However, he disagreed with every grade and every comment. He refused to stop writing on the midterm when the signal was given and I reduced the grade and explained the facts of life as the rule about stopping writing when you are told is on the booklet right before the no pee breaks rule.(They really have that rule)
The writing center let me know that they were concerned he was trying to plagiarize. Really! Has anyone been phoned by the writing center about this? It was a first for me.
Now he's back in my office about his grade last term. Surprise! He does not like his grade and sat in my office working things out on his phone because his calculation trumps my spread sheet.
"Go ask to look at your final."
"Just tell me why..."
"I do not remember. Go look at what you did."
He has asked to see the final, and the chair. I smell the grade challenge next. But wait, I just opened this email:
Hi,
If I have 76.35% in my total marks, and I only need 0.65 to go to the next grade, how can you help me?
This is his calculation, not mine. I have already told him if it came out as a split grade he would have been given the higher of the two. It didn't. The problem was that that the writing center at the uni will not help students prepare for a final. As a result, I finally graded work that was really his. The final sucked.
Bring on the grade appeal buddy.
oh my GOD these students!!
ReplyDeleteIt's the grade grubbers. I no longer respond to any email that is asking me to consider a bump from B+ to A-.
The kids who email me, have their parents or spouses email me, argue every single fucking point in the hopes that it will convey a grade that PRETENDS they are good students when really they are pretentious, superficial bastards.
Good writing and smart planning receives good grades. Grubbing and crying and heckling do NOT.
I hate this kid on your behalf.
I didn't mind reviewing grades in some circumstances. For example, if a student had a family to support and all that prevented them from graduating and finding a job was a border-line grade in my course, I might find an extra percent or so to help them along.
DeleteFor people like them, there was something more important at stake and those extra marks, in the long run, probably weren't a proper indication of what sort of worker they would be.
Two words: pepper spray.
ReplyDeleteTwo more words: court order.
What, no stapler?
DeleteA stapler isn't the best tool when you want the student to GO AWAY.
DeleteYou don't have to staple the student to anything immovable.
DeleteBut how do you otherwise get them to hold still long enough to get the staples in, in the first place?
DeleteYou fix them with your gimlet-eyed stare, of course.
DeleteDon't forget the gimlet.
Why do these plagiarists and grade-grubbers spend so much time and effort trying to work the system instead of reading, writing, and learning the material?
ReplyDeleteBecause of the same reason many students would rather memorize than reason: it's much easier. Plus, they get results this way, since far too many teachers cave much too readily. But then, with the disappearance of tenure, is this any wonder?
DeleteI was just having this conversation yesterday with one of our student services folks. She related several tales of students who literally just looked at their (failing) semester grades on January 8th and wanted to know what they could do. When she told them "Nothing. The semester's over," one got mad at her to the point where she finally had to ask him, "How is being mad at me going to change the fact that you didn't go to class or do the work to pass?"
DeleteShe feels (and I agree) that we see so many students who have been hand-held all the way through school, starting in kindergarten. When things got tough, someone usually intervened to smooth the path. That's not happening college (at least not in my classes). Do the work assigned, do it passably well, pass the class with a C. Fuck around, fuck the homework, fuck the papers, well, you're not likely to get a C, are you? This semester, out of 43 students, 11 got lower than a C (the lowest grade possible for credit for the core class)and of those, 6 were flat-out Fs. All 11 of them neglected to do most of the assigned writing practice associated with the larger papers, and two of them flunked the last paper because they didn't follow the directions. Of the ones who passed with a C, most were at 74%, which is skin-of-the-teeth. The sad thing is that a 25.5% "failure" rate is within the norm. All but 1 or 2 of the ones who flunked were more than capable of passing with a C.
We are open admissions, and as the squeeze increases (we are competing with a tech school across the street and a 4-year campus about 20 minutes up the road for a shrinking pool of HS graduates), I think my percentage of non-passing students is only going to go up.
Yes, this starts early. My husband teaches middle school. One of his students had quite poor behavior, and so he indicated as much on her report card. In comes mommy, who wanted him to delete the comment so the student could get into a fancy private school. He refused. On three separate occasions. A few weeks later, the principal showed up, asking if he'd be willing to remove it (why she agreed with the mother, I don't know). My husband looked at the report card and noted that 5 of the student's other teachers had made the same comment. Sarcastically, he remarked, "If they all remove it, then so will I," never imagining they'd all agree. Unfortunately, in a matter of minutes, they all did. So in a few years, this kid's coming our way, with a clean record and all.
Delete@Ursula: perhaps they all wanted the kid (and his mother) out of their classrooms/the school? That's the best I can come up with.
DeleteEvery now and then, whenever students snivel to me that they want to be exempted from the rules, I've been tempted to say: "I will make an exception for you, if you get every one of the 100 other students in the class to sign a petition that you deserve to be an exception to the rules, and they don't." I don't dare ever say this, of course, since I know full well that many of them will try it.
DeleteI've had this student (fortunately only once or twice). I agree that it's good news that he's moved on to the formal grade appeal process. At least that gets him out your office, and allows you to get on with the new semester.
ReplyDelete