Say Goodbye to Snow Days and Grades? 🎒
LISTEN HERE
Season 2: Episode 76 Description
In today's episode: 🏫 Will there ever be snow days or ash days or hurricane days for students again? Find out how the pandemic may have changed this. 📋 Correspondent Ryan Nerz joins us to share the future of grading and report cards. ✔️ Fun Fact Check: What is the most snow angels ever made in one day? 🗞️ In the news: 🗞️ In the news: Ukraine update and a baby ghost shark discovery. And, test your snow day knowledge on today's Trivia on the Ten. ✅
Sources
Children Love Snow Days. The Pandemic May End Them Forever. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
New York City canceled snow days, and parents aren’t happy - The Washington Post
NYC snow days: Dismay as school snow days cancelled - BBC News
Ruby Bridges | National Women's History Museum (womenshistory.org)
Snow Day Superstitions: The Silliest Ones from Childhood | Reader's Digest (rd.com)
Links
📧 Do you have something to tell us? Email us at: hello@thetennews.com
📝 Sign up for The Ten News-letter!
📸 Join us on Instagram
TRANSCRIPT:
Ryan Willard 0:02
Hey, Bethany, it's snowing today. Does that mean we get the day off?
Bethany Van Delft 0:05
Nope. That's not a thing in this business, Ryan.
Ryan Willard 0:08
What? That's not fair.
Bethany Van Delft 0:10
I know. Let's talk about it. I'm Bethany Van Delft. It's Thursday, February 24th. And this is the Ten News.
Sound Bit 0:20
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Bethany Van Delft 0:28
Back in my day, if it snowed so much that you couldn't safely get to school, you stayed home and relaxed. Oh, we watched TV, went sledding, and baked treats. But, since the pandemic and the introduction of remote learning, it's possible there might never be snow days again. In March 2021, New York City's Department of Education announced that there would be no more snow days. Parents, teachers, and kids all said it was unfair. Parents had to find a babysitter or help their kids with school while working from home. Teachers have to adjust lesson plans at the last minute, but the people most affected by canceled snow days are kids. After almost two years of remote learning, plus the stress of dealing with the pandemic, kids deserve a break. You're right. When a snowy day shuts down a town or a city it's a chance to read, play video games, drink hot cocoa, go sledding, sleep and just enjoy life unscheduled. For kids living in places where it snows, getting a day off is a treat. But, for kids in parts of the country where there are smoke or hurricane days, dealing with stressful weather makes it just as difficult if not harder to learn remotely. So, if parents, teachers, and especially kids want to keep snow days, school boards should listen. As more and more school districts, cities and states make decisions about snow days and more. The Ten News will be here keeping you informed. Now, we're talking. Do you get graded on your schoolwork? Students have been getting grades longer than most people can remember, but when it comes to learning degrades really help? Is there a better way? Ten News Correspondent Ryan Nerz is here to report on the future of report cards.
Ryan Nerz 2:51
For decades, American students have associated A's with awesomeness and F's with epic failure. But a new movement is saying that this whole system of grading schoolwork with letters gets an F minus one. Okay, that's not a thing. But you get the point. There's a movement sweeping the country. And I think some of you out there are gonna like the sound of it. Behold, the no grades movement. Before you throw away your report card, let me explain how it works. Gradeless education goes by a few fancy names like standards-based grading or competency-based models, but they do similar things. Instead of teachers just slapping a big red letter at the top of a test or an assignment and then moving on, they create a series of skills that each student needs to master before they can move on. Okay. So let's say you've got to learn fractions. In the traditional grades method, you get some exercises, do some homework, have a test, and maybe you get a C, which means you kind of get it but not really doesn't matter. The class moves on to the next lesson. In a gradeless classroom, each student keeps working on fractions until they master it. And then instead of a grade, you get nothing. Seriously? Okay, that's not quite true. In some of these classrooms, the teacher checks a box when you're done. In others, you get a one to four rating on how you perform that skill. But those numbers don't get used to creating an overall grade. In other classrooms, like some New York City middle school programs, there's a color-based scale. It's kind of like a stoplight. Red means you're not getting it. Yellow means you're getting close. Green means you've got it. But, there's an extra color blue, which means you totally crushed it. So, the big question is, does it work? Many would say it gets an A. I mean, a blue. Studies show that students in gradeless classrooms show more interest in whatever they're learning. And teachers who use this system say it gives struggling students time to practice concepts until they get them right. Instead of an A or B, teachers give written feedback about how students are performing. The end result, according to grade list advocates, is that parents really understand what's happening at school and that students enjoy learning more, and they're less stressed about grades. But is there any proof? Well, there isn't much data out there yet, because all these greatest programs are relatively new. But, at one middle school in Brooklyn, New York, the percentage of students meeting the New York State Standards for math and reading went up over 400% in just two years. Excellent. Of course, the no grades movement has its doubters some say it's more work for teachers, and more complicated for parents to understand how their kids are doing. Others say it's hard to coordinate and works better with math and science than subjects like English and history. And there are very few gradeless programs in high schools because most colleges use grade point averages for their admissions process. Bummer. So it might not be for everyone. But the greatest revolution doesn't seem to be going away. States like Vermont, Maine, Idaho, and Illinois, have all adopted gradeless programs. And at least 16 state legislatures and boards of education have adopted policies to encourage public schools to look beyond traditional grading systems. So, if the gradeless revolution keeps up this kind of momentum, it's just a matter of time before report cards look less like alphabet soup, and more like actual reports.
