The Demerit Point System

Mr Kwok, please read this... You cannot preach to the school about giving 1 day's grace for forgetting to wear tie than just give demerit points just because my "Form Teacher said so".

MY FT said she don't care about our conduct grades anymore, its almost like she has vested interest in bringing the class down.

11 minutes ago · Privacy: ·  · 

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  Samuel Joseph Lim likes this.
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    Reuben Wang I mean its not even an issue about her; If a student says one excuse about not bringing homework than immediately backpedals, the would be worse consequences.
    What about the school? It can do this just because "I am the boss"?
    
    If this is the case, than our house is worse than the one on the other side of the valley.
    

    8 minutes ago ·  ·  2 people
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Let's begin, shall we?

The "demerit point" system is based on the traffic police's own demerit point system, lets go to that.

Alright, the Traffic Police's(TP) demerit point system works because its only demerit, and it can be dealt to exactly who do it, with severe consequences.

If that was the system, I would be fine with it, as in "You cannot get a very good conduct grade once you chalked up 10 points".

That would be perfectly fair. The fundamental flaw with the school's system, on the other hand, is it is also a "merit point" system. Think about it. If motorists are rewarded with points for good behavior with the opposite of fines, than we would have great behavior, but how do you define "good behavior"?

The TP demerit point works because there are very specific examples of what deserves one and what does not. For example, speeding. But in the school, we do not have thousands of people just seating there and crafting this type of precise laws. We have a very general school rule, which contains the rule which punishes defiance. Yes, it works in school, but when you throw this set of loosely defined rules into a "demerit point" system,  you will have unequal punishments! Imaging if different TP officer fines motorizes at different sets of speed limits! How unbelievably stupid will that sound? And the school can't even say they are standardized! Mr Kwok punished me just because "my form teacher says so" while he himself said a completely different thing just 5 minutes ago!


If that isn't the definition of inconsistency, I don't know who to laugh at. Myself for committing thoughtcrime or .... Oh crap, I committed thoughtcrime again.

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. There's no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. 

-George Orwell, 1984

....I really don't know. If its such a great system, why don't you call it the "merit point system"? Why "demerit"? Make it sound more "newspeak" like?



...I really don't know. I don't few mad, I just feel hopeless. Trapped in a catch-22. If I could work hard in a direction for merit points, maybe I won't feel so sad. But merit points are like the end of the rainbow. You say they are there but there is never an end. I asked different teachers what can I do to get merit points. They replied by just walking away.

Let me just put it this way. When a teacher can run out of things to scold you with and resort to ranting about this system to the class which is also a victim of, you know you have a problem.