Raise your hand if you've ever heard THAT question asked by one of your students before.
The kind way to answer this is, of course, "Not only is 50 NOT good, it's so bad that when you make a 50, it's going to rain because angels are crying."
Recent discussion here in Texas has centered around those grades of 50. Currently, 50 is the lowest allowable grade on a child's report card. If little Jimmy did absolutely no work whatsoever during a grading period, he still gets a 50 on his report card. Now educators are crying, "Jimmy earned a zero, let's give him a frakkin' zero!"
Thankfully, in third grade, I haven't had many kids who do absolutely nothing in class. Even the lazy ones do at least take their tests and do some of the class work. I've also been told that if a child is going to fail, I should give him/her a 68 or a 69 rather than a grade in the 50s. That way, if the child gets his act together, he could scrape together an overall passing grade for the semester.
It will be interesting to see in the next few months how this debate turns out. Kids will have to actually EARN a 50 if the protesters win their case.
I wonder what would happen if I did absolutely no duties of my job whatsoever. Would I still be given 50% of my salary?
