Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

On Tuesday (still back to talking about the past few days, but now more disjointedly), one of my co-teachers, Sharelle was having a dilemma over failing a student who not only didn’t pass a required report, but also almost caused his group mates to fail.

She said she gave him a chewing out the day before during course card distribution, but that she gave him another chance to submit a paper last Tuesday.

She was already saying that if he didn’t show up, she would definitely fail him.

We gave the unanimous consensus that she should fail him regardless.

She said that what was preventing her from failing him outright was that it was such an easy subject: computer basics. She said because it was so simple that she “knew” he must have learned something in the subject, it was just that he didn’t apply it.

As far as I’m concerned that’s a big assumption on her part. Besides, I’m enrolled in the school of thought that the best way for the students to learn that they couldn’t just coast their way through a subject no matter how fundamental it’s supposed to be is to fail them outright. And from the sentiments expressed by my co-teachers, they seem to agree.

But it seems that she’s still in her first years of teaching where she can’t bear to fail a student unless they really deserve it (by not even attending the class).

Anyway, the student did show up, while we were in the conference room, Sharelle ranting loudly with the door open. I don’t know if he heard us talking about him.

Seeing her talking to him for more than five minutes in the student consultation room already led me to the conclusion that she was going to give him a passing grade. Another thing that more than twelve years of teaching have taught me is that entertaining the students for more than a couple of minutes when I have already given them a failing grade, when they want me to give them a higher grade or when they are already in danger of failing, whoever does the talking, makes them believe that the teacher is just looking for a reason to pass him or her.

Then they’ll try all the tactics from pity to repentance to promising they’ll REALLY do better next time, things they should have thought about at the start of the term, and all throughout the term, when they had all the opportunity to get the grade they wanted.

And for freshmen, some of who had the same attitude in high school (I believe even >I< did at the time) that they could get by with less than the minimum effort, this is a lesson that they should learn early in their college years, otherwise they will have hell to catch up with in their later post-requisite subjects, where it is already assumed that they still remember the methods and techniques from the previous courses.

Sharelle said afterwards that she DID pass him, but only after giving him another sermon. Not that I believe that will stick, because all he’ll remember is that teachers are softhearted. He might even think it’s his “charm” that did the trick. Boy, is he wrong. I’ll leave that for the class to mull over until next time.