Friday, March 29, 2024

Netizen to Facebook-crazy teachers: Stop making students beg for Likes

A thought-provoking series of posts by a netizen with the Twitter handle @huhsmile has gone viral because it’s highlighting a rather disturbing trend among some schools in the country.

The first tweet in @huhsmile’s thread ? which was posted at 6:59 p.m. on March 16, 2018 ? has been retweeted 8,129 times and has been liked 27,063 times as of 7:27 p.m. on May 20.

The tweets are addressed in general to teachers who have resorted to grading their students based on Facebook “Likes.”

We’ve consolidated @huhsmile’s brilliantly worded tweet series, with very minor edits for clarity and brevity. We also removed references to names of kids cited in examples (even if they may just be hypothetical) to make sure we’re not violating anybody’s privacy.

Read @huhsmile’s opinion piece below:

I repeat: School projects that require students to ask for ‘Likes’ on Facebook are the stupidest projects I’ve ever heard of.

Situations wherein the grade of the project is dependent on the number of ‘Likes’ it has proves nothing of the quality of the project AND the random strangers liking it.

Buti sana kung ininform kami sa grading system nung projects, kahit man lang ‘10% Creativity, 20% Information, 5% Grammar…’ Pero wala. Ngunit bakit involved kami sa pag-grade ng students niyo, teachers?

If anything, this kind of ‘project grading’ system just teaches students that ‘Popularity is super important in academics’ because OF COURSE the kids who are good at social media have an edge.

The ‘Liking System’ is acceptable for popularity contests or voting for your favorite something, but definitely not in an academic perspective (unless the student is studying media, advertising, etc.).

The subjects involved for these are usually general subjects like Science and Math. Like, wow, grabe hindi naman namin alam naging improvements [ng bata] sa English, bakit affected kami sa pagbigay ng grade niya?

Ma-pro-prove ba [ng bata na grade 6], na magaling ang Math skills niya at ng groupmates niya by posting a groufie holding Math props on Facebook and asking people to like it? Bat dun nakasalalay yung grade niya?

It’s not bad to advertise your student’s works. It’s not bad to have creative group projects. But to have OTHER PEOPLE INVOLVED in grading these projects for general subjects is not just laziness but is also unfair to your students. You get paid to evaluate them don’t you?

I hope my cousins don’t think this is about them and never ask me to like their projects. It’s not about the students, it’s about the teachers and administrators who do these activities. I’ve been mad about this for years.

Not only is this unfair for the students ? who pay tuition to be evaluated fairly by teachers on their strengths and weaknesses academically ? but don’t you think this is also bothersome to EVERYONE ELSE? So tinuturuan mong mag-spam yung students mo?

The teachers aren’t completely at fault here: Administrators are. They require teachers to ‘be modern’ in their approach to lessons and projects but give no training or tools for this. Teachers then resort to ‘I-post mo sa Facebook.’

I don’t know if it’s evident to Educational institutions yet that this system isn’t working, but I mean it’s really not. Facebook ‘Likes’ DON’T equate to: Credibility, Engagement, Quality, Importance (of a project). But that’s not what your projects are teaching the kids.

I have cousins in grade school and high school and I love them to bits so I ‘Like’ their stuff for their grades but I hope they get better teachers.

In addition to the recent tweets, @huhsmile also retweeted a past tweet, which said: “Unless the project is marketing-based, I fail to see the educational value of teaching your students to beg for likes on social media.”

Whoever is behind the @huhsmile Twitter handle has raised a very good point. We can’t allow the need for Facebook “Likes” to ruin kids’ school experience. Heck, we shouldn’t let that run our lives.

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