Saskatchewan Roughwriters

Saskatchewan may take pride in their football team or their clearly classy merlot but maybe not so much their students or their writing..Saskatchewan's football team may indicate they give a rough ride on the playing field but in the classrooms students are getting a much easier ride. It seems as if the students are no longer penalized for plagerism or handing in their assignments late.

English teacher Katie Kehrig said it's taken her 30 years of teaching to realize the benefits of separating academic marks from behaviour evaluations.
"I don't give late marks, or deduct marks if students are late," Kehrig said in support of the new evaluation method. "I don't give bonus marks. I don't have participation marks. Those are behaviours."

"Let's turn this into a learning experience," Kehrig an english teacher of 30 years said, demonstrating how she'd react to those situations. "Redo the paper for me."

Forgive me if I'm wrong, which I very well could be but isn't that not only a bad behaviour from the teachers and the school superintendent but also a bad decision towards the betterment of these kids.

What are they learning exactly, and how is this preparing them for the real world.

"Sorry teach I didn't do my work I was too busy watching the Roughriders beat the Bombers and before that I had my banjo lessons."

"That's OK Johnny, hand it in whenever, steal something off the Internet even, just give me something."

So of course I am making this sound ridiculous, but any reputable place of employment is going to have the bar risen a hell of a lot higher, you don't do the work than give the opportunity to someone who will so I think lowering the bar too much for these kids is actually doing them quite a disservice.

But maybe that is just me, maybe this is all the beginning of a new Saskatchewan government ad campaign.

Hire a Saskatchewan grad, their work ethic may be rough, they may not be original, and they may not make the deadline but they'll give you something; sooner or later.