Snow job on the eve of May Day

[Ursus]

Gotta wonder... just how many more snow jobs the state of Maine can take, before they begin to realize that Joe Gauld's "educational philosophy" is a whole lotta hooey.

Gauld's below opinion piece ... may well help that process along.

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The Portland Press Herald
April 30, 2011

Maine Voices: Schools should instill dignity and confidence in students
Giving two grades for each subject, one for skill and one for effort, rewards character as well as intelligence.

BATH - There is a serious conflict between our deepest hopes for the kind of people our children will become, with what our educational system is expecting from them.

I think we want our children to have strong character -- qualities like courage, integrity, concern for others, curiosity and leadership. These ensure them of a meaningful and highly respected life, which gives their parents and teachers a profound sense of fulfillment.

This highlights the deeper problem within our educational system: It is committing our children to an education that doesn't reflect our deeper hopes and expectations. The frenzy to produce higher test scores increasingly ignores the basic development of character, and we end up disapproving of many student attitudes and behavior.

This system is not earning American students the respect they deserve. Worse, it does not lead them to respect themselves or each other:

• School shootings like Columbine. How can such prisonlike hostility exist in environments that should be fostering deep bonds of trust and respect?

• Bullying. This bone in America's throat is highlighted by tragic suicides of targeted students. Bullying is accepted as something schools cannot change, only contain or control. Schools hire consultants, hold training sessions; become more vigilant, etc. Some states propose laws to make bullying a crime.

• Cheating. Decades of yearly surveys reveal the vast majority of American youth cheat at school and now that a third steal from stores. Our society accepts cheating like a necessary evil; as one student remarks, "Cheating is necessary to give you the edge you need to succeed in life."

• Purpose. Students once talked about "making a difference" or "leaving the world a better place." But last year, a survey indicated that of youths 18 to 25, only 20 percent could be classified as "purposeful."

In addition, we see increasing incidents of poor sportsmanship, incivility and disrespect in American students.

Consider the heavy toll all this takes on the dignity, confidence and self-respect of American students. These behaviors and attitudes may wound us, but they can rob students of becoming the people in life they could and should be.

Students are both distracted and demeaned by these issues. We adults must effectively address them to gain student confidence, respect and trust. Doing so will both demonstrate our mentorship -- which they sometimes scorn -- and our dedication, not to this system, but to their full development as individuals.

Our present educational system overwhelmingly values academic proficiency, often at the expense of student character, while producing mediocre academic achievement.

I propose a simple transformation in American schools that will begin to emphasize character, while improving academic proficiency: Utilize two grades instead of one in evaluating student performance.

The first grade would continue to solely evaluate academic achievement.

However, a second grade would evaluate a student's effort, as reflecting attitude, perseverance, hard work, attentiveness, curiosity, decorum and other qualities of character. Research demonstrates that students who are praised for their effort clearly show superior progress over those praised for "being smart."

So, while the effort grade would be a vital step in addressing student character and restoring student dignity, it will also significantly improve academic performance.

Achievement grades are too dependent upon innate abilities, but an effort grade gives every student a chance to excel. And a true "blue ribbon" school would have most students on its "effort" honor roll.

Students could be strongly motivated to improve their effort grade, not to compete, but simply to do their best. The more emphasis schools put on the effort grade, the more students would feel in control of their own success.

This is the grading system used in our network of six public and private Hyde Schools. The effort grade is so embedded in our school culture, it reflects student confidence, pride and respect. Our top academic senior at our Bath school last June went to Stanford, but in her graduation speech (every senior speaks at graduation) she proudly focused on her struggles in running.

The effort grade levels the playing field for students, giving each a real opportunity to achieve confidence, pride and respect. Issues like bullying and cheating become student concerns, because they threaten the dignity the students have earned.

If adults do a good job in honoring the effort grade, they -- like Hyde -- will empower the students to help them successfully address these issues -- and improve academic performance in the process.

The effort grade -- a vital first step in both respecting students and transforming schools -- should become an American institution.

- Special to the Press Herald

Send Question/Comment to the Publisher

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph E. Gauld (email: [email protected]) is the founder of Hyde Schools.


Copyright ©2011 MaineToday Media, Inc.

[Ursus]

I also noticed something new for this Portland Press Opinion piece — no comments allowed!

Instead, there's this subtle lil link at the end of the article, where ya can send in your commentary for review by the Publisher. Maybe even for review by Joe Gauld, for all anyone knows, lol.

Gee, I wonder why? Is this a change in policy for the Press, or something that Joe Gauld/Hyde School requested? Might they, perchance, have been expecting some ... negativity? .  :eek:

Surely, the alleged miracles they wreak should speak for themselves, eh? Why are the "Truth over Harmony" folk seemingly so intent ... on controlling expression of "The Truth?"

[Ursus]

One brave soul spoke up via a Letter to the Editor (perhaps there were more, but they didn't make it to print).

Incidentally, it now appears that comments are enabled! Perhaps there was some kind of glitch when last I visited the Press's site, though... I have to say, usually Joe gets a few comments and, to date, there are none. 'Nuff said.

As to the Letter, clearly Mr. Lanz is less than familiar with what actually transpires at Hyde School, although he does appear to have an inherently accurate gut reaction that something is not quite right.

While Lanz is correct to point out the fallacy of giving credence to an "evaluation with no basis other than a teacher's whim," he's unaware of the real intent of incorporating such an atavistic tool into the program.

