Manmoin Eulalie Kouadio 11/21/2018 PRAISE OF “f” WORLD SUMMARYMarry Sherry. In Praise of F World.
Ten Steps To Improving College Reading Skills: 6th Edition. John Langan. Townsend Press, 2014. 381-383 In Praise of “F” Word, Marry Sherry talks about the lack of makes the point that in order to help kids do their school work and get their education; they must be threatened with failing. The author says she realizes that most students feel as if they are passing along from grade to grade even when they do not do better. She states that before she starts teaching, she blames the poor academic skills our kids have today on drugs, divorce, and other impediments to concentration for doing well in school. The teacher has to show to the students who holds the winning hand in the classroom by revealing them the trump card of failure.
For example, she goes on to tell her experience with her son of twelfth grade grammar class where he was not doing well, so she went and talk with his teacher to find the problem. The teacher doesn’t make any exceptions or go out of the way to make her son do well in class she just threatened to fail him by saying: “I don’t move senior” she says “I flunk them”. Mary even adds “no teacher had ever threatened him that before”. She also states that the students that attend night classes are more determined to get their education and they make it their number one priority. The author reveals that flunking as a regular policy has just much merit today as it did two generations ago. The point of the story was wrapped up by Sherry when she said, “This is a policy that worked in the past and can work today.
A wise teach, with the support of his parents, gave our son the opportunity to succeed or fail. It’s time we return this choice to all students.” This shows that it is the student job to do well in school because ultimately it is their choice. She believes in using flunking to help motivate kids to work harder because passing kids who aren’t actually doing the work are just going to suffer in the long run.I agree with Mary Sherry’s ” In Praise of the “F” Word”. I feel like some kids do not give their full effort in school and still get passed along to the next grade which is not only unfair to them but to everyone else also including students who did the work to get by and future employers of those students.
I believe if more teachers threatened to fail students and actually followed through on the threat that the students would work harder and do better in the courses they were enrolled in. I think the points Sherry brought up about uneducated people were valid and I feel that the solution would benefit everyone involved in the situation.