Last semester I gave four Fs. I didn’t feel bad about it, sans one, because they were all directly related to poor attendance. The worst writer in my class was no overachiever by any means, but she never missed a day or an assignment, and she finished the class with a respectable 80/B, which is no different on a grade card than an 89/B. She earned and deserved it, and the students who received Fs earned their grades, as well.
I’ve heard a teacher in the department say, “In all my years of teaching, I’ve never given a D or an F,” and I wonder how that is possible. In a graduate class, I can understand; the students are in school for a different reason and have different approaches to assignments and actually attaining course objectives, but that is not the case in our general education classes. I would have been doing those students a grave disservice had I not given them the grade they earned, much like if I would have given a student who had earned a 93/A a B because I didn’t think he or she deserved it. Show me the difference. If a student does not apply him or herself to the course, the failing grade is on his or her shoulders. Fully.
Also last semester, one of my Fs was a junior with great writing skills who stopped coming to class after the Research Paper Unit. Later, toward the end of the semester, she told me she was doing her research on Bipolar Disorder because her aunt suffered from it, and as she was doing her research, she discovered that she, too, had the incurable disorder, became depressed, and stopped coming to class. She also told me that if she received an F for the class, she would lose her scholarship and be booted from the university. Now, as a first-semester GA, I was a bit in over my head; this girl had just given me an unfortunate sob story and basically put her future (if she was telling the truth) into my hands. What was I to do?
On Dead Day, I was fortunate enough to have lunch with the head of the Music Department. I hadn’t told him the story about the student, but we somehow got on the subject of what it’s like seeing old students, sometimes years after they’ve left your classroom. He said, “You know, it’s funny to run into an old student, because even after years and years—even after they’ve changed from kids to adults—you can immediately see that they’re still having the same problems in their personal or professional lives as they did in your classroom.” He explained that after talking with them for a bit—catching up—it was easy to see that they still had attendance or lateness problems at work or problems in spousal relations that were similar, in some ways, to the problems they once had in the classroom. It was then that I told him about my student, and he gave me some good advice that I’ll keep with me. “You can’t think that giving a student a passing grade will tip the scales and be the one thing that’s going to give them that push that’s going to help them get their life back together. It just doesn’t work that way, and giving them an easy out is just delaying their ability to grow up and become responsible citizens.”
I’m assigning at least three Fs this semester; it would have been five, but two dropped on the final drop day, thankfully. I hope you all expect as much out of your students as other professors will in their future courses. Get them used to being responsible.
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