Ain’t that a kick in the pass?

Arrgh! I hate this BAP thing! They’re having us do this behavior rewards program, where if the students do polite stuff, go out of their way to be nice, then they can win these coupons. One of these coupons grants a student the ability to skip a single homework assignment. Now, I shouldn’t go nuts here and just rant. What I need to do is one of those Pro/Con lists, so that I may rationally examine what is going on here.

The Cons:

Learning is hampered. I assign stuff to help kids learn. I don’t give mindless assignments because then I would have to grade meaningless stuff. Thanks for devaluing my work.

The district requires that I have to assign sixteen assignments per grading period, or it is my butt. Now, though, it doesn’t matter if my kids complete all of those assignments. I’m not sure that’s worth encouraging kids to be kinder to one another by allowing them to relax on working hard. It seems a bit like cutting off the nose to spite the face.

The administration has demonstrated a lack of interest in preparing the kids for the real world—a get out of homework pass? Will they be able to actually be able to give the police one of those get out of jail free cards from Monopoly if (when) they get arrested? I’m guessing no.

Great, here’s another thing that I have to keep track of. Am I not busy enough?!

The Pros:

Let the counterfeiting of homework passes begin!

Wait a second—I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think one of these things is on the wrong list.