Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Instructor rant



Details will not be following.... but I rant nonetheless.

Would you like to know one reason why modern public school is failing so miserably? Find an instructor and ask him/her these questions...

"Have you ever gotten in trouble because a student passed the course? Ever?"

"Have you ever been called on the carpet because a student failed the course? "

Yup.... it's entirely, 100%, one sided. If a student fails, usually for any reason, there can be hell to pay. Nobody ever complains when one passes. Little bobby was in drug rehab half the marking period, and in county jail the rest of it. What do you mean he failed? Are you sure you tried everything? Did you try just changing his grade to passing out of sympathy?

Sure... I'm exaggerating; Or maybe I'm not.


6 comments:

Unknown said...

I do not think for one second that you are exaggerating.....and that is sad.

Earl said...

I was once a Drill Sergeant and thought my goal was to train soldiers I could proudly serve with in combat - but I expected that one third of my platoon wouldn't graduate within the training period. Did that for three years on the trail, but I knew I was not long for that world when a commander next door declared he was going to make sure a 100% of his soldiers would graduate. He wasn't thinking of them, nor leading them into combat.

Anonymous said...

Passing the trash. But it saves time and trouble. Pick your battles.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I do have a teacher that got in trouble for passing people. My Zoology teacher has recently gotten into trouble because every last one of his students in the period I'm in got an "A". Despite the fact that the class was already pretty damn hard, he's being pushed by the administration to make his class harder, even though it was using a college-level syllabus.

It is a freaking HONORS class. There are smart, diligent people in it. Add that to the fact that it's an OPTIONAL class, so only people who WANT it sign up for it. Of course people will get good grades!

PRH said...

Living with a long time teacher, she would(and does) agree with you 100%....

Anonymous said...

I have been the target of this exact issue. For sometime I taught macroeconomics at a JC. I failed a student. She complained that I was a terrible teacher. So, the next quarter she took the exact same class from the head of the econ department. I agreed that I would change her grade to whatever she scored in his class. She got a D-. I was totally in the right. And, her performance was evidence of that. However, I was the one put under the microscope by the school administration. And, after 3 yrs of teaching the class, because of this issue, they decided I wasn't qualified to teach the class. I never taught there again.
I learned my lesson. People don't want the truth. They want to feel good and be successful.

SWModel66