Bethany Van Delft 7:05
Thanks, Ryan. What do you think about going great plus, should schools give grades? Visit thetennews.com/contact and let us know. We might have you join us on the show. Since we're talking about school, we would love to talk about a groundbreaker in education. February is Black History Month, and today we're celebrating black joy, black creativity, and black resilience. Have you heard of a girl named Ruby Bridges? She's a grown-up now. But, when she was six years old, she was the first black student to attend an all-white elementary school in New Orleans. At the time, most schools in the south were segregated meaning schools run by white people didn't allow black students to attend the same schools. In 1960, Ruby Bridges became the first to integrate into an elementary school in the south. And this was a few years after the US Supreme Court landmark ruling in Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which ended racial segregation in public schools. Ruby was escorted to and from school every day by four US Marshals because of violence and death threats against her. Many white parents pulled their children out of schools because Ruby was accepted, and only one teacher in the entire school was willing to teach her. So for an entire year, Ruby was taught one on one by Mrs. Henry learning, playing, and eating lunch all by herself. Are you kidding me? Despite the threats and the challenges she faced, Ruby didn't miss a single day of school. And it might sound like ancient history, but Ruby Bridges is only 67 years old. That's the same age as maybe your parents or your grandparents. She changed the world when she was only six by opening the door for children of all races to learn together. And her resilience and strength inspire us still today to go. Here to give us the news rundown is our head writer Ryan Willard.
Ryan Willard 9:28
Thank you, Bethany. The situation in Ukraine is escalating and President Biden announced economic sanctions to punish Russia. According to President Biden, Russia's moves on Ukraine are a quote "flagrant violation of international law", unquote. This story is constantly developing, so check in with your grownups and we'll share updates as they come in. A fourth-grader staged a protest to bring chocolate milk back to his school and won. After the Northern California School District removed chocolate milk from the school. A nine-year-old fourth grader named Jordan decided to push back by making signs and slogans, he rallied his 26 classmates to join the protest with him, which prompted a visit from the school district's nutrition department. They negotiated on the spot and eventually decided to bring back chocolate milk once a week. What now brown cow? A rare baby ghost shark was discovered off the coast of New Zealand. New Zealand scientists found the incredibly rare ghost shark also known as Chimera point seven miles underwater, though we should know ghost sharks are not actual sharks. They're a species of fish that are closely related to sharks and rays. Their skeletons are mainly composed of cartilage, which is why they look pretty creepy. I'm Ryan Willard, and that's your rundown.
Bethany Van Delft 10:47
All right, it's time for...
Sound Bit 10:50
What, what, what's the big idea?
Bethany Van Delft 10:53
Trivia on the Ten. When some of your parents were kids, they might have had rituals when they were hoping for a snow day. Can you guess one of the most popular things kids did to try and make a snow day? Is it a) wear their pajamas inside out and backward? b) put hot cocoa in the freezer? or c) sleep in their snow boots? Did you guess it? The answer is A. In some places, if there was a whiff of snow in the air, kids wore their pajamas inside out and backward to try to get Mother Nature to cancel school. Seriously. Some kids also ate ice cream, put a white crown on the windowsill, slept upside down in their bed, brushed their teeth with the opposite hand, or flushed ice cubes down the toilet. Although we don't recommend that, there's no proof these rituals bring about snow days, but maybe your parents, maybe even you have done one or two of these things to bring about a snow day, whatever. That's all we've got for today. But before you go, here's a quick note for the grownups. Thanks for listening to the Ten News. Look out for our new episodes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and extras on Saturdays. The Ten News is a coproduction of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts and is distributed by iHeartRadio. The Ten News creative team is having a snowball battle and includes Tracey Crooks, Pete Musto, Ryan Willard, Adam Barnard, Tessa Flannery, and Nathalie Alonso. Ryan Nerz contributed to this episode. Our production director is Jeremiah Tittle and our executive producers are Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan. I'm Bethany Van Delft. And thanks for listening to the Ten News. Hey, Ten'ers, here's an important thing. When you're at school, enjoy your friends from all different races and different backgrounds. Don't forget to think about brave, brave people like Ruby Bridges who made it possible for all of us to be together and enjoy each other today. It's super important. Okay, bye!
