Could They Please Make Up Their Minds?!

Sometimes teachers make me weary.

Let me preface that by saying I am and have been a huge supporter of our schools and the teachers. They have a very difficult, and all-too-often thankless, job, and many of them go above and beyond the call of duty, both in the amount of time and in the amount of personal funds they contribute to their classroom.

But sometimes, I wonder if some of them ever think.

From the early days of elementary school, (and hopefully even earlier than that at home!) children are taught to think for themselves. To do what they know is right, regardless of what "the crowd" is doing. To learn how to resist peer pressure, which can lead to a host of undesirable behaviors. Important life lessons, to be sure.

So why did my girl come home yesterday and say one of her teachers, when asked by the class to give them an extra day on an assignment because of the standardized testing occurring this week, said she would but that if anyone forgot to turn it in or didn't do it, she would take 5 points off everyone's grade?! To begin with, if a student doesn't care about his/her own grade, I highly doubt concern for a classmate's grade would motivate that student to do the work. But am I the only one who sees the inconsistency here that the teachers expect peer pressure to work when it's to their advantage, but students are to resist it at other times?

They can't have their cake and eat it, too.


(Fortunately, the class knows its fellow students well and decided to forego the extra time rather than accept the near-certainty of lowered grades!)