Whew! The semester is finally over and I survived intact with three A’s, and most of my students survived too! I finished grading Tuesday and, hopefullly!, finished with fielding questions about final exams and with the begging (and demanding!) for higher grades. My grade distribution turned out pretty skewed towards A’s and B’s, probably because of the optional extra credit paper and the fact that I dropped some of the lowest quiz grades. 15 A’s, 14 B’s, 7 C’s, 3 D’s, and 3 F’s. One of those F’s, though, was someone who apparently forgot to drop the class because I never saw him and he never took any of the quizzes or exams. Aside from Mr. Absentee, I ended with 42 students after starting with 51. Not bad. I think my first time teaching seems to have been a success. At least a few of my students mentioned that they were intellectually stimulated and challenged.
On a different note, it is amazing how the least deserving in the class will come to their professor expecting to be given a higher grade simply because they want it or need it. I had this one student who skipped well over half of the class periods during the first half of the semester. She failed the first exam, managed to improve to a D on the second exam, and barely pulled off a C on the final. She actually started coming to class semi-regularly during the second third and regularly during the last third of the semester. Sure, that shows some improvement and a recognition that she hurt herself in the beginning. She also did the extra credit paper. But it was too little too late. She came up 10 raw points shy of a C for her final grade. One of the reasons was that I don’t think she was doing the reading, and probably not paying attention well in class, as evidenced by still relatively low quiz grades. She claimed she worked so hard to improve her grade, the hardest of anyone in the class, and deserved “a way better grade.” (I’m also a harsh grader, by the way. ;o) ) But obviously she didn’t, and she wanted an undeserved C. Opportunistic egalitarians demanding the undeserved get my hackles up, so needless to say I didn’t give it to her. Besides, where am I going to come up with 10 points to fill the gap? If someone is just one or two or three points away from the next highest grade and he or she has given me reason to suspect that s/he really tried hard, then I might be able to give him/her the benefit of the doubt. I can’t do anything with such a large gap though. Oh, and that girl claimed she went all-out and pulled an all-nighter to study for my exam. Sorry! That just isn’t good enough. Complex material like that of political philosophy takes time to absorb and understand. For someone who has been struggling through the class, one night of intensive studying just ain’t gonna cut it.
Anyway, now that the semester is over I should be posting on here more often and more regularly. Expect the latest version of my “Death and Harm” paper to be uploaded soon!
Geoffrey is an Aristotelian-Libertarian political philosopher, writer, editor, and web designer. He is the founder of the