Wednesday, December 18, 2013

the wailing begins

Barely an hour after posting my grades, I got two text messages from students—one distraught, the other disgruntled. The distraught student had received an "F"; the disgruntled one had thought he deserved a "B," but had instead received a "C." I don't have my grade file with me; I'd need to go back to the office to see why these students got the grades they got. In the distraught student's case, it was because her semester was a long parade of "D"s and "F"s, culminating in "F"s for two major tests. I told the disgruntled student to text me again tomorrow. I gave the distraught student evidence of her performance from an incomplete spreadsheet that I had on my laptop.

I expect more shrill text messages to come throughout the rest of today, but unless I've made a bonehead mistake somewhere, it's highly doubtful that I'll be changing grades for anyone.

And that, as Forrest Gump said, is all I have to say about that.


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3 comments:

Charles said...

Ah, the Wailing Time. This is one thing that I thankfully do not have to deal with. Good luck dealing with the banshees.

Kevin Kim said...

And how do you manage to avoid the screams of damned souls? Is it because you teach only grad students and they all do "A/B" work?

I remember those halcyon days when I taught non-credit courses and never had to deal with this nonsense.

Charles said...

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. The idea of teaching undergrads frightens me for many reasons; this is one of them.