Report Cards

One thing most teachers do, and loathe I think, is report cards. However, most report cards serve a purpose. They let the teacher reflect on their students progress and let the parents know how they are doing. In Korea, especially in private education. It is a sales pitch. My report cards are little more than checking boxes that are:

Excellent- 90
Good - 80
Satisfactory - 70.

Those are my options......

I'll point out now that these report cards are, by a wide margin, the most accurate and honest I have ever had to do here.




At my last academy my choices were 100, 90, 80, 70, 60..... but if you gave 60,70 or 80 you had to discuss it with the manager, who of course would veto it.  There were also comments about how great they were, never mind that the parents couldn't read the comments. I have also used the exceptionally honest A-,A,A+ approach and the equally frank and effective A,A+,A++ approach, minus the comments.

Now I get that private schools don't want to be failing kids, as it is bad for business, but surely some honesty in grading would be beneficial to everyone concerned. Also, if you lie to that extreme what happens when the kids don't get an A++ on their midterm exams? In that context a 70 or 80 translating to a 60-75 at school seems reasonable.

Anyway, I'm off to cook an A+ lunch.