In defense of Hermione, was: Ron

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 5036

-- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Susan McGee" <Schlobin at a...> wrote:

> it's the teacher's responsibility not to call on the smartest/best
> prepared student and equalize the answers. The student's 
> responsibility is to answer the questions.

I clearly remember the frustration of *constantly* stretching my hand 
all the way to the ceiling (and eventually waving it around) for what 
certainly *seemed* like a good fifteen minutes, in which no one else 
ever raised their hand, and the teacher called on them *anyway*, and 
they gave quite idiotically wrong answers, and I *really wanted* to 
get that easy question solved so we could go on to the next thing. I 
confess that I *also* was hungry for attention in any form that did 
not involve someone hitting me. 

I've gotten over being the oldest, and whenever I reached a 
milestone birthday that entitled me to have my allowance increased 
or my bedtime made later, within days my brother (two years younger, 
almost to the day) had the same allowance and same bedtime as me. 
(We're both computer programmers, both science fiction fans, altho' 
different in every other way, and in contact only in annual exchange 
of birthday e-mail).

I haven't gotten over the general abuse of kids who are good at 
schoolwork. My first paragraph up there was about "you already know 
this stuff, so just sit still and be quiet, and I'll send you to the 
principal's office if you read some other book under your desk", but 
the thing I still get furious remembering is grading on improvement. 
If you do well on the pre-test (even if you deliberately cheat by 
deliberately giving wrong answers on the pre-test, but the teacher 
knows you from last year), then even if you get 100% on every test 
and every assignment, the best grade you can get is a C, because you 
didn't Improve very much because your baseline was so high. While 
someone who gets less than 50% on everything can get an A because 
they were So Bad to start with.