idk the whole idea of a test is to demonstrate understanding, which this doesn’t. i feel like a good teacher wouldnt take off points, but would have to pull the student aside and be like “ok now circle the tens place, hundreds place, etc”
A good teacher would blame the tools not the student.
It’s a primary school kid, they absolutely do not have the age to “take the responsible route based on the intents of the exercise”. The only adult in the room should act like one and give the student the full grade.
You have completely flipped the concepts of mature and immature. Only a child would think the exact wording of a phrase is the absolute most important thing and that context doesn’t matter at all. An adult would follow the intent of the exercise and make sure actual understanding was achieved–you know, the entire point of the test. Children love malicious compliance: “finish your homework,” so they scribble a bunch of random nonsense; “stop hitting your sister,” so they start poking them; “go outside,” so they sit down and play phone games. The fault isn’t with the adult for not being clear enough, the kid just doesn’t want to comply. Rewarding that type of shitty behavior just encourages more of it!
Exam questions should be designed so that answers (that follow any instructions) demonstrate understanding. If they are not, that’s the exam’s fault, not the student’s, and so should have no impact on the grade.
In this case, the exam could verify understanding by either asking additional questions (in the number 123, what digit is in the tens place), and/or by modifying the existing questions to require circling the correct place or not using the specified number outside that place. But regardless, if an answer is correct, then it is correct.
I’d agree that it’s perfectly fine for a teacher to follow up with the student to make sure they know what they were expected to know. But they should not make the exam score itself dependent on the follow up.
The exam is over, the questions and answers were what they were, the student should not have to worry that they will have to continually resit exams as teachers decide that they didn’t like the questions that they asked.
Oh come on. This is obviously a kid’s test, and the kid knew they were being a smartass. What’s less clear is whether the kid knew the actual answers.
In your world you start having to write “solve the equations to their simplest forms” on tests for kindergarteners who won’t even know what that means in order to avoid technically correct nonsense like “1 + 1 = 1 + 1”. Room should be made for genuinely unclear test directions, but this is not one of those cases.
Edit, maybe he should have gotten credit for literally writing “a number with a 2 in the ones place.” The test should have used “provide an example,” not “write!”
Yeah, sure, it’s for a kid. But even for kids - especially, in fact - it’s important to stick by what you say. And that test question says “write a number with a 3 in the 10s place” or whatever, which they did.
Basic use of language is fine. When you’re teaching you define what it means to “solve” or “provide the answer to” 1 1 = _. For a young kid, this is through examples, and later on it might be with an explicit written definition.
And then the question says “solve the following”, which does not mean “write any true statement”, and so excludes 1 1 = 1 1 as a correct answer.
Yeah sure, the kid is probably being a smart ass in this case. So? It’s ok for a kid to pull one over on you occasionally. Do better with the language next time, and it won’t happen again.
