Oy.
Every once in a while, I share this video with those in the teaching profession…sounds like it’s time again…Enjoy!
^Oh, yeah. That’s a classic.
In college, I had a work study assignment in the grad school of Social Work.
There were 3 of us assigned together during finals to receive papers tests and notes for the profs.
We were given strict rules by the department: “everything goes through the date and time stamp”. Mail, homework, post-it’s, EVERYTHING.
So we would tell each student, as they were turning in work, “Thank you. Your timestamp is ‘date’ at ‘time’.
At the end of the semesters, because we were lowly students, we were often threatened about not time stamping their work, pleading and being cajoled, cried upon, laughed at, etc. because their prof didn’t need to have work time-stamped.
These were grad students ( I had to keep reminding myself of that because I couldn’t believe it.)
I had a young woman who was turning in her paper, and, as I took the paper, I erroneously made the comment: “it’s in pencil, and it’s written on torn-out notebook paper”. (The Macintosh had come out, and free typewriters and Apple 11e’s were available in the library and all the departments. In my major we were not allowed to turn in anything that wasn’t typed and with minimal errors.)
The other two work-study students looked up at me and made a face like “oh-no”.
The student then proceeded to ask for her paper back, which I gave to her after I time-stamped it. She argued with me about not having a computer, not having a pen, not having printer paper, etc. I painfully listened.
My broken record line was “You can speak to the professor about that”.
She then reeled around and yelled at me that I had no right to tell her what to do.
She tore the time-stamp off of her paper and left the rest of the paper with us.
My coworker timestamped what was left of the paper. (She had more experience than I did in the school of social work.)
Of course, that student filed a complaint, that day, about us and procedures used in the School of Social work. She lied to the professor and stated that we had refused to accept her typed paper and, as evidence, brought in the time-stamp corner piece. The Department Chair asked us what happened, and my co-worker produced the rest of the paper. He said, “It’s in pencil! And, it’s been torn out of a notebook!”
I once considered, as a parent, encouraging DS to dispute a grade, but he resisted and, in the end, he was right.
He had a neurologist’s note that he should not be tested until he was cleared after a hockey concussion. His teacher knew that. She decided to shame him, by saying, in front of the class, that “we will have to wait for xxx to take this test before you learn your grades, unless he decides that he doesn’t want to be that kid.” So, he agreed to take the test, did poorly, and ultimately received a B in the class. I was livid that he’d get a B that he really didn’t deserve, in a class that he had worked hard on (he’s a STEMish kid; history is not his strong suit), but his approach was to take the AP test (got a 5) and take the SAT Subject test (got a 780). It didn’t keep him out of Yale.
That said, the teacher’s attitude still frosts my shorts, but DS got more out of the experience than an A in history would have given him: being self-sufficient and a non-whiner. All’s well that ends well.
@IxnayBob Not taking a test during a concussion is not whining. It’s a serious health issue. What a terrible teacher.
I don’t think that story is what the OP is referring to. In your instance, I would have gone over my son’s head and filed a complaint against the teacher. How DARE that teacher shame an ill child? I’m glad it worked out well for your son.
@gearmom and @techmom99, I agree with you, but sometimes the end result is different than what we expected.
Of course the teacher was a self-involved brute. Of course, that was the last time we donated to the private HS. Of course any reasonable parent would have been bristling with anger that a teacher would disregard medical advice, putting the child at risk of further complications (it was a very serious concussion).
However, DS came out of it with a better understanding of the unfair power sometimes applied in the classroom. I think it made him a better TA. Even a TA gets to hear all of the excuses in the book (back to the thread topic 
), and I think it helped him be a fair judge of the excuses (to the extent a TA ever decides these things).
Btw, I made my impression of the teacher known, behind the scenes and later, without directly going against my son’s wishes. Nobody ever said parenting decisions were easy and unambiguous.
IxnayBob your appreciation of the unexpected benefits of your son accepting the teacher’s abuse may work for your family with an acute situation. Some of us have kids with chronic conditions with the potential to endure similar scenarious throughout life, and they need to deal with it very differently than your son- and parents need to as well.
Just like students, teachers are not all perfect saints in behavior every day. I’m hoping both sides show compassion when warranted while upholding appropriate boundaries and deadlines.
@compmom, I’m sorry for having taken this thread OT, and will leave it alone, but I can’t go without saying two things regarding your post #68:
- The son referenced did not “accept the teacher’s abuse.” He resisted by proving that he deserved a different grade and by showing how wrong her actions were, but not by pleading with her for a different grade and giving her power he didn’t feel she deserved. Note that, ordinarily, he wouldn’t have taken the US History SAT; he did it as a rebuke to her (and to let AOs know that the grade was a mistake; show, don’t tell).
- I have another son, a trans male, with a host of related and unrelated issues. Trust me that I appreciate that different kids and different circumstances call for different parental actions, and that I’m not always silent.
True story:
I received a surprisingly low grade in a grad school course, considering the scale defined in the syllabus. After checking with the college dean to verify the grad school’s grading policy, I pulled myself together and sent a carefully worded email to the course instructor asking what I had done wrong, and what I should do better next time. From the grade, it looked like I had flat-out failed the final paper.
The professor replied that after looking up my grade, she realized that she hadn’t entered anyone’s final grades correctly because of her own confusion with the university’s grading software. I didn’t just save my grade, I saved everyone’s.
Sometimes these things do happen. Sometimes it is worth asking.
It is usually worth asking. Because what do you have to loose by sending “a carefully worded email to the course instructor asking what I had done wrong, and what I should do better next time”?
The teacher’s actions were illegal and every time something like that is tolerated, I feel it sets back the rights of others who follow. But that’s me. That’s my only other post on this. Maybe we need a “#me too” for this kind of thing.
The college students who are the subject of the original post did not wake up at the age of 20 and decide to try these novel excuses. They are trying them because they have succeeded with them in the past, usually repeatedly. For that we should all ask for more from our K-12 education.
Parents contacting their state legislator to put pressure on the state college to raise junior’s grade.
My friend gets a lot of these - the amazing ones come from people who didn’t even bother to come to class or several tests - she is very understanding about extenuating circumstances when she knows ahead of time (job interview for senior, etc) but telling her after the fact why student missed test several weeks ago…not so much.
I hate to ask - did that really happen? Sadly, it sounds like it must have. I suppose we should be happy they didn’t make a federal case out of it.
@techmom99 Friend is a prof at a local state college. He told me it happened to him. The dean actually urged him to change his grade. He complained to the union and the matter was dropped. The grade stayed the same.
I read a paper about grading recently – the conclusions were that “grade inflation” is also a product of the way grades have become more important to students over time. Ignore the case where a student isin’t showing up or turning in any work for the moment. If a student is genuinely working hard in class, coming to office hours, attempting everything asked even if some results fall short, do you really want to be the teacher who makes them lose their scholarship and possibly their chance to finish their degree?
http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~ehutt/Making_the_Grade.pdf
People who say that “a failure is a learning experience” are ignoring the realities how much grades matter outside the classroom – why does a high GPA in your science general education classes matter for getting into the business school? It’s not always logical how your grades will be used after the class is over.
The importance of GPA can have the effect of students wanting to learn deeply to keep their grades up, we also see a lot of students with the attitude, “I’ve gotta jump through this hoop with an A or B+, what’s the easiest way to do that?” Sometimes kids are right – it is just a hoop to have to pass a geology class while keeping a 3.7 GPA to get into the business school. Sometimes they’re wrong – like the future premed who doesn’t understand why chemistry is so important. But the end result is the same – a greater focus on how to get the grade than on how to learn.