Recently on the Wenatchee CraigsList ‘Rants and Raves’ have been some rants about Make Your Day in the Wenatchee School District.
Interestingly, I’ve been thinking about MYD off and on recently (past 8-10 months). All negative. I experienced the Make Your Day system at the old Eastmont Junior High, 8th and 9th grades. It consisted of the 6 periods, each worth 45 points (possibly 50). The last 5-10 minutes of each period was relegated to the time where you assigned yourself points for the period (and the teacher asked each student about the number). That in itself was a complete waste of time.
Better yet, the teacher or other students may challenge the number of points you gave yourself according to your classroom conduct. In my experience, this rarely ever happened, as we were already scrambling for time to get to our next class in the five minute break between periods.
At the last class of the day, the teacher would also generally ask you if you ‘made your day,’ meaning that you weren’t off the ‘perfect’ goal by more than 12-15 or so points. If you didn’t make your day, the rule was supposed to be that you went to a Step Four (read on for what that entailed). I doubt that was ever really followed, since it didn’t take much to lie about whether or not you made the day.
I don’t believe I ever failed to make my day. And that is being absolutely truthful.
My favorite (and only? can’t remember) experience was being put on Steps because I refused to go up front to a projector and answer a problem.
So, what did this do? Well, first, that teacher and I were already antagonistic. We never liked each other. So, no real difference there. Second, I had to sit out of the class for ten minutes or so, until the teacher had ‘time’ and could interrupt the lesson to come take me off steps. So, that was ten minutes where, as part of my ‘punishment,’ my learning was being retarded, as well as the others in the class because of an interrupted curriculum. (This was the only instructor in my entire academic career that I felt ever posed as a real antagonist. Still don’t have any good thoughts about them to this day.)
In an instance of a rant on Craigslist, one mother recounted how she had to leave work to attend her child’s Step Four (mandatory meeting with parent(s), teacher and school administration) because of gum chewing. She had to explain to her boss why she had to leave work: because the school administration was a bunch of dipshits, requiring her to attend a meeting because of gum chewing. An awful crime, that.
Good job, Make Your Day folks! All you’ve done is retard already poor learning in the American school systems. Pat yourselves on the back and give yourselves 50 points for this period!