A student has started a petition to get suspended physics and science teacher Lynden Dorval reinstated at his Edmonton high school.

Dorval was suspended indefinitely last month for defying the so-called "no-zero" marking policy at Edmonton's Ross Sheppard High School.

The controversy resonated with Jacob Garber, a Grade 11 student at Ross Sheppard, who never had Dorval as a teacher and only met him for the first time on Monday.

"I support him because it is the right thing to do," Garber said. "If we water down our standards and give kids these behaviour codes for not getting their work done on time, or not at all, it sends the wrong message, not being held accountable for their work.

"And so when you go to the workforce, or to post-secondary, it's not like that at all. It affects everybody in the school system."

Zero Cubed Mask

Likely illegal in Montreal but not Edmonton.

Grade 10 math.  I think this cube is approaching its limit.  If you can't figure out what it means you get zero.  If you can figure out what it means you are not limited to zero.

But no matter what zero cubed is still zero.

I'm swearing off cutesy titles.

I listened to this being discussed this morning on The Current by three Alberta based educators.  They offered some differing perspectives in a pretty reasoned and collegial manner, and I thought it did away with some of the noise on the suject while offering a fair bit of light.

What the discussion did do, IMHO was discuss differing and perhaps more effective way of measuring outcomes and approaching educational metrics, not just the false dichotomy of either having standards or not having standards.

Thanks for the link oldgoat. I'll have to give it a listen later.

I just listened to that piece. Excellent discussion.  I note that none of the three guests jumped in to say they shared Lynden Dorval's view that giving zeros is a necessary part of teaching.  Even the person arguing on the side of grading as a good clarified that zeros should really be the same as an Incomplete.

Joe Bower's views most closely align with my own and I also thought that Sherry Bennett made a lot of sense.  John Long was consistent in that he seems to believe that the purpose of education is to socialize our youth into the dominant hierarchy and that grades are a useful tool in that goal.  I must say I agree with him but I don't consider it a good but rather the underlying problem with our education system.  The girls interviewed highlighted that they get Mr. Long's message about school loud and clear.

I laughed when Joe described the rational student always picking assignments on the basis of the least amount of work not any real interest in a project.  He was describing my son and his buddies to a tee. Low hanging fruit for research and the bare minimum of  effort got them either C+ or a B-.  To get the B+ or an A meant work and they had better things to do with their time.

I thrived on grades as a kid.  I had very good reading and comprehension skills and a mathematical mind. In elementary school I stood in the top 3 in every subject and class I was in.  I saw my report cards from every school I went to at one time and I was astounded at how every year the comments were the same.  "______ is doing well in all subjects but he asks too many questions." The other comment in most but not all years was, " _____ could do so much better if he tried harder."  I laughed when I realized that two of the teachers that said that were in years when I had the best overall marks in the class.  Funny though they were right that I coasted because I could read three times as fast as any of my classmates and I understood most of what I read. Despite my "success" I hated rote learning and endless tests and teachers who taught to outcomes and had no time for questions.

I enjoyed the line about turning students from being learning lovers into grade grubbers.

After listening to it I spent yesterday morning at our youngest son's elementary school watching the love of learning. I was able to get some colleagues of mine at the university (Chemist, botanist, psychologist, engineer and geologist) to volunteer their time to provide some science enrichment at this inner city elementary school. Children had fun, learned some science and also saw some new career ideas. No grades were involved. The only remuneration my colleagues received was lots of smiles, my eternal gratitude and the ability to share their love of science.

A teacher, who is the second to face discipline for defying the "no-zero" marking policy at an Edmonton high school, told trustees on Tuesday that giving students zeros prompted them to complete tests and assignments.

Mike Tachynski teaches at Ross Sheppard High School, the same school as Lynden Dorval, the science and physics teacher who last month was indefinitely suspended for giving his students zeros.

Tachynski joined two other members of the public in speaking out against the policy at Tuesday's Edmonton Public School Board meeting. He prefaced his remarks by revealing that he was facing discipline for disobeying his principal's directive.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2012/06/12/edmonton-no-zero...

I had teachers like those two in high school.  Self righteous assholes who only respected the students who were servile and well on their way to becoming cogs in the machine.  The rest of us they just kept trying to hammer into those fucking square holes.

I'm not really sure a "zero" drives home the message sufficiently.

Students who don't complete assignments should be suspended from school until they cough it up. That way, either their parents will make them shape up just to get them out of the house, or at worst, they'll make room for more diligent kids who really want to fit in to the system.

[ETA: I guess I should mention that I was being sarcastic, in case anyone was inadvertently convinced by my "logic".]

The first thing that needs to happen is a conversation, supportive and non-judgemental in tone with the emphasis on the listening side, to find out what's going on in the kid's life.  All else flows from that.

Good advice, and I think it is something we can all agree on.

The Edmonton teacher who was suspended for giving students zeros in defiance of school policy is one step closer to losing his job.

Lynden Dorval was told in a letter he received last week from Ron Bradley, principal of Ross Sheppard High School, that he is facing termination.

After criticizing Dorval for not returning unmarked exams, assignments and lab reports after he was suspended - and not leaving lesson plans for his replacement - Bradley informs the physics and science teacher that his job is on the line.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2012/06/25/edmonton-teacher...

