Child gets reward for most excuses for not doing homework

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**hotsauceman1**

The mother of an 8-year-old Arizona girl who was presented with a "Catastrophe Award" for apparently having the most excuses for not having homework believes her child was humiliated by her teacher.

Christina Valdez said her daughter, Cassandra Garcia, came home one day from class at Desert Springs Academy in Tucson, Ariz., with the paper award.

The document, which looks like a colorful card, contained the following message: "You're Tops! Catastrophe Award. Awarded to Cassandra Garcia. For Most Excuses for Not Having Homework."

The teacher signed the card "Ms. Plowman," added the date - May 18, 2012 - and even included a smiley face.

The teacher announced the award in front of the entire class, and the other students laughed at her daughter, Valdez said in a Thursday interview with ABC TV affiliate KGUN-TV in Tucson.

When she contacted the school to complain, the principal "blew me off," Valdez added. "She said it was a joke that was played and that the teachers joke around with the children."

But Valdez told KGUN that she didn't find any of it funny.

"I think it's cruel and no child should be given an award like this. It's disturbing," she said, adding that she was not aware her daughter had a problem with homework, and that the girl had been enrolled in an after-school homework assistance program.

Desert Springs Academy's principal declined to comment to a KGUN reporter, the affiliate reported.

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/8-old-gets-catastrophe-award-most-homework-excuses-113936385--abc-news-topstories.html
I think it is great that the teachers did this. We are sometimes to passe when it comes to kids and schoolwork.
This kid needed to be humiliated to teach her and her parent to do their homework.
Related to this topic.

Spoiler:

**dæl**

Perhaps the mother should tell the kid to do the fething homework in the first place!

**PhantomViper**

dæl wrote:Perhaps the mother should tell the kid to do the fething homework in the first place!

Don't worry, she has enrolled her in an after-school homework assistance program!

I had one of those when I was growing up: it was called, do your homework or you'll get a spanking...

**AustonT**

hotsauceman1 wrote:

Spoiler:

Remarkably true.
Parent should be outraged her child is lazy.

**Frazzled**

Count down until the Parents threaten a lawsuit starting...now.

While I have issues with underperforming teachers and teachers unions in general, there's no way I'd be a teacher precisely because of this.

EDIT: Read the comments below. Looks like about what a quarter of the first 50 are talking about the evil "public humiliation" to the child and other nonsense.

How about Frazzled alternative #1: Taze the parents. that should have the desired effect.

**Necros**

I used to never do homework too. Never had any excuses, I was honest enough to just say "yeah, sorry, didn't do it cuz I was busy playing Zork on my Commodore 64"

Took 2 years of summer school to make up my grades before I finally learned my lesson

**biccat**

The mother of an 8-year-old Arizona girl who was presented with a "Catastrophe Award" for apparently having the most excuses for not having homework believes her child was humiliated by her teacher.

To pull out a response I usually have to these types of allegations...

So what?

The teacher wasn't right or wrong based on the feelings of the kid. I got humiliated when I did badly on a test and the teacher published the grades. That didn't entitle me to a better grade.

**Kilkrazy**

I agree.

In fact it was even the mother who has felt humiliated on her daughter's behalf, as well she might having neglected her daughter's education so badly.

Is there no father in this story?

**Gitzbitah**

One questions why someone concerned about a teacher publicizing her daughter's failure would hold a press conference to tell the nation what an irresponsible offspring she has. I suppose she lost the homework on irony when she was going through school herself.

**Frazzled**

Kilkrazy wrote:I agree.

In fact it was even the mother who has felt humiliated on her daughter's behalf, as well she might having neglected her daughter's education so badly.

Is there no father in this story?

Tazer? Come on, I'm not the only one. You know you want to.

**mattyrm**

The teacher should be fired for acting like a normal logical human with emotions, and the mother of the child should be given ten million dollars in compensation.

Just kidding. Rack the mother until several ribs pop and she is two inches taller, and then tell her every time her child misses an assignment she is going to grow another inch.

