English too hard for students, principal says

Sydney, Australia

THE head of one of the nation’s elite private schools has questioned whether English should be compulsory for the senior years, saying the courses being taught are beyond the intellectual ability of most students.

The headmaster of Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore) in North Sydney, Tim Wright, told a symposium on a national curriculum in English at the weekend that parents felt alienated from the English syllabus and were deeply cynical about it.

In his speech, Dr Wright said the NSW English course for Years 11 and 12 was a major challenge for many students.

“The intellectual challenge is, in fact, beyond many students,” he said.

“It is seen as arbitrary and from time to time the anguished cry comes: ‘Why can’t we just read the book?’

“I question whether it (English) ought to be compulsory … at senior level. It is not enough to simply say that like cod liver oil, English is good for you.”

PRESENTING THE SYLLABUS ON DAY ONE
I saw somewhere during my credential program where a teacher broke his syllabus down into a PowerPoint presentation. I want to do that next year and assign a quiz/worksheet right after so that students are held accountable for the material that is vital to making the classroom livable. Having them sign the syllabus is good, but this is harder for them to ignore and fake.

NOTE-TAKING
I need to add yet another section to my syllabus - this time on the topic of notes. Some students seem to think it’s okay to copy notes from another student. This, to me, completely misses the point of taking notes to help comprehension and retention.

I’m checking notebooks because I want students to re-read the material for meaning, choose the key concepts, and understand them well enough to write them in their own words. I need to state right at the beginning of the year what I require for note-taking.

I hope to come up with a couple of graphic organizers to help them arrange their notes. I’ve luckily scanned in a couple of examples from students who took beautiful notes. I’ll post these to the class website

COMPUTER POLICY

• Computers in this lab are for work for this class only.
• You may not touch any part of another student’s computer.
• You may not log onto another student’s computer.
• Do not eat or drink over any part of the computer; do not touch any part of the computer with sticky or messy fingers.
• Exceptions to this policy may be made only with my permission on the day in question.

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT

Good behavior in my class is called “professional conduct” and is worth 10% of your grade. Each week, you will start off with 20 points for professional conduct. You will keep them if your behavior is non-disruptive, respect, and rule-abiding.

You will lose these points rapidly if you break rules, disrupt class, or are disrespectful. I will record in PowerSchool why the points were deducted.

Additional consequences for poor behavior may include: time-out outside class door, student conference, revoking of privileges, seat change, parent contact, detention, referral to Vice Principal, class suspension or school suspension.

I have caught a surprising number of students cheating in both my graphic design and Web design classes. Students have found a variety of methods of accomplishing this. Some are really obvious and some not so, but they all rely on an assumption that I am not paying close attention. So this is a warning going into next year’s syllabus:

CHEATING

If you cheat in my class there is an extremely good chance that you will be caught.

Cheating means that a student is not completing an assignment, quiz or test honestly and completely on his/her own. It is cheating if you do the work for someone else, or if you give your files to him/her in some way after you have completed them. It is also cheating if you simply give someone the answers to a quiz, or if you read the answers off of someone else’s paper.

It is not cheating if you help someone, but he/she must do all the actual work themselves. For example, completing tasks with the keyboard or mouse on someone else’s computer is cheating, not helping. Talking that student through it so that he/she does every step him/herself is helping. In other words, hands off!

Because they are usually both involved in the attempt to cheat, typically both the student doing the actual work and the student who did not do the work will be punished for cheating.

The consequences for cheating will include one or more of the following:

• A zero on that assignment for all parties involved. There will be no opportunity to change this assignment grade at a later time.
• A call or email home to the students’ guardians.
• A referral to a counselor or Vice Principal.

I had some truly fantastic results from my recent Photoshop project. Students were to invent their own magazines and design the covers. I had them do thumbnail sketches first. However, many of the students did them last - so next time I will have a separate, earlier deadline for the thumbnails.

Lesson details

Gallery