If a skule has a "non-zero" policy, can the teacher give a 'one' in lieu of a 'zero'? And, if not, where does the bottom limit begin? 5? 10? 20? Just for showing up in class, is the teacher forced to give the student someting as a grade?

The Edmonton Public School Board will review its grading policy, which caused an uproar across the country after teacher Lynden Dorval was suspended for giving students zeros at his high school.

Trustees voted unanimously at a board meeting Tuesday to review how students are graded after hearing from Dorval, who spoke out against no-zero marking in a brief presentation.

"This no-zero policy does not work," Dorval said. "You only have to look at the stats of the number of the high schools that have been doing this thing for a number of years and you look at their diploma results. They're terrible."

An incredibly disingenuous characterization of the no-zero policy by Dorval. 

The whole debate seems to have combined assessment and motivation. They aren't always are related and the former should not be used to increase the latter.

Yes, the fundamental logic of the no-zero policy strikes me as inassailable -- which doesn't mean necessarily that zeroes shouldn't be permitted (although I don't think they should be). That logic is this: giving zeroes for incomplete assignments gives an academic penalty to a behavioural problem. It sends mixed messages and doesn't address the actual issue at play.

For Dorval to dismiss this logic as the result of "overzealous principals" is deeply disingenuous or misguided. It also plays into Ro-Ford-type reactionary rhetoric against bloated bureaucracies, etc.

It seems that the teacher did not hand his assignments in on time.  I thought he was supposed to be teaching kids that in the real world if your boss says mark those tests you have to mark the tests or there are consequences.  He is a zero and deserves a zero on his employee assessment.  If that means firing him so he will learn to get his assignments in on time that's okay because its for his own good.

Here is an excerpt from a letter sent to him.  This total disregard for his students is offensive and destroys any point he was trying to make about the system being bad for students.

Was he expected to mark exams while he was under suspension?

He was expected to return all the property of the school when suspended.  He got that letter in mid May.  His replacement could then have done the work. If he wanted to hang onto the students work assignments then he should have marked them and sent them in.  He did nothing to fulfill his obligation to the students let alone his employer. The May and early June period are the critical months for students trying to graduate. This is clearly inappropriate behaviour and deserves discipline. This adds a strange irony to the story. Talk about clay feet on the hero of teaching students responsibility.

Since I failed to become socialized within the "dominant hierarchy", I'll give my tormentors a zero!

As you know Kropotkin, I don't support his assessment pedagogy. That said I don't believe his employer has behaved well during this whole situation.

ETA:

A high school teacher who sent sexually suggestive phone texts to his teenage babysitter and another teacher who put masking tape across the mouth of a talkative student are among those who have been disciplined for their behaviour, according to B.C.'s new Teacher Regulation Branch.

The disciplinary decisions were made by the now-defunct B.C. College of Teachers, the body which regulated the profession before the Ministry of Education set up the new branch.

The new branch has yet to hold any disciplinary hearings of its own, but has posted details of 11 cases resolved prior to the dissolution of the college in January.

An Edmonton teacher who refused to go along with his school's "no-zero" policy has been fired.

Lynden Dorval, a physics teacher at Ross Sheppard High School, was suspended in May for awarding zeros for work that wasn't handed in or tests not taken, even though it went against the school's policy of not awarding zeros.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2012/09/14/edmonton-dorval-zero-fired.html

Good riddance to this narcissist, who spent more time bathing in the media spotlight than he did trying to educate students.

To see the "quality" of support for this individual, just check the right-wing outpouring of support for his silly little philosophy of education. We should stop "coddling" kids. They have to "take responsibility". They need to be prepared for the "real world", where if they do no work, they get no pay cheque. And on and on.

None of these piling-on geniuses seems to recognize that the school has no directive to pass students even if they produce failing work. The "no-zero" policy, whether it's well thought out or not and well implemented or not, is to determine why a student fails to hand in an assignment and help solve the problem.

Dorval should go teach in some private school where he can hand out all the zeroes he wants. But if he can't follow directives from management, he'll get fired there too. That's the "real world" of employment. I'm thrilled that they've stopped coddling Dorval and prepared him to "take responsibility" for insubordination and contempt for colleagues and students.

Heh.

I'll be honest, I saw this story the other day and didn't post it here because I didn't want to start up this mulberry dance again. But to get us started: I will spare myself a quiet smile for Dorval's passing.

Re: his holding on to the exams. This has been the tactic of striking Teaching Assistants in the past. Since exams are the school's property, and the TAs have engaged in work stoppage, they aren't "permitted" to touch the exams. I think I'd agree with this practice in the context of collective bargaining and striking, so it's interesting to think about the situation here. As much as I disagree with Dorval pretty much from top to bottom, I'm inclined to agree with Caissa here.

First let me say it is my personal experience from dealing with hundreds of employers that the vast majority of the ones I meet displayed inappropriate behaviour towards the rights of their employees.  That is reality.

No matter that the School Board seems to fit the norm of an employer not taking their employees' rights fully into account, I must say this guy deserved to be fired,  That is what I would be telling his union as well as advising them not to pursue a grievance because he was clearly insubordinate and still unrepentant.  No labour arbitrator would ever return an employee back to work under those circumstances.