I am finally done grading! Some students really piss me off.

[Redleg]

Within minutes of posting the grades on the university intranet, I received e-mails from two students saying "I don't understand why you gave me a C. I was pretty sure I was getting a B."

These two students haven't said diddly-squat all semester- they haven't contributed dick to the class discussions, haven't asked any questions in the class and haven't shown any interest in their grades until the final grades were posted. Now they want me to gift them a higher grade because they were "so close" to getting a B.

Fuck that, I say. I'll have another martini or two tonight and then I will go to bed. I might get around to responding to their e-mails sometime after Christmas.

[Maple]

1. Do you have to respond?

Because if you're not required to, why bother?

They never did.

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. You would have loved me.

I had a couple of classes where I got a B and my reaction was, "Thank you God, I thought I was getting a C!" My grades were all over the place. I was a straight A student in high school and got slammed in college. I had everything from an A+ to a D-. Very humbling experience.

[Redleg]

9. I have students who are happy to get the grades they earned.

And others seem to lack the ability to add up their points and estimate what their grade will be.

[Bouncy Ball]

3. Just out of curiosity

what do you teach?

I love the world of higher learning. Loveitloveitloveit.

[Redleg]

6. I am a management professor.

I teach organizational behavior and human resource management.

[Bouncy Ball]

10. Wha? What?

Sorry, I fell asleep there for a second. Last thing I heard was "management."

Just kidding! I majored in English and am about to start grad school, but I never took a business course in my life. Actually your description sounds pretty good......so are they all future CEOs? LOL!

[Redleg]

13. I doubt most of them will be CEOs.

There are some bright, motivated, decent people in my classes. I think they will either accomplish a lot in business or they will become tired of the bullshit in the business world and will become business professors.

Believe it or not, I am a behavioral scientist posing as a business professor!

[Bouncy Ball]

14. Well now THAT'S fascinating!

Seriously. I always loved psychology and behavioral science.

[Redleg]

15. It's good stuff. Plus I get to influence my students to be humane.

I can sneak my Democratic values into class in subtle ways.

[jellybelly]

16. so the repugs are right!

keep sneaking away:toast:

[Bouncy Ball]

21. Pssst (come here)

when I was still in the classroom, I did the same thing, only my guys were a bit younger. I strongly encouraged them to be critical thinkers, be open minded and compassionate, and we did an entire grading period on the uses of propaganda.

MUWAHAHAHA.

[Redleg]

22. Excellent. No wonder the conservatives are so jealous of us educators.

Screw 'em if they ain't smart enough to work in academia.

[Tweed]

28. Human Resource Management is a piece of cake

Or at least my intro HR class was when I took it. I don't know how you run your class, but if you particpate, it's a piece of cake. I will be the first to say that grade inflation is a huge problem across the country. I have gotten higher grades than I should have gotten in many classes.

[NNadir]

4. Why not wait a few years to respond to their emails?

You might feel better then.

[Redleg]

5. Actually, I feel better now after two Bombay Sapphire martinis.

I jst cant type worht sht.

[NNadir]

8. LOL. Why don't you call the students and ask them if they want to play

keyboard roulette. Maybe you can change their grades to a Q.

[Redleg]

12. LOL.

After another martini I'll be open for anything.

[NJCher]

18. Hahah, I'm on my third Frangelico

I've had the calls, too. I've carefully worded my syllabus so I can nail them for that lack of participation thing.

I hate it when they're all take and no give and then have the nerve to call about their grade.


Cher

[Redleg]

19. I like your style.

I am willing to discuss grades with students who contribute and who give a shit during the semester. These knuckleheads that wait until the end have a problem.

[Nikia]

7. I did that once

I thought that I was firmly into B territory, maybe even B+ but I got a B-. I emailed to ask why. It turns out that I got a C for participation even though I was trying to participate as much as possible (Evidently those people who interrupted everyone all the time were the one's getting As for participation.). I also found out that my lab partner and I got a D for our group discussion leadership, which I didn't think was great but I didn't think was that much worse than anyone else (He got the evaluation paper and didn't share it with me). If you did give a participation grade, perhaps they were unaware of that or what your standards were.

[Redleg]

11. The participation scores were determined by their team members.

The bad thing is that my school doesn't give plus or minus grades. I wish they did.

[lenidog]

17. I agree with you

but sometimes you have to get a feel for instructors or profs. I dropped a "Intro to Sociology" class because I knew I wasn't going to get an A no matter how hard I worked. I had a slight flaw in the eyes of the prof, I was male. She hated to things on this planet men and Republicans. I could agree with the second but the bit was a first hard to deal with on a day to day basis. I dropped her and then when I changed schools, took the class again with Mrs Trimitere (I mention her name because she was an AMAZING PROF and HUMAN BEING.) I loved that class.

[Thor_MN]

20. If it's any consolation, I hated all my classmates who would lobby

for a higher grade after the tests. While I will admit to occasionally arguing that my answer was equally valid, I never argued that I "deserved" a grade. I detested the people that would suck up and say that they should have received a better grade because they worked hard.

[lenidog]

24. Would you consider

sucking up to consist of taking a final if you didn't have to? I had a Prof who said that if you had a C or higher and didn't want to take the final you didn't have to. I had a solid B but figured what the hell the worst that will happen is that I am stuck with the B. So I took the final ( as far as I know I was the only one) and ended up with an A. Though it was strange though, I don't think he actually had a final. He just mashed some quizzes from the past together and called it a final. There were parts that we never studied or went over in it. (I just wrote that as my answer) and some of the questions actually answered some of the other questions.

[Thor_MN]

27. Most certainly not!! Taking a final is not sucking up

Sucking up is whining about how the B- is going to affect your GPA and your entire future and can't you find a way to please give me an A-?? Sucking up is trying to socially engineer a grade you didn't deserve.

Defending the answers that you gave, attempting to prove that they are as equally valid as the answer the prof was looking for is NOT sucking up. Taking an optional final is NOT sucking up.

My favorite classes were the ones that taught you to think, not the ones that taught you to memorize a list of answers that were gone from your mind the second the test was over.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

23. yeah, respond with an email bomb... fuck em

[Kat45]

25. When I was in school, I never talked in class because I was extremely shy.

I wish I had because I would have contributed a lot to discussions as one of the few working class kids in a school of upper middle class kids. I also would have gotten more from the classes. But I was so shy and self-conscious that I couldn't bring myself to speak in class, even if there was something I wanted to say. I guess I wasn't marked down for it because I still got A's and B's. I guess I wouldn't have done well in your class.

Edited to add: I do agree with you regarding the kids who suck up or think they "deserve" a grade for no reason. I wouldn't have had the guts to talk to a teacher about my grade, even if I thought it was unfair.

[Redleg]

26. I don't mark students down for not speaking up in class.

I understand that students learn in different ways. I just don't give the benefit of the doubt to students who show little interest in class until the final grades are posted.