As my mentors at the time explained to me, it did indeed get easier to give Fs. One of the reasons was linguistic; I stopped saying I was "giving" grades and instead switched to the language of "recording what the student earned." In this case, semantics did make a difference, but, truthfully, in the 15 years since I "recorded" that first F, I have never felt good about it. Contrary to what many students believe, giving — ahem, recording — failures is not fun. Teachers do not celebrate when students fail; and many, myself included, often bend over backward to find ways to allow students to pass. We listen to their stories, their excuses, their reasons, and we give an extension or some extra credit. We work hard — sometimes harder than the students themselves — to help them pass.
It's sad to have to flunk a student, but I have a pre-nursing major who reads and writes on a 6th-grade level, and would be deadly if she were to become a nurse. I therefore do my best to grade fairly, honestly, and appropriately, always. It's easier if you realize you're not grading the student's worth as a person: you're grading the student's performance in your class. I'd do her no favors by giving her inflated grades: she'd burn up large amounts of tuition money and time to find out what I know now, that she should consider some other line of work.
ReplyDelete"We listen to their stories, their excuses, their reasons, and we give an extension or some extra credit."
ReplyDeleteNo. No, I don't. I don't like failing people but I consider it a duty. The way I look at it is this: every time you let someone off the hook with an extension or extra credit, you insult the students who worked hard, improved, and took the class seriously. No wonder there are fewer and fewer serious students. Why bother if professors can be bought off with a sob story or manipulated into giving you special treatment?
A-freaking-men!
DeleteI started scoring students in an environment where their poor performance really could kill themselves and others (in the immediate sense, not the "someday the building will fall down"). Shortly before I began, a student did die. Not specifically attributed to instruction, but he was a mediocre student who died due to lack of skill/judgement. It was easy to fail students in that scenario.
ReplyDeleteNow, death is more removed and distant. But the students don't try as hard, and the failures are less pitiable and more frustrating. Now the challenge is not to be mad at the student for the stupidity, and just let them have the F their actions are requesting.
"Now the challenge is not to be mad at the student for the stupidity, and just let them have the F their actions are requesting."
DeleteYes. This. Precisely.
Here's a sneaky "Thirsty" to you all: Do you give an F to indicate that the student didn't achieve some (vaguely defined) level of competence, or do you give an F only if the student didn't learn **anything**? I have always struggled with this.
ReplyDeleteMy F reflects a failure to achieve a clearly defined level of competence. A tepid C reflects a fairly competent performance of lack of learning.
DeleteMy F also is for not achieving some level of competence, which is precisely defined in my syllabi. A student can get an F in my classes and still learn something, if so inclined: that it's a bad idea to skip more than two weeks of class, not do the homework, not do the readings, etc.
DeleteIt's all based on points, but my college also has an attendance requirement. Students can fail either based on not achieving enough points or by missing too many classes. They have the withdrawal option up to four weeks prior to the end of the term. My department mandates the writing requirements and the final exam to be a minimum percentage of the grade, so if they screw one of those two up badly, it's not going to be pretty.
DeleteWe had our graduation ceremonies this week. I had to watch a young man cross the stage who failed to complete either the research project or the final in the course I'm grading right now. His walk was just that, nothing more.
Your questions have no relation to grading for me, which is odd. I grade for fulfilling an individual assignment. Then the sum of those graded assignments become an overall class grade. Most people fail to follow directions, which makes it easy to determine a B or a C. Others do, which can give them the B+/A-. Then there are the precious few (10% of each class??) who fulfill the assignment AND say something interesting.
DeleteNot sure where competence or learning nothing at all fits into that system.
I give an F if the points don't add up.
DeleteSometimes I give an F with a sigh for a student who tried but wasn't up to the work, or was too immature to do college work. Sometimes I give one with a shrug to a student that clearly didn't care. On rare occasion I give a loud, resounding F for a student that did their absolute best to screw up, who could have gotten a good grade but didn't. Plagiarists fall into this last category. (usually with a THUD)
ReplyDeleteI gave my first F a D.
ReplyDelete