For all you teachers and professors out there…it’s that time of year…
Hilarious! And kind of sad.
Here’s another (not as long):
I have had that conversation…a lot of times.
Who taught students that “I am worried about my grade” is a viable request? I hear that fairly often, and the speaker usually expects the response to be me fixing things.
My H is a high school teacher…he’s heard it way too many times as well.
Particularly frustrating when he makes himself available everyday during lunch and after school for help, and provides many opportunities to improve a grade throughout the semester.
I don’t get amazed any more. I do get sad when a student honestly has no idea what college is about, and doesn’t understand that they have to reach out, the help will not come to them. I also wonder how many had helicopter parents in HS, and now don’t know what to do.
Many students do not belong in college at age 17 or 18 and would benefit from pre-college or some other sort of preparation. But colleges want money. We have some students retake courses four or five times, and the college reaps the monetary benefit of it.
Sadly, we don’t get paid more, administrators do.
Who should provide that preparation? Assuming that a student has graduated from high school, but is still not ready and needs more, where does the more come from, other than the calendar?
:Well, I just got that email. Basically, “I know the final portfolio is due tomorrow. I really would like a B overall [computes impossible grade which she’d have to get on portfolio]. Can I do some extra credit?” (She never got higher than a C on any essay). She’s a lovely young woman who’s vivacious in class (but off topic and glancing at her phone a lot of the time.) It’s puzzling, the disconnect here.
Maybe the grade-grubbing works some of the time so she keeps trying it?
Well, she’s a first semester freshman, so I think she really hasn’t had a chance to see it work in college. Maybe it did in HS?
If she’s a first semester freshman, she has time to learn how things work in college. I hope you gave her the smackdown gently.
Of course. I like her a lot. She maneuvered to get into my class for second semester. I would love to see her writing get up to B or better level!
This is my life right now. I just had a student who has been AWOL since midterm asking me to get her in touch with her group project members as they weren’t responding to her emails. Um, the project was due a week ago.
One thing I don’t understand is why some students think that “caring about my grades” is some big virtue the instructor should be impressed by. Everyone cares about grades, even terrible students. I want them to care about learning, not grades.
My other pet peeve is when I get an email, “Sorry I wasn’t in class. Did I miss anything?” Yes, you’ve missed something all right.
^“No, not at all. We just watched cat videos.”
It’s the end of the marking period in my school.
I just emailed it to 5 o 6 of my colleagues.
Thanks for the laugh!