The worst part about teaching besides the students... (insert smile here) is (drumroll), grading. And yes, of course, as an English teacher, grading en masse is to be expected, but what I'm really alluding to here is the subjective nature of assigning a "value" to the product designed by another person. Yes there are guidelines and yes, there are exceptions to every rule, but there is no gentle way to break to a student who "busts her ass" to get that "A," that she isn't getting it, by the small margin of 11 points. Digest that for a moment if you will. 11 points. When I wrote my comments on her research paper, I explained the reasons behind the grade and she would agree, I am almost certain, that all of her other work was a combination of both excellent critical thinking and superior writing. Unfortunately, there were a couple of bumps along the way and those ultimately caused the point total to top out where it is. Clearly you see the dilemma; both the struggle in my brain and in my heart and wrapped in that, the distinct criteria that I had established in order to avoid said dilemma. But, alas, there is one or two of these situations every term. There is a student who continuously falls right on the "cusp" of the higher grade and, disappointingly, she does not get it.
I would not lose any sleep over giving her the higher grade, over adding a few extra points in the total for her participation, attendance, for her effort. I really wouldn't, not in this case. It would be simple to just punch in the letter "A" instead of "B." Who would know? Aside from those of you who are reading this, no one. And, by doing so, I may have inspired this student to work harder, even harder than she did this summer to acheive those kinds of excellent marks in the future. But, you already know what I'm going to say, you know what I'm going to do, what I've already done and it was not an act of moral superiority or "rightness." It was not an act that defines me as anything other than a person who struggles with difficult decisions and who does take into consideration the fact that each student is different and each situation is different. And maybe ten years ago, I would have looked at the situation from a much more limited perspective. That, however, is not the case now. Now it is merely a task that may be highly unpleasant, but at the same time, is both necessary and fair. In all fairness to this student and to every other student who is "right there," this is a situation that is designed to teach a life lesson as much as it is to teach a content based one...
In college, I had to take two semesters of American Literature, which I LOVED, maybe more than life itself. And, I was fortunate to have the same professor for both courses. I remember that during the first semester, in the "early" section of the literature, this professor dissected every statement I made in every single paper. It was like a writing anatomy lesson, "Okay Yvette, but this belongs here and this makes this work better and this... blah, blah, blah." Yeah, yeah I thought as he assigned me C's on my first two papers. C's!!!!! I have nothing against C's, in fact, when I have deserved them (Statistics :0 ), I have accepted them with no real disagreement. But, I busted my ass and my brain and I thought that I had done everything that he asked and still, average; your thoughts are average. That's what I walked away with. I spoke with him and he very clearly explained what I wasn't doing correctly and as time passed, I started to see that my writing was not expressing where my thinking was. I was writing like I was having a conversation with a friend and that conversation was all over the place. Interestingly, he let me, and others, rewrite our papers, but he would not change the grade. He read them and continued to make comments, but he wouldn't budge in this regard. It's an easy analogy to make; imagine your surgeon working on your torn ACL, you want them to get it right the first time. And, you want it to be an "A" job, not a re-do, hoping that the next time they'll get it "right." English papers are not medicine or "life or death", but the thinking behind analysis is done and required by most every field that I can think of, not to mention by those that might not even seem to require it. Needless to say, I learned a great deal that semester and I got a "B" in that course. I worked hard for that grade and in the end, I knew that I deserved it. I wonder though, if he had come to me and said that I was only 11 points from an "A" would I have seen that "B" as a failure or would I have simply chalked it up to another experience in which I wasn't treated fairly; would I cry and scream and be disappointed? Or, would I take it in stride and tell myself that the grade was a reflection of where I was THEN and that, like it or not, if I valued this professor's opinion and if I thought him a credible judge of my work, then I simply accepted that assessment and moved forward. Which is exactly what I did. And, the next semester, I earned an "A" in his class. Of course, I had something to prove, if only to myself...
I find it distressing and sadly amusing when students beg for grades. I mean, I cannot even remotely fathom how a student can come to me and ask for a grade that he hasn't deserved just because he "needs" it for some purpose, like avoiding athletic probation or increasing the average of his GPA. Amusing is not really the right descriptor here because the implication is that the power that I wield, at my discretion, is done with some kind of intent to harm or to "teach a lesson," in order to amuse myself, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about a student who was told specifically of the criteria and then who blatantly ignores it or disregards it and then who expects me to comply so that he can transfer to the school of his choice. I mean, where in the rule book of life is the line, "If you don't get what you want, beg for it, even when you haven't earned it or when you don't deserve it." I must have missed that section. The thought of emailing my American Literature professor REPEATEDLY, begging for a grade makes me sick to my stomach, no matter how badly I needed the grade; no matter how desperate I was.
So I sit here, having just submitted my grades for summer school, digesting the information that some of those grades will have a serious impact on academic careers and some will force students to reconsider their plans for the Fall semester and even, for the future. I sit here and think about this and I really wonder about the student who is so close to the "A." If I asked her, would she want me to make the change, would she want the "A" even just by a mere margin of 11 points? Or, would she think about it and look over her work and the course and the criteria and accept where she is, right now, without remorse? Yes, she will be disappointed and surely, she will think back over all of the pieces that she wrote for me, asking herself where she could have made up that 11 points and possibly, the word "unfair" will spring to her lips. But, maybe rather coldly, I cannot be concerned with what her reaction will be; I can only hope that she takes this opportunity to self-evaluate and to come out stronger in the end. I can only hope that her disappointment leads her to write even better in the future and to be proud of her ability to have improved in such a short period of time. But I do that, not with a heavy heart; I do that with the knowledge that I've upheld my part and that I've done my job as objectively as I could and that, when she sees that grade, she will know deep down, that it was assigned fairly. It's hard not to take things like grading personally. But just remember this, it is your work that I am grading, not you. It is just about the work.
In the end, what are you if not the sum of evaulations done by yourself and by people whose opinions you value? If we do not consider the evaluations of others, how can we be expected to improve, to grow and to learn? Maybe all we can do as educators is continue, if we do that, to maintain that strong line of fairness and objectivity and to disallow the notion that if we "like" a student then adding in 11 points is really no big deal. It is a very big deal, one that will plague me whether I want it to or not. One that might make me rethink an evaluation, but not to change it. So when you take my class, if you take a class that I teach, know that I may not be the kindest or the most entertaining teacher, but I will be fair and at the end of the day, you will get the grade that you have earned; not that I assigned, but that you earned...
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