Either the poor little mite will start doing her homework and actually end up getting an education despite her disgusting clueless "victim" mother, or her mom will be two feet taller and can take up ladies fething basketball and pay for the kids gak life that is utterly devoid of achievement herself.

**timetowaste85**

I'm with you frazzled-taze the parents. The teacher had a humorous way to call out the student for not doing work, and the parent doesn't get upset until the kid comes home with an 'award' for her had behavior. Mommy should have been taking an interest in her child. Then again, the teacher should have alerted the parent(s) to the continuous missing work. If she didn't, she needs a tazing too.

**AustonT**

Frazzled wrote:Count down until the Parents threaten a lawsuit starting...now.

While I have issues with underperforming teachers and teachers unions in general, there's no way I'd be a teacher precisely because of this.

EDIT: Read the comments below. Looks like about what a quarter of the first 50 are talking about the evil "public humiliation" to the child and other nonsense.

How about Frazzled alternative #1: Taze the parents. that should have the desired effect.

Here is Arizona there are no teachers unions...or rather they dont and cant do anything. My wife's union is fething useless in every way and she still has to pay them to DO nothing.

**Frazzled**

Arizona is...different.

And hot, did I mention hot?

I'm watching the Hatfields and McCoy's on History and, besidesd contuing to like Tom Berenger's performances, just swoon at that misty green country.

**AustonT**

Right to work is proof that being blindly anti-Union is stupid. So is being blindly pro-Union...but in the grand scheme of things I prefer the presence of a union to it's absence.

When I was 19 as a soldier (a notoriously overpaid profession), with my HS diploma I made more than my wife does now with her two masters and several specialist certifications. She's been payscale frozen for like 8 years, the IT guys and administration received significant raises though. We are crossing our fingers she becomes a faculty member at the college she is currently an adjunct at to avoid some of the coming changes to the elementary system.

**Shadowseer_Kim**

And people do not seem to beleive that we give all children awards for everything now adays.

No child may feel left out of the winning and losing, so we give participation awards, and best sport, and most improved, and rookie of the year/season whatever.

So this child maybe did not play sports, the school system had to giver an award so she didn't feel left out.

Nothing new here.

**Easy E**

Heres' what I would do as the teacher. I would make soem sor tof reward that the entire class would get if every single person turned in there completed homework every week/month. Then, they would all publicly hand it in each day at my desk.

When the kids weren;t getting their prize. The kids would soon see who was and wasn't handing in their homework. I assume the peer pressure and the beatings from the other students ripped off from their prize would help solve the "Incomplete Homework Issue".

**Kovnik Obama**

People, in this nice hippie world we currently live in, tend to forget that humiliation and pain are very good teachers. Next week that kid will have found another reason to feel humiliated, and won't remember this one. The mother needs a bit of perspective, and implication in her kid's education.

That's something else. In primary school, my parents spent at least 1 hour each evening with me when I brought back homework. In the latter years they paid for a tutoring service. Is that going to be common in Tucson, AR?

**Howard A Treesong**

There's a difference in my mind to putting all the test results on the wall, good and bad, and making a gift card about their poor performance and making they accept it in front of the class. I don't think you need to deliberately humiliate a young child for not completing their work, it's not constructive IMO.

My question would be as to why was it allowed to get to that point? The parent should have been brought in for a 'chat' far sooner. Why wasn't the parent doing their job? Why wasn't the teacher? A child shouldn't repeatedly fail to hand in homework and for there not to be a discussion about it. And I say that as someone who works in a school, not like the internet hard men talking about letting kids beat each other up to make the homework get done or suggesting they just get spanked/tasered, etc.

**Great White**

Frazzled wrote:Arizona is...different.

And hot, did I mention hot?

I'm watching the Hatfields and McCoy's on History and, besidesd contuing to like Tom Berenger's performances, just swoon at that misty green country.

It's not different, but it is hot here.

If only my teachers were that funny.

**dæl**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Is there no father in this story?

Well the child and mothers surnames are different whatever that means.

