Just a diff perspective - similar to Quantum's I guess.

When I was in high school this happened to me too but in English.
I was not 11 and at the preparing for university level so I'm aware it may not be 100% relevant...

When I asked about it, the teacher told me that it was an important life skill to be able to determine what was being asked and provide the relevant answer. Being concise is important and something that I had to learn, providing interesting and correct, but ultimately irrelevant facts was something that continued to hold me back in higher education and I know caused much annoyance with my coworkers. It drives my husband batty!

I'm not saying you are wrong to be frustrated, or that the teacher does know the material - however this can be a teachable moment for your ds - particularly if like me your DS is prone to show their knowledge....

Anecdote: in 5th grade science, a test question was "how many moons does Jupiter have?" Two of us answered 12 (that's how many were known back then) The correct answer was "4", which is what the other 20 kids wrote. The explanation was that we'd been studying Galileo, who discovered 4 of the moons. "But", we argued, "that's not what the question asked". In the end, the teacher threw the question out altogether.

Things haven't changed.

Except the number of known moons.

I'll take moons as an example... and I'm going to reply as a high school teacher here, and I admit my reply isn't altogether satisfactory:

If a student's sophistication and outside knowledge gets in the way of assessing fundamental knowledge, they run the risk of losing credit for answers that they know.

If I ask a student how many moons Earth has, what I expect is the reply, "One." The student who replies "one" is guaranteed credit. No question about it. They're playing it safe.

The student who replies, "One; but Cruithne and other quasi-satellites and trojan moons have Earth centered orbits and could be considered moons," would probably get full credit (though I'd have some suspicion that the answer originated with the parent and not the student).

A student who answered "Two (or more)," or presented me with an essay analysing various hypothetical moons, or the works of Jules Verne, would risk losing credit. Not because I'm being punitive, but because, as I'm grading a stack of 160-220 tests, and I'd see the "Two" (or the lack of a definitive answer) before I'd notice the basis for the response.

This is true in virtually every subject, at virtually every level. I once had a paper rejected (written for publication) when I was graduate student on the basis that they could tell that what I was saying was important, but they couldn't tell whether there was a sound basis for my claims. I simply dumbed down the level of discourse and resubmitted it and it was accepted by the journal.

Another possibility is the teacher didn't grade it at all. When my kids were in elementary school a lot of HOMEWORK (not tests) were graded by volunteer parents who grade off a key. And are looking for very specific answers and don't know what a teacher wants in this kind of question. I remember being told to grade by looking for specific "key" words.

Good luck. We have this kind of problem in my house with my DS15 and I'm still working on his answering what the teacher WANTS. He takes questions a bit too literally and then gets frustrated because the 'right' answer doesn't really answer the question in his eyes.

I don't understand why this answer (presumed to be originating from a parent) should get criticized by a teacher. I routinely teach my child after school. I take credit full credit for meeting my child's academic acceleration needs using my own personal time (I am not a happy camper about it because, how wonderful my life would be if the school actually met all my child's educational needs instead of making me scramble to meet them). Since this is a class test and the parent is not passing notes with these answers to the child, I would think that the teacher should accept this kind of answer and appreciate the parent and the child for learning above and beyond what the teacher was teaching (the teacher was presumably sticking to a pre-made lesson plan or 1 or 2 textbooks and a few supplements and teaching the exact same lesson to a class of 30 students with varying needs and interests).

OP: Sorry to hijack this thread trying to analyze a hypothetical test question.

In some tertiary courses here they use unit standards. The answer is not judged correct unless it has exactly the words the marker wants. The only way to get A s is to memorise and regurgitate the notes handed out by instruction.

This really doesn't seem like education to me.

It should be called a memorization test

Ashley, you're right.

In regards to my hypothetical question and answer, that child really should get full credit. My point was that the provision of extra information is often perceived by students and parents as something positive, or even a source of possible extra-credit... but for teachers (when grading) it is often either a distraction, or a source of unnecessary confusion.

This is particularly confounding for kids as these same teachers are often very encouraging of extra-information in classroom discussions, where it serves to keep conversation moving and adds color and interest to the material being covered.

It isn't.


But do NOT expect that to change anytime soon. Guess what? This is reaching into higher ed these days.


Y'all are living in the dark ages if human beings are still grading student work in the first place. This is a job for automation.



{sarcasm} Thanks, Pearson Web-solutions for Education(tm).
{/sarcasm}