In defence of report-card writers
Re Dealing with report-card bafflegab, Letters March 2 As a teacher, I had a hard time reading Catherine Porter’s pieces on report-card language and “edu-speak.” While I admit report cards can get bogged down with some edu-speak, I would wager a guess that most of those reports took many hours to write and get the wording just right, as they are one of two legal and binding documents that teachers write, Individual Education Plans being the second.
Imagine that you are the parent of a student who continually struggles with multiple aspects of school life (like the students I teach). I’m sure you would appreciate having some of the negative behaviours communicated to you in asset-based language. It is far too easy to spew out negative comments about students under the guise of “being honest.”
We try to teach our children to be compassionate, yet how would that look if the only things teachers communicated were that “Sophia is a mean girl” and “Ahmed can’t sit still.” Maybe Sophia has a terrible home life with no role model for “nice” behaviour. Maybe Ahmed has gone six years of his academic career without being diagnosed with ADD or a learning disability.
Also, Ms. Porter may be capable of hearing the plain and honest truth about her child but what about the parents who are strug- gling with their own issues and simply cannot deal with deficit-based language?
The overall purpose of a report card is not for teachers to tell parents all of the things your child cannot do at school but to give you an idea of whether or not your child is meeting the expectations for their grade level, as laid out by the Ministry of Education. Attending faceto-face interviews gives parents a clearer context for their child’s daily life.
Writing report cards is a lot more intricate than simply “telling it like it is” to parents who have a child who occasionally talks a little too much. So, unfortunately, some edu-speak is included.
When applying a standardized measure to something as complex as all of the little faces in front of us and all that they bring with them from home, I would hope for a little more understanding. Alyson Sobol, Toronto