The Dunce's Cap

[joggerjayne]

Do they still have these in schools?

It's a good way to promote better achievement in class, isn't it?

Any child who does particularly badly has to sit in the corner for a while, wearing a pointy hat with a "D" on it.

[sunny-dave]

Someone (Balders, Ratter, The Ed?) seems to be having a bad day ...

http://oi61.tinypic.com/2r5qc7t.jpg

[Slapshot]

Found this an issue when I was coaching kids Ice Hockey, the parents couldn't understand that losing games had value. We brought ours to be as competitive as possible, but to respect the fact you couldn't always be first. Other parents couldn't see this. If you don't teach them to be competitive always praising and lauding medioctrity they never succeed.

I had an arguement in two successive seasons with parents. We had a team of U 12's who were of a very low standard but the parents demanded we have a team despite the advice of myself and my coaching staff that they were not ready for a competitive league games. They played the season and did okay, won a few but lost more. the following year the sels same parents demanded we DONT run a team because they were worse, I said no we run with it and the kids had a great season.

Seeing the youngsters we have coming into business worries me, there's no urge to excel it's all about mediocrity, getting constant praise no matter how good or bad at something you are.

It's not about humiliating losers, it finding something positive they can develop

[ParsleyDumpling]

Hi,

My son did really well in a maths test at school (Year 6 just before this year's SAT's). He was really pleased because he got a better score than two of his friends who my son acknowledges are good at maths. His teacher called him out of class to give him his result (94/100, he takes after his mum :) ). I asked him why the teacher did this, and he said so that the other children don't feel bad about their lower result. Baring in mind that most of the children in this group were doing the Level 6 in the maths SAT test this last May and were all high achievers, everyone in the class knew why my son was called out so it sort of defeats the object of the exercise somewhat. To top it all he was not allowed to tell anyone his score, but if he was asked by one of them he could then tell them!

Isn't it sad when you are not allowed to enjoy your achievements (not brag) and hard work just because the school think other children may be upset by it?

[Arksided]

Well done to the lad, it is a shame that you can't be happy and boast about it.
I had difficulty with sums so have a great deal of respect.

[Hypognosis]

@ParsleyDumpling

In my day, the less-than academically gifted kids could always get their own back by humiliating the clever types on the sportsfield - not passing them the ball or forcing them to be defender or goalie while they did all the fun stuff, up front.

Perhaps they kept his score hidden from the others in his class to avert getting picked on, in this sort of way. They want them all to be active and have a lifelong interest in sport, don't they?