Freaking Frustrated For F***?

I gave Four F grades, actually Five, but then after a thorough review and convincing myself that I have been too demanding in my grading, I reduced it to Four.

I am Freaking Frustrated. Did I teach so badly that my students did not manage to learn anything or have I expected too much from the knuckleheads who slipped past admissions this year?

I have people who make A grades and I also have people who end up with C grades. In fact, like the other two Assignments 2 in my earlier terms, the students are categorized into their respective mastery levels on this assignment and, thus, their likely end of course grades.

I am largely ok with a pigeon holing exercise. It is a course requirement that students have to be graded. But in the past terms I only had to deal with very few D grades; this term, I get a handful of F graders to manage. The bulgeoning C population is common for this assignment. It is a paper where one synthesizes two texts to support one's thesis statement. One either does the synthesis fully and correctly or one underdoes it. If one falls short at the synthesis, then the grades drop to the B range. If one falls short at the summaries (and, inevitably the synthesis thereafter), one drops to the C range. Poor writing will cause futher grade drops. My Fabulous F grades are, in all honesty, harder to get than an A grade. I am that certain, sure, confident and proud to say. I reward effort when writing falls short. But how does one reward a paper that is 25% short of the minimum page length? Or a paper that averages 10 mistakes per 8 line paragraph? Or a student who writes whatever s/he feels like writing, with scant regard for the rubric of the assignment?

I try very hard to reflect if it were my poor teaching that caused such a disaster. Well, it seemed like a disaster to me when I have to award Fs in this manner. Ok, let us assume that I taught badly. Then how do you explain the nearly half of the students who got A and B grades? They were spread across both my sections! And how do I explain the other nearly half of the students who got C grades, those who were already weak to begin with, as evidenced by their Assignment 1 performance? If I had taught badly, then surely the assignment question, having gone through a round of eyeballing by the course coordinator, would have explained clearly the demands of the assignment?

The reading packages and the remedial website resources would have also played their part in helping the lost sheep to find their way home. And what about my open email communication channel where they actually have direct access to me via my home email? My students even have my cell phone number, for f***'s sake!

Another consolation I have is the fact that I have assigned short writing pieces to the students for them to practise writing thesis statements, topic sentences and paragraphs. They were also required to use evidence from their reading articles to support their arguments. The marks the F graders received on those assignments are actually indicative of the students' real writing and reasoning abilities. Those fellows are the ones scoring 3 and 4 out of 10. And to not demoralise too much, I set a minimum score of 3 marks on all these short pieces. Any written sh*t would have gotten 3 marks if it were submitted.

On a related note, the fellows who bombed Assignment 2 are the intended recipients of my earlier email telling them of the importance of reading and coming to class prepared. I shouldn't have to or need to feel sorry for them.

The circumstantial evidence of my not having derelicted my duties is complete. I should feel vindicated. Still, I feel Freaking disappointed. A colleague told me to get rid of that "secondary school teacher" mentality in me. "Why should you care, Eugene?" he would ask. "They are already adults and if they are not bothered to get up to speed with the demands of university, why should you mother them?" Well said.

He is a dear friend of mine and he's been really helpful to me ever since I began teaching at that institution. I should lay down my burden and not labour under these rotten straws that threaten to break my back. I shall only help those who bother.

I shall push on and perhaps give a few F grades at the end of the course to the truly deserving. Perhaps Darwin's theory can take over and straighten out the population some...

Of course, Four rounds of reviews later, there are only two students who received F grades (pending confirmation). I'm almost certain my grade distribution will stand. The rest are upgraded but are given stern warnings to buck up.

By who's standards?

The GCE O Level results are released today and the candidates that I presented for the math papers returned to collect the fruits of their labour.

The results were not astounding - of the 5 distinction (A2) grades garnered by the entire cohort of 60, my group of 23 picked up one. The rest went to the top class. While my group scored well for percentage passes, the students did not measure up in terms of percentage distinctions, not at least when compared against the national average. But the students were nonetheless elated with their results.

