Do you realise how bizarre this sounds from outside the US? [...] it's more that I've been looking for an opportunity to attack the US teacher-given-grades-led system for a while... Following it to its logical conclusion, if only 10% of any class can count as high achieving, no wonder so many people see school as stressful and even counterproductive. And then the system is even reinforced with this valedictorian thing...
[...]
The UK system [...] has its own problems, but at least it is not set up so that you can only succeed if enough of your classmates fail.
WTH? Wow! This ought to be an interesting tangential adventure.
I'm suspecting a bad bottle of Irn-Bru or something?
I'm completely serious - are you thinking I'm not? Whenever students and their parents care about achieving something for which the system is set up so that only a limited number of classmates can achieve it - whether it's straight As or being valedictorian - you have a situation in which someone can only succeed if enough of their classmates fail, for that particular definition of success. I think that's a bad situation.
Will you be sponsor?
I would love to have a system in which grades are irrelevant and understanding of the material is the only/primary goal. Instead, we have a system in which inflated grades seem to be doled out rather routinely and in which a student can cram for a test, get the grade by memorization, and then not be able to discuss the subject intelligently 2 years later.
And don't get me started on how much the children compare themselves, even at incredibly young ages. I don't know how much is human nature and how much is picked up by the kids from their parents (I suspect this to be a huge factor), since my child was the topic of conversation among parents pretty frequently over the past few years. Even in my presence.
I do think some of the problem lies in the fact that we don't have the vocational training that the EU countries have and instead pretend that everyone should go to college. It's raised the stakes for families trying to send their children to a place they don't belong at a cost most can't afford, but they have so few other options to actually learn a trade or craft in this country.
Because of this, everyone fixates on GPA or some other numerical determinative of college entrance rather than simply asking "is our children learning?" (sorry for the Bush reference, I couldn't help myself)
