It's nearly the end of the semester.... and as any teacher knows, they are suddenly the most popular person on campus. Imagine, 120 inquiring minds smiling shyly at you, all wondering the same thing. "What's my grade?"
Grades are posted online and can be checked by the students at any time. I guessing the thinking is that if the student asks the teacher, the teacher might somehow figure out the low grade is somehow a huge mistake.
This is also the time of year where teachers start bothering each other about grade percentages in their classes. As a first year teacher, it can seem a bit shocking at first as to how many students will fail. After all, while in school you did not. Nor did you really know anyone who did except for the minescule number of "stoners." In my memory, this was a small single digit number. Obviously, if a student is failing it is the teachers fault - for the grandstanding by unions, I still take each failure personally. What could I have done differently? Am I a horrible failure as a teacher? How could it have gone so wrong? We all think this, and then we all start checking with each other, checking the numbers of passing vs. failure, who's doing what, what's working, what can be done as a last ditch effort. It's somewhat depressing. But it's the end of semester - it won't be back until next year.
Grades are posted online and can be checked by the students at any time. I guessing the thinking is that if the student asks the teacher, the teacher might somehow figure out the low grade is somehow a huge mistake.
This is also the time of year where teachers start bothering each other about grade percentages in their classes. As a first year teacher, it can seem a bit shocking at first as to how many students will fail. After all, while in school you did not. Nor did you really know anyone who did except for the minescule number of "stoners." In my memory, this was a small single digit number. Obviously, if a student is failing it is the teachers fault - for the grandstanding by unions, I still take each failure personally. What could I have done differently? Am I a horrible failure as a teacher? How could it have gone so wrong? We all think this, and then we all start checking with each other, checking the numbers of passing vs. failure, who's doing what, what's working, what can be done as a last ditch effort. It's somewhat depressing. But it's the end of semester - it won't be back until next year.
Comments