Just when I'm down in the dumps, trudging through the doldrums of January, my popularity begins to soar. Why?, you ask. Turns out my students are under the impression that a little bit of sycophancy will salvage their failing grades.
Make that MOST of my students. One student, upon learning that she had earned a 34.8% in my class for the marking period, sent me the following message:
>> You get on my nerves i hate you dont say nuffin else to me <<
That's a good strategy for raising your grade. Riiiiiight.
I know this probably doesn't make it less frustrating, but if your students get upset about poor grades (whether they act on that with anger or flattery or whatever), presumably this means they CARE about their grades, right?
ReplyDeleteEven if it's not a "good" reason, that should be cause for some optimism. I wonder if anyone's tried to study this disconnect between seemingly caring about grades when they're revealed but not as they're being created. I'm sure that there's some sort of psychological/social explanation for it, which, if understood, could potentially help people like you do your job.
Not that this helps you much at the moment, I guess. But maybe it's a silver lining? =P