I agree with this - but on the whole, schools in the west are not as critical of this as those in Asia. In China, you can't even write a character in the non-standard way. They are all trained from a very young age to ALWAYS follow the prescribed route. I think that if in western schools a teacher marks you down for not following the formula or something, it's perhaps not for "not blindly following instructions" but for not practicing the thing you're meant to be practicing. Sometimes, the task is less about getting the result but more about practicing that particular method.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I mean more like say if you're teacher wanted you to do 12 plus 15, set the problem up and add 5 and 2 then one and one, but you added 10 and 10 to get 20 then added 7 on top. It's the same thing, but the teacher doesn't like how you didn't do it EXACTLY their way, even though it's almost the same. Or like when there's an opinion question for English class, and you get marked down because the teacher doesn't agree with your opinion but there's nothing marked down on the grammar of the paper.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Ok a teacher marking you down for an opinion point is only valid if the opinion isn't adequately supported. In English, the teacher marking down even a personal opinion is fine if that opinion is not supported with evidence from the text. As for the maths question...the whole scenario seems kind of weird. In a simple addition there really is only one METHOD, just many different number combinations within it. Anyway, all I'm saying is that at least in our classes our opinions are ASKED for! haha. And, as I say, sometimes the lesson learned isn't immediately obvious. Both parties can be educating each other without knowing it. Your complaint might make the teacher think more about their style. But at the same time, you should not that the teacher is preparing you for life, where your way of doing things won't always be accepted, and sometimes you do just need to follow protocol. I'm in a job like that right now!

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Well exactly, it's the same method just a different combination of adding them. I do math weird cuz I do it in my head. I don't like writing it out with one number on the top and one number on the bottom and adding every individual digit. I do it by 10s, and if there are no 10s I make 10s. Ex, if there's a 7 and a 3 I just make 10. Or I'll multiply one of the numbers by 10, then add however many numbers above 10 there are. If that even makes sense, I can't really word it. As for the opinion question thing, yeah it makes sense to mark you down for not supporting your opinion. I'm talking about when they mark you down for your opinion.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But if your opinion is unsubstantiated in relation to what you're talking about, you should be marked down for it. And again for maths --- I think the question here is simply a lesson in following a prescribed method, even if you don't really like it. The fact is, that sometimes we HAVE to do that, even if we have a way better way of doing things in our minds. For example, I devised a way for my company to allow more flexible working time for copywriters, which I believed would help them attract writers more willing to work in the company for a long time. They rejected it immediately saying it went against the current ideas of how the company should be run too much. So I just have to follow our stupid guidelines, and as a result I'm quitting at Christmas. So the lesson we all learn is, sometimes we do just have to follow the method, but in the end there'll always be something we can do about it. Your teachers are following a course now, and you HAVE your own way, that's great. And you can use it later. But just for now, you ALSO need to learn to follow a method.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

You're missing the point. Yes there are times when your opinion essay isn't marked down for the opinion but for something else. I'm talking strictly about when they mark you down because your opinion is not their opinion. Yes there are times when you have to do what they say because it works better or when there are guidelines the school/company can't break, I'm speaking strictly of when you're way of doing something is not harming anyone, it has the same results, it's basically the same method, but the teacher does not like it because they're controlling and for no other reason other than they just don't like it, not because it doesn't follow the guidelines, not because it isn't effective, but because they don't like it. Ex: I once failed a class because of the way my notebook was organized, because my teacher did a note book check worth a large percentage of out grade, there wasn't a specific way we had to organize our notebooks or any guidelines, my notebook was organized and made sense to me, but not to her so she gave me a 0, even though it was clearly organized in some way and that is what we were supposed to be getting graded on.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'm more shocked that the school issues grades based on notes. What kind of garbage idea is that anyway? And I'm not missing your point, I know what you're talking about, hence I said YYA. If anything you're missing mine. I'm merely offering you another way to think about it. In the case of your notebook mark - you should have lodged a formal complaint with your school about it. The grounds are abundantly clear. Also, it's very easy for students to assume that a teacher marks you down just because they don't agree with what is your opinion. While I don't deny there are one or two very unprofessional teachers out there that would do that, I would argue that most of the time it's just because you don't really understand or appreciate why you're being marked down. For example, if it is my opinion that the blood in a poem symbolizes wine and alcoholism, because it says "drunk" and "blood" in the same stanza, that's pretty crap evidence to support my claim, PLUS the teacher is likely to disagree with that (since anyone with half a brain would anyway) - so the teacher shoots it down. Now, in my young mind, I've been shot down for having an alternative view. But in reality it's pretty...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'm tired, sorry. The school I was going to didn't like me very much, any time I complained about anything I almost got suspended. Like once, a security guard was following me around. Everyday. For weeks. When I stopped, he stopped. He would sit there and watch me eat lunch. When I complained to the principal, he said I needed to deal with it. I said no, I'm not going to deal with it and if he didn't fix my problem with the security guard, I was gonna fix it myself. He took that as a threat and put me in ISS.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I can see why he might. haha

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yeah... At first I was lile >:| Then about 30 minutes later I was like ...oh. That was probably a stupid thing to say. I was still mad though.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

This has never happened to me, one of my teachers once made me show my method to the whole class because he thought it was better than his.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Unless it's a test where they are testing you in a specific method.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I'm doing homeschool, so my maths lessons are in pdf format on a DVD. Each one has a lesson, a task and a memo. Then we sometimes get assignments from the website which we print, complete, scan and upload. A few weeks ago I had an assignment in which one of the questions asked was about calculating how many cans of a certain size will fit into a box of a certain size. In the DVD task there was a question just like that, with the answer being "length: (box)/(can) = a; height: (box)/(can) = b; width: (box)/(can) = c; a X b X c = however many cans". So I did it that way. It was for four marks; I got one mark for the first part and the answer was marked as wrong. In the assignment memo, they got a different answer by dividing the volume of the box by the volume of the tin. As if I'm magically supposed to think of doing if that way when I learnt it the other way. I was going to mention it, but then I checked my marksheet again later and I saw that they must've noticed it because I'd been given the marks for that sum.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

that's really unfair but i've never seen that happen idk might just be me...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I mean if their testing you on a certain concept, you should probably use the concept.

by Anonymous 12 years ago