My professors at Michigan were also fair. Probably some of the same ones as yours.
However, my students have not always been fair - to themselves. Last term (my last
term, ending in June), I had one student in precalculus who reported that he had
failed the course four times (not unusual, there were a half a dozen in the same
boat). This time, he changed his tactics. He decided to actually do the exercises!
Guess what? He earned a B! One of my favorite success stories. It makes the point
that like the old adage, "You can take the kid to school but you can't make him
learn"!
"J. Williams" wrote:
> I wonder if all of us have experienced angst in assigning marks that can
> affect the academic careers of our students. I always took it very seriously
> and was concerned about the student who fell below some arbitrary cutoff I
> ordained. I started teaching back in the '60s and have seen the rise of
> "grade inflation" and extraneous pressures to "equalize." My thinking now is
> that we tend to treat our students in the manner we were treated as undergrad
> and graduate students. My professors back at Michigan in the "Olden Days"
> were fair to me...more than fair. The least I can do is treat my own students
> similarly. This thread's diversity of thinking attests to the differing
> perceptions of what is fair and to what constituencies? What is right for
> employers? What is correct for society? What's best for the individual
> student? At the very least, grading is not taken lightly by the various
> respondents. I'm not so old I can't remember the pressures on me to get "A's"
> and to look good----and keep my ego boosted.
