Blue Monday Revised Current Events Post

            Many people consider the first Monday of the New Year as blue Monday. For some it can be a bad day, for others it can be good; there are many different reasons why it could be good or bad. Everyone has their own perspective towards it.

            Studies show that you’re perhaps not the only person who is feeling depressed and in a bad mood on the first Monday of the year. Everybody has to go back to work and school; they don’t get to sleep in anymore. Blue Monday is also the day that has received the most negative tweets and the day where divorces are mostly discussed. There are many different reasons why blue Monday can be an unhappy day for some people. The weather may also make it a not so great day; and everybody receives their credit card bills with the huge amount of money that they spent on the holidays.

            Others consider blue Monday a good day. Those lucky people, that don’t have to return to work or school, they enjoy having fun with their wonderful families and people they enjoy spending time with, the important people in their life. Parents enjoy taking their children to the park and pushing them on the swings. There are many different reasons why blue Monday can also be a fun, good day for others.

            My personal opinion is that I think there are different ways of looking at blue Monday. I think it can be a good day for some people but not so good for others. Some enjoy it, if they enjoy seeing their coworkers and friends. Other people may not enjoy returning to school or work. Some may get to stay home and be with their younger children if they don’t have to work. I think it all depends on what they have planned for the day.

References:

These references helped me because they gave me facts and details to include in my current events post.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2014/jan/06/most-depressing-day-of-year-blue-monday

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/blue-monday-the-most-depressing-day-of-the-year-comes-early-1.16193727

http://guardianlv.com/2014/01/blue-monday-january-6-the-most-depressing-day-of-the-year/

Report card

In this article refferring about letter grades, the surrey school district has decided to remove letter grades from the education system. Right now, there are currently 39 schools within the surrey disrrict that has decided to adopt the new form of education without using letter grades. The choice surrey district chose was not a wise choice. Many parents who have read this article may think the surrey district is rather lazy in caring about student's grades. Although the surrey district has claimed that letter grades are unnessacary in constructive feedback, thus surrey district chose to abandon the system of letter grades that have been gong on since who knows when. The principals of participating schools simply said "most parents want better feedback", although on elementary report cards, there is a section labeled as "comments". This part should be the area teachers give their feedback towards the student. On most projects done during elementary schools, there also should be an area for comments from the teachers in regard towards their performance on the student's work. This is also another area for feedback from teachers. Letter grades are very important in the education system. Letter grades provide information to the parents in regard of the student's progress in learning. To know where the student is at is very crucial in terms of giving feedback. By deducting all the letter grades is the same way as hiding the student's skill level and progress from the parents. By doing this, nothing will come out as to benefit the learning and education student's have been working on, only to add additional vacations and breaks for the teachers. If the surrey school districts really wished to improve students skill and knowledge, they would not be taking such a step. My opinion is that letter grades are very crucial, as well as feedback. I do not think by deducting a major part in education will benefit students either way. If teachers only gave feedback, students will not know the grade they attain after working for long hours, day and night. By only giving feedback, the student will also feel discouraged as if their project was good enough, even after sugar coating words. They will lose self confidence in taking risks to higher levels of education when they probably could've done even earlier. To sum it up, by removing the letter grade system and replacing it for more feedback is a foolish desicion.

Report card changes: Edited

I understand that Surrey Schools want to abandon letter grades because feedback would be much more effective. A,B's and C's are simply not enough to show the child's progress. About 34 schools in Surrey want to take on this new form of evaluation. They believe that this will have a better affect on the child's learning.
As for the parents, they will have a better understanding of the child's learning habits and can help them make goals for the future to improve. Sending samples to the parents of the child's work would show them how much the child has improved throughout the year.
It seems that parents would have a better understanding of their child's learning in which they can know what areas their child needs improvement on. By this the parents can then know the child's strengths and weaknesses.
As for the child, I believe that he or she will take things more seriously if they get letter grades. On the other hand it is also helpful for the child to get one on one feedback from his or her teacher. The child could then make sure to improve on that mistake.
  In my opinion I think that high school students are old enough to get grades because then they know the expectations and how to exceed.I also believe that letter grades would motivate the student. For example if the got a B this term they would strive to get an A next term. If they got an A this term they would feel a lot of accomplishment and that would motivate them to keep doing their best. Whereas if it was just feedback they would not know how high the bar is set. But I know this idea will work very well on elementary students. They often don't understand why they got a certain letter grade and often come to the teacher for answers. So if teachers gave feedback to their students then they can discuss it with their parents and make goals for the future for what they want to improve on.
Here are a couple of links that have helped me write about this topic.