The real intent is to impart actual clout to the imperative: "conform to The Hyde Way or we will screw you one way or another." This is no "wishy-washy, feel-good evaluation," but a coercive psychological crowbar to ensure conformity to Hyde's program of "character education." A program which rewards nosy busy bodies, bullies and snitchers, and penalizes introverted loners and those striving to hone their critical thinking skills.

This "effort grade" is, make no mistake about it, nothing more than yet another tool of social control and manipulation.

In my day, this "effort" grade was known as an assessment of "attitude." You could be busting yer butt doing "A+" level academics, but... if they didn't like where they thought you were coming from, they could give you a "D" when both grades are averaged together.

What exactly makes these people expert at assessing something so nebulous and indefinable as "effort" or "attitude?" Often, familiarity with the Hyde program, e.g., former Hyde kool-aid sussers returning to the fold, often due to lack of success in making headway in the "real world." Note: rudimentary understanding of psychology basics is wholly unnecessary for the position of such subjective assessments. As per Hyde.

Mr. Lanz's Letter to the Editor:

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The Portland Press Herald
Letters to the editor, May 12, 2011

Self-esteem comes from achievement

Apparently Hyde School founder Joseph E. Gauld ("Schools should instill dignity and confidence in students," April 30) wants to continue the "dumbing down" of America's students by giving two grades to evaluate students' performance.

One grade would be the traditional one for academic achievement, while the other would be for a student's "effort."

Just what we need -- a subjective, wishy-washy, feel-good evaluation with no basis other than a teacher's whim. It would seem that a student's effort would translate to academic achievement.

Why would underachieving students be motivated to achieve a good "effort" grade when they don't put forth the effort for academic grades?

Unfortunately for Mr. Gauld, the real world rewards real achievement.

Self-esteem and confidence is built by achievement, not phony, unsubstantiated awards. There is no participation ribbon in real life.

Small wonder that America's academic standing continues to plummet, with this kind of thinking at its core.

John Lantz
Harmony


Copyright ©2011 MaineToday Media, Inc.

[Xelebes]

I dig the angle.

[Ursus]

A comment left for Mr. Lanz's above Letter to the Editor, "Self-esteem comes from achievement":


Benjamin1121 · 4 months ago

John, I'd also add that parents have become more in grades than actual learning. Not all kids deserve A's in their classes, and average is no longer C, it's more like a B, but teachers grade like this because the kids and parents want the nice grades in order to be accepted at colleges.

But, that's what we get when we allow people to be judged on subjective scores.

Copyright ©2011 MaineToday Media, Inc.

[Ursus]

...a second grade would evaluate a student's effort, as reflecting attitude, perseverance, hard work, attentiveness, curiosity, decorum and other qualities of character. Research demonstrates that students who are praised for their effort clearly show superior progress over those praised for "being smart."

So, while the effort grade would be a vital step in addressing student character and restoring student dignity, it will also significantly improve academic performance.

Joe fails to mention any specifics as to who conducted this "research," what parameters were actually being measured and how they were measured, what the "superior progress" allegedly shown actually entailed, not to mention how the results of that "research" should ultimately and miraculously translate into a significantly improved academic performance.

But what I take most umbrage to is the tacit implication that there's a whole lotta "praising" going on to effect these miraculous improvements in students' academic careers.

The fact is, there is NOT a whole lotta praising going on, unless you're one of the chosen few who is being groomed for Senior Leadership and/or a future career as a Hyde faculty member or spokesmodel.

Here is a far more HONEST depiction of what goes on, from a 1976 Time Magazine article, from back when Hyde apparently felt far less constrained by concerns of political correctness, emphasis added:

Character Grades. Success at Hyde is measured largely by "character growth" rather than academic excellence. Students are given two sets of grades: one for performance in a traditional curriculum laden with remedial courses; the other, which is considered more important, for overcoming personal problems such as being shy or cowardly, as shown in survival tests the school has copied from Outward Bound. The grades in character development are hammered out in a kind of encounter group, where classmates and teachers urge a student to confess his strengths and weaknesses. In similar sessions, teachers are evaluated publicly by the students.[/list][/size]
I have to say, despite the above description, I can't ever recall someone being "urged to confess their strengths." Moreover, "personal problems such as being shy or cowardly" were reinterpreted through a moral prism as being indicative of selfishness, or not having enough CONCERN or COMMITMENT. You might even be accused of hiding some stronger stuff like illicit drug use or horrific teenage sex crimes. Joe loved confessions of that nature.

Here's some more about Hyde's "effort-supportive" environment, from the same article, emphasis added:

...life at the small (enrollment: 175) coed boarding school is almost as rigorous as that of a Marine boot camp. Many of the students are troubled, and

short-tempered Gauld treats them like a drill instructor faced with a platoon of left-footed recruits. He occasionally slaps and routinely humiliates the kids—with their parents' tacit consent—in a no-holds-barred effort to toughen them up and build their characters. "The rod is only wrong in the wrong hands," Gauld likes to say. When he finds that a student has what he considers a "bad attitude," Gauld may order him to wear a sign saying I ACT LIKE A BABY, or tell him to dig a 6-ft. by 6-ft. trench and then fill it up. He has even conducted a public paddling ceremony at Hyde.[/list][/size]
Although some of these physical practices are no longer a part of Hyde's curriculum of "character development," the underlying philosophy and attitude towards children, from what I can tell, has NOT changed one bit.