so I wait until the last minute to finish my own marks, and that's why the deadline sneaks up on me. exclaim

In a perfect world, people would go to school for the extrinsic motivation of learning, and feedback would include anecdotal explanations of how the individual has improved. Then we wouldn't have to even attach a ridiculous, arbitrary number to the work our students have done. Unfortunately, it is not a perfect world.
There must be some other way we can communicate that people have done well or need to work on certain aspects of their reading and writing skills.
I have had students in the past who are more interested in the feedback they get on their work than the marks that come home in the mail twice a semester, and I think that is a much healthier attitude. At the same time, I don't blame them for being concerned about those marks, since Universities and Colleges require them. Our society influences the attitude that marks are the be all and end all.

I suggest that more teens start realizing that their education IS worthwhile, and the whole attitude that marks are a PAYMENT for good work be dropped. A grade is such a simple, limited measure of a person. What is of more importance are the skills, abilities and advancements that one has gained in each year of one's education.

High or low marks are not necessarily a true measure of the ability a person has acquired anyway. The real test will be when that person enters, "the real world," and has to make decisions, accept their responsibilities, and solve real problems. And you don't get a report card for the real world. You have to figure out if it's "good enough" on your own! eek