I had to compose a letter to my son’s middle school principal. I am always like a mother bear defending her cubs when someone messes with my kids.
Here is the letter.
Dear….
What I am about to present to you is of course difficult to bring up to Mr D (Science teacher) directly because of fear of retaliation against my child. But what happened really bothered my son.
He tells me that Mr D gave then a science quiz during this week of Standardize State testing. He expressed concern that the quiz had multiple non science nonsense questions on it.
For example Questions related to a movie they saw in class, Apollo 13:
1. What color was a certain car;
2. What make was a certain car;
3. What sort of gift was given to someone in the movie;
4. What type of music was being listened to in a part of the movie.
Maybe I am missing something here, but I do not see how these questions further my child’s knowledge of science. Nor do I see any academic value in them.
These type of nonsense questions on an official quiz that will affect our children’s final grade on their transcripts are unacceptable.
This type of action by a teacher is demeaning to our children. Our kids although minors should not be powerless to object to such poor academic standards and judgement by Mr D.
We expect higher standards from our school.
I am requesting that questions like these and other nonsense questions, that have no academic relevance be removed from the denominator used to calculate our children grade.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter and what action can be taken to meet my request and to prevent future mishaps such as this.
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