If the dog ate your homework, read this
A community college English teacher tries to impart a life lesson to students who can, but don't, try hard enough.
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| Photo: MissFarah.com |
We began the semester with 36 students. I predicted on the first day that I would probably wind up giving grades to half that many. Had I been more strict about dropping people whose attendance was erratic and whose assignments weren't coming in, I would have been right. But I let lots of students slide. I didn't drop people who weren't showing up, nor did I drop the people who weren't doing the work. That was no favor because now I'm forced to give grades that will narrow future options for people who might have gone further, had they only tried. If you were one of the students who missed more than five or six classes, or who failed to turn in most of the assignments, you need to ask yourself if you're making good use of your time. There are always excuses for not showing up, or not turning work in. I've heard them all. But lives built on excuses generally don't turn out well.
FULL ARTICLE LA Times
An interesting perspective from someone who stumbled early in his academic career but made the most of his second chance and then was on the front line of a "second chance" college for 30 years.
What a great line: "lives built on excuses generally don't turn out well."
ReplyDeleteIf I had read this article last semester, I would have given a copy to each of my first year composition students. Almost half of them failed. I've never had such a high failure rate. Aside from a couple of students who (sadly) had been socially promoted beyond their capabilities, the ones who failed either didn't attend class, or they didn't hand in assignments, or both. None of them argued with me about their grades; they just solemnly, passively accepted their Fs. I find their fatalistic attitude bizarre; it's as though they can't see any connection between their own actions/lack thereof and their failure in school.
ReplyDelete@aemillia
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience in my one remaining on campus class.
For the past two years, students would bomb the midterm, fail (or fail to submit!) the major papers, but continue with reasonably good attendance (>80%) and offer nary a peep when their failing grades were posted.
In a bizarre twist, this past term, my one on-campus class had virtually NO participation even after previous experiences prompted me to add a (small) grade credit for actual participation. They saw a grade posted for each class. (Mercifully, the roster was capped at a max of 20 students making this manageable.)
But, defying all logic, this particular class ALL PASSED!
Yeah, 85% of them were silent during class. Not everyone passed the midterm or final or did spectacularly on the two papers. But the majority of the class did solid work. Those that failed a test/paper did it only once and right at the pass/fail line so other work was sufficient to pull out a passing grade.
For the record, this is a private SLAC.
As for my online classes (for different institutions), EACH class has at least a couple of students who are pissing and moaning over every point.