I should say I was rather disappointed when the students were so happy with their results. There was a kind of sadness in my happiness. I'm happy for them because when I had them, they were consistently failing all their tests and exams. I'm sad because I wonder how I will ever come to terms with their "satisfaction" criteria.

I guess this is a continuing journey of reviewing the standards that I used to know. These students, who had been consistently failing, had received reasonably respectable passing grades. On fact, a number of them have had good passing grades. These grades, to them, are like nectar to a parched man. They represented the sweet taste of victory.

To me, however, these were at best mediocre grades. But who am I to say so when even the principal congratulated the group for their "better than national average" showing.

It did not take me long to realise the irony of celebrating small victories. These are the roots of mediocrity. To partake in these celebrations is to magnify the trivial achievements and make them seem monumental. If mankind thrived this way, we would never be able to send anyone to the moon. Our neighbours up north would never be inspired to send a spaceship to the sun. Never mind it'll be too hot because they will fire off in the night.

Even as I remind myself, "Even the dull, they have their story," I cannot help but wonder if we are giving the dull a voice but never teaching them to grow any smarter. So, if not to make the dull sharper, what is the point of listening?

I am not for using my standards to measure my students' achivements. But if we were to benchmark the school's results according to national averages, then isn't it more sensible to remind the school and the students that there is no big deal being around or slightly better than the national average? To be truly good, one has to transcend this mindset and surpass national standards significantly.

But who is willing to put in the hard work? Who is willing to accept another's standards? Who are we bluffing when we shortchange the people to whom we are going to entrust ourselves in our silver years? I guess we reap what we sow. But I am not willing to accept this - in my books, they had failed to meet the standards which define excellence even if they had outdone themselves.

The steely look of determination

Conducted two tests yesterday and was amazed to see the steely looks of determination on the test takers' faces. Can't help feeling sorry for them. For it is not what they know that disappoints them.

Their disappointment stems from their not knowing and thus, not performing up to the required standards. But YET think they have it, they have done excellently and they have been discriminated against.

At some point in everyone's life, each has to learn that for things subjective, it is perception that matters. And most of the time, "our perception" is just a poor representation of what we really think (which, for the record, are vastly different in most cases). For all other things objective, skills and mastery matter. And subjectivity and objectivity are largely disjoint concepts.

Well, we all trudge along and lose our jarring bits... Life!

Did We Get It Wrong?

She had to pass her N level examinations before she could be promoted to Secondary 5 to complete her O level examinations. Or, with the N level passes, she could have gone over to the Institute of Technical Education, where she could get some form of "tertiary" education. In any case, she had completed her 10 years of mandatory education, stipluated by Singapore law.

Yet, since she had decided to attend Secondary 5, an almost inordinately tough additional year to obtain her O level certificate. One of the reasons for the difficulty is in the difference between the syllabi to be tested at the two years. Another reason, which might or might not be true, is that while the O level certificate has international recognition, the N level certificate has none.

What's my point?

I was invigilating a paper where this student placed her head on her table and dozed off less than 30 minutes into a 75 minutes Physics paper. She was not alone sleeping in the middle of the paper.

Being a responsible invigilator, I went round waking people up. There was no way the 75 minute paper is going to be completed in 30 minutes. I couldn't even do it myself. And when I tried waking this thing up, she lost her temper and threw a tantrum.

I begin to wonder if we have gotten it wrong. If so, what went wrong? And finally, what are we going to do about it?

He did it

My A level tuition kid got a C for his H2 Mathematics. I think this is a success of sorts - but mainly that regardless of how the exam syllabus is tweaked, exam-oriented tutors like me are able to get our charges to work around it.

Honestly, for him to get C was a huge success for him. He was a consistent F-er, having not done Additional Mathematics at the O levels (often deemed a pre-requisite for H2 Math).

While he worked hard, I worked smart. Together, we make a great team!

I now wish him the best of luck in his university applications.