Points for virtues?

It's really quite unbelievable how people come up with educational measures to quantify student's abilities and attitudes. Using points to assess ability is still rather acceptable for certain subjects, but attitude?!?!?!

So now we award points for students' greeting their elders? So should we also awards points to those who give teachers gifts on Teacher's day? Perhaps that would spark off a gift expenditure competition among students. I wouldn't mind recieving an air ticket to the Maldives.

I'm more impressed by those who take initiative, and those do the necessary without asking/reminding. It is display of bonding with the community, sense of belonging and proper social etiquette which of course is much much more valuable than 10 A1s or whatsoever. Unfortunately, schools are quite unable to give recognition to these students, since much of the hype is still with the academic paper chase. And as teachers, I must agree that academics does offer the students more choices in life especially when it comes to professional jobs to do with literacy and exclusive skills. Schools also offer a psuedo-community environment for students to operate in, a safety net for mistakes to be made and corrected, without which, could surface more social issues in adulthood.

Most of the teachers will agree with me that most students are a pleasant bunch to have around. Inevitably, problems come when there's a clash of ideas/priorities.

Scene 1
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Teacher = deliver lesson and make sure students learn and do well
Student = waiting for school to end and go out to play, disinterested in learning

Scene 2
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Teacher = finished teaching the harmful effects of smoking
Student = hiding in the toilet after recess, smoking

Kids will always be kids.