Http://bc.ctvnews.ca/mobile/dozen-more-surrey-schools-consider-scrapping-letter-grades-1.1630197

Here is another link that let me see both sides of the discussion

This link showed me that parents could really connect with their children's learning with this new program.

Report cards

Recently 34 elementary schools in surrey have made a shift to the new system. The new system lets parents and children how they are doing in class instead of bring a letter grade home; The new system is called constructive  feedback also more elementary schools are slowly joining into the new system.The reason is because they want the parents to have a better understanding where there child is at.

The idea of constructive feedback is that by offering more information about students projects and tasks, and focussing less on the superficial  “A,B or C” evaluation. Antonio Vendramin, principle of  George Vanier elementary school in surrey, says he appreciates that letter grades make it easy forparents to track their children’s progress – “It's an A, I know my kid is doing well”— but thinks they limit how students and parents interact over education.

So they are hoping that their removal  steers people into the constructive feedback instead or A,B or C.

Report cards

Recently 34 elementary schools in surrey have made a shift to the new system. The new system lets parents and children how they are doing in class instead of bring a letter grade home; The new system is called constructive  feedback also more elementary schools are slowly joining into the new system.The reason is because they want the parents to have a better understanding where there child is at.

The idea of constructive feedback is that by offering more information about students projects and tasks, and focussing less on the superficial  “A,B or C” evaluation. Antonio Vendramin, principle of  George Vanier elementary school in surrey, says he appreciates that letter grades make it easy forparents to track their children’s progress – “It's an A, I know my kid is doing well”— but thinks they limit how students and parents interact over education.

So they are hoping that their removal  steers people into the constructive feedback instead or A,B or C.

Current Events 09/01/2014

            Many people consider the first Monday of the New Year as blue Monday. For some it can be a bad day, for others it can be good. There are many different reasons why it could be good or bad. Everyone has their own perspective towards it.

            Studies show that you’re perhaps not the only person who is feeling depressed and in a bad mood on the first Monday of the year. Everybody has to go back to work and school. They don’t get to sleep in anymore. Blue Monday is also the day that has received the most negative tweets and the day where divorces are mostly discussed. There are many different reasons why blue Monday can be an unhappy day for some people.

            Others consider blue Monday a good day. Those lucky people, that don’t have to return to work or school. They enjoy having fun with their wonderful families and people they enjoy spending time with, the important people in their life. Parents enjoy taking their children to the park and pushing them on the swings. There are many different reasons why blue Monday can also be a fun, good day for others.

            My personal opinion is that I think there are different ways of looking at blue Monday. I think it can be a good day for some people but not so good for others. Some enjoy it, if they enjoy seeing their coworkers and friends. Other people may not enjoy returning to school or work. Some may get to stay home and be with their younger children if they don’t have to work. I think it all depends on what they have planned for the day.

Current Events

      I read an article about a program in Surrey in which 39 schools are removing letter grades completely and replacing them with an explanation of what the student is doing good in and what the student is doing bad in. They believe that giving them in depth feedback is better than a plain old A or B. It may also be easier to change your work habits by seeing what you have done wrong, or right.
     Some people think this may be a good idea. They think this because the student gets a better idea of what they are doing right or wrong. If they just get a B, that tells them nothing. It doesn't tell you if it was on time, what parts need improvement, etc. They cant see a B and instantly know what they are doing wrong. Telling them, "you could've handed it in a bit earlier, and made it a little bit more detailed" for example, is better, so they can fix what they have done wrong.
     The other remaining people think this is bad. Getting to see an A or B is convenient. You instantly know that you're doing good, or bad. If you are doing bad, then it is probably obvious what you are doing wrong. They think an explanation isn't needed, because the student can figure it out on their own.
     In my opinion, I don't see why they cant just keep both. If you see an A, then you know you're doing good, but then you can read and see which areas you're strong in. If you do bad, you can instantly see that you're doing bad and then you can see what you're doing wrong, and then change it. Having both is just a win-win situation, and doesn't get anyone mad.
     In conclusion, I think it is a great idea, but I don't see why they can keep both.