Dear students, here is another pearl of wisdom to store away for a rainy day. Distributing D's and F's is, has always been, and will always be WAY more traumatic for your teacher than it is for you. Do you know why? Because if you ended up with an F (especially if you've received an F in the same class more than once) you probably don't care very much. Yes, everyone has a bad semester. Yes, everyone excels at different things. But folks, if you really cared, you'd be in my office every day like some other students. And guess what? You weren't.
I know you don't believe me when I say this, but grading is traumatic. You like to think we're all out to get you, make you feel stupid, trick you on the exams, and that we frame the worst exams and make fun of them in our spare time. Only two of those things are true. Just kidding, NONE of them are true. We are on your side!
Why do you think we teach? It certainly isn't for the glamour. It's not for the spacious offices or the shiny new buildings. And guess what? Even though we "get the summers off" most of us work through them, carting you around Europe trying to make sure that only a few of you end up in the ER and that the injuries are kept to a minimum. Even when we're "not working," we are. Do you think there's only one textbook out there? Do you think the syllabi magically appear? Do you think I can go online and find a syllabus, texts, writing prompts, lecture notes, and historical information for my literature survey course? No. So, believe me when I tell you that we teach you because we really do want you to learn this stuff.
So, yet another semester has come to a close. I have failed several students for the second time, some for the first. And guess what? I've spend the last three hours in this office trying to rework my grading system to bump you up as much as I can. I have curved tests, rounded up all semester, excused your lowest missed assignment, and even given some grace points on things that I shouldn't have. There's only so much I can do for you. And so, grades have been turned in and now I will brace myself for the emails and phone calls (please don't send your parents after me, you're a grown up in training now and mommy should let you handle this one on your own). Believe me, it hurts me to give you an F.....but when I look back at the semester as a whole and I see that you never turned in any homework, can I really help it? Food for thought.
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