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Friday, January 1, 2010

The bitching begins

This will be a short post, because I don't want to deal with it (and feel a bit sick to my stomach about the whole thing), but I have three student e-mails saying "I don't think the grade I got is fair; it's a shock; how could I get the grade I did; can't I do something to get a better grade?" I'm just going to send each one a grade detail, so each sees why the grade was given and take it from there. But I HATE this shit.
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3 comments:

  1. ChristinaJanuary 2, 2010 at 1:31 PM

    I have a simple solution: ignore them. In the last few days of class, I tell them exactly where I'll be and when if they want to figure out their grades on their own and discuss them with me. I remind them how to figure it out, showing them how to do math. I tell them that final grades are final. Then I do not answer my mail from my students. The exception is if an A student contacts me and asks why he or she failed, obviously I made an error, and we work to resolve it. Otherwise, I'm not on duty until January. Neither should you be. Onward!

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  2. Richard Jeffrey NewmanJanuary 3, 2010 at 10:50 AM

    I've gotten three or four of these emails. I don't mind the ones who ask, simply, for an explanation of their grade, especially since, this semester, because I'd been out sick, I could not get their final papers back to them before the end of the semester. It's the ones who write things like this:

    "To be blunt why did i fail i handed in both of the papers and i though they were good and well written."

    Or this, after I told a student he needed to email his paper by the end of the day on Decembe 28 (for reasons that had more to do with my absence and a mistake on my part than with anything he did) and then gave him an F when the paper did not show up:

    "It is not everyday i check my email, once i read it i sent it. I worked strenuously on this research paper and to receive no credits earned is truely unjustified in comparrison to the hours i put in working on my papers. I apologize for the inconvenience but there must be a way to change the grade. I can not accept an F for the work i put in. Pleae out of good decency accept the term paper, i no longer want to worry about this."

    Otherwise, I tend to agree with Christina.

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  3. ToniaJanuary 17, 2010 at 12:28 PM

    Don't you just love it when they say they can not accept the grade they get? OK, don't accept it and see what happens. I feel compelled to answer the e-mails --and I got another this past week-- because I was not around the last two days of the semester and didn't get to talk to them about how the grades are computed before I fled. If I'd been there, they'd know and the arguing would be over. I agree, too, that I don't really mind the ones who just want an explanation, but the ones who fuck up and then don't understand why they fail--and why we can't just change the grade so they can pass anyway--drive me batshit. I think of a friend who works in a very upscale restaurant: a woman was being idiotically demanding, and my friend told me she wanted to say, "Excuse me, Ma'am, would you mind if I strangle you just a little?"

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