**Avatar 720**

Maybe instead of making a card, the teacher should spend her time, oh, I don't know, helping the kid to do the homework? Or finding out just why it isn't being done?

If you have the time to make a card like that, you have enough time to help the kid.

**kronk**

timetowaste85 wrote:Then again, the teacher should have alerted the parent(s) to the continuous missing work. If she didn't, she needs a tazing too.

That part is also missing from the story, and I agree there.

Momma should have a more active role in her child's schooling and be aware of what's going on. If your kid is failing or getting C's and D's for not doing homework, why are you not correcting it?

**Frazzled**

Avatar 720 wrote:Maybe instead of making a card, the teacher should spend her time, oh, I don't know, helping the kid to do the homework? Or finding out just why it isn't being done?

If you have the time to make a card like that, you have enough time to help the kid.

Horsepuckey. The teacher should be focused on the achievers in the class, not the nattering nabobs of negativity. if Princess Drool can't cut it, enough with dragging the rest of the class down. Best to cut our (society's) losses and send the family straight to the Soylent Green farm. under and enlightened Frazzled Administration, every citizen can serve, in one way or another...

**AustonT**

Avatar 720 wrote:Maybe instead of making a card, the teacher should spend her time, oh, I don't know, helping the kid to do the homework? Or finding out just why it isn't being done?

If you have the time to make a card like that, you have enough time to help the kid.

Making something like that takes 10-15 minutes and that's if you bother to put on those foil seal thingies. Helping a problem kid takes considerably more time and parental involvement. It's entirely possible that there was a long history of attempts to get the parent to take an active role and this was the parting shot of a disgusted educator. If parental involvement was the goal: victory. She will probably lose her job.

Frazzled wrote:Horsepuckey. The teacher should be focused on the achievers in the class, not the nattering nabobs of negativity.

Frazz i want to think you are kidding...but I almost suspect you are not.

**hotsauceman1**

I find myself agreeing with frazzled, God the weiner dogs have gotten to me.

**Frazzled**

Now this is the US as classrooms in other countries may not have these problems.
Just think, if classrooms didn't have the ne'erdo wells in them that suck up valuable classroom with their interruptions, with their not getting it, their poor behavior. What if, instead we focused on the other 90% of class, on making the good students better.

Lets face it, the gammas aren't going to get it and MacDonald's needs employees. Lets free up the hard working illegal immigrants for more productive, more skilled labor.

Make it so Number One.

**Orlanth**

This is an excellent piece of satire that shouldn't be hidden away in spoiler quotes. Copy saved.

**Ribon Fox**

Orlanth wrote:

This is an excellent piece of satire that shouldn't be hidden away in spoiler quotes. Copy saved.

If there was a "Like" button i would so hit it for that image.

**Howard A Treesong**

Frazzled wrote:Now this is the US as classrooms in other countries may not have these problems.
Just think, if classrooms didn't have the ne'erdo wells in them that suck up valuable classroom with their interruptions, with their not getting it, their poor behavior. What if, instead we focused on the other 90% of class, on making the good students better.

Lets face it, the gammas aren't going to get it and MacDonald's needs employees. Lets free up the hard working illegal immigrants for more productive, more skilled labor.

Make it so Number One.

Many kids will benefit greatly from the right sort of attention from a teacher, the idea that you can write off children as young as 8 for not doing their homework and concentrate on the rest is just ignorant and stupid. The younger they are when they fall behind the greater the struggle to catch up. There are all sorts of reasons children can't, don't or won't work. And you can make a great difference by taking the correct approach with them and their parents instead of throwing them on the scrap heap. Letting them destroy the education of fellow pupils isn't acceptable, but ignoring them and simply teaching the kids that are easy to teach is not a constructive way to teach the wide variety of children the pass through schools. Sorry the world isn't as fething simple as you want it to be.

I don't see much mileage in discussing this further because it's just an internet tough guy contest at the moment. Try actually teaching or working in a school and getting to know some kids, good and bad, before posturing with jokes about churning out cheap labour for flipping burgers.