Skip to main content

No use crying over spilt milk

Photo credit here.

I just spent the last 2 hours getting a certain student to leave my room.

He had failed the course due to a few reasons:
1) His English was very weak
2) He regularly skipped classes, and did not even bother coming up with an explanation
3) He missed a consultation assessment, worth 10% of his total marks
4) He missed his final presentation assessment, worth 15% of his total marks
5) He lacked the initiative to even do anything about it until I put out his total marks in the system. Of course by then, the marks would have been finalised

Worst of all, he spent two hours in my room pleading, crying, snivelling, just for me to push up his marks. Two hours of my extremely precious time gone... two hours of my life, snatched away from me...

Some people just can't accept the universal fact - You eat, you pay...

It's just no use crying over spilt milk.

And it's no use crying over two wasted hours of your life listening to sob stories...

Comments

Tok Rimau said…
Been there. Adil adalah meletakkan sesuatu pada tempatnya. That's my winning argument.
izzati fuad said…
he cried? itu la. konon cool tak buat keje, tak datang kelas. padan muka. haha

cik lah, bersabar la. mane tau kot2 2 jam itu telah menjadi pengajaran kepada pelajar itu.hehe
Tok - everything in its proper place eh bro?

ijat - He did...in a sense I did take pity on him, cos he poured out his sob story about not being able to retain his scholarship etc... and then it dragged on for too long...
Perhaps things would have been different had he turned up for classes more often, or even bothered to know what was going on in class...

It's a lesson that I hope he remembers... It was one that a certain classmate of yours didn't... Her name being M*****a...almost failed my class, and doing the same thing year after year with other lecturers....

sigh...
Anonymous said…
Bro,

He needs a slap on his face..

Edward
Che/Edward - kesian bro...all wet red eys and snot drivelling from his nose...

Mana sampai hati...
syana said…
in 2 hours - we could have lunch,have enlightening discussions, crack jokes yang Mimi lambat nak pick up, analysing people, etc etc.

mmg membazir!

;)
Percicilan said…
Gi piat telinga dia next time
Syana - kan?...

CC - mmg nak kena piat nih...biase ni!
Fauziah Ismail said…
Salam Lobo
I faced the same thing when I did an assessment of a staff whose English was so bad that I wondered how the company employed him in the first place.
First, the sob story came ... poor family, got brothers and sisters to support, girlfriend ditched him (I don't even know what this got to do with his English), self-esteem low (this because girlfriend dumped him) etc.
I asked how he got through university with this kind of English. He said if the lecturer could give him a pass for that kind of English, he doesn't understand why I couldn't retain him.
In not too many words, I told him to make alternative plans before the year is up. Hardly two weeks after that assessment, he transferred to the Malay newspaper in the company.
I don't know if he is still there but he was doing translation of tthe foreign wire stories into Malay.
Salam Fauziah,

I think it's a big wonder how students like this got accepted into university in the first place... Some of their English is basically at form 2 level, and they've got to do academic writing etc...
It's a vicious cycle - the school lets substandard pupils pass; they get into universities and lecturers let these substandard students pass; and then they get accepted into the workplace, where they affect the country's productivity and effectiveness. The cycle has got to be ended, one way or the other... If we can't ensure quality in our students, then the least we can do is to make sure that the problem does not get passed on.

It may sound cruel, but one has to look at the biog picture.
Yana Ismail said…
Menangis konon!xpayahla nk minta sesuatu yg dia xlayak lgsg untk dpt.sape suruh xdtg kelas,xg presentation.serves him right,haha..p/s:you did the right thing,sir.patotnye dr dulu lg.haha.die leh kawan dgn M.....
Hahaha.
Liyana - hahahaha!!! looks like you know who I was talking abt...yeah...mmg sepesen tu...

And thanks for the support... :)
Maz Al Eidrus said…
The reason being that passing English with flying colors is not a prerequisite to enter university, but passing BM is.

Not all who are poor in English in SPM flunk university, or not doing well in their work. English is something that we can learn and practise... if we keep on thinking that English is hard, then that's it... we will not improve... nearest example is you know who, his English is way better now than 4 years ago. Dia salahkan Japanese Englishla tapi :p

Bersabarlah... hopefully he'd learned his lesson (the hard way, sayangnya!)...
Iman Hayat said…
sigh~ work hard. play hard.
Iman Hayat said…
and did u notice that SPM A1 for English is sometimes the equivalent to a C5-C6 for GCE-O evaluation? i felt that it was unfair for those who truly deserved the A1's.
Maz - thanks for dropping by...and I do realise that u know who's English is waaay better that it was when were growing up together...

Iman - Too true...sometimes I do feel that the assessment mechanism may not reflect the student's real ability compared to others.
Syafiq Suraji said…
still, u wont stop
lecturing rite sir?...
nway...u other stdnts
sure far well than him aite..
kudos to them...at least they
are the remedy aren't they?..
Hi Chuck...

Long time no see..nice to see around again...

No, of course I won't stop...
My students are the reason I look forward to going to work every single day...

They are my pride and joy... :)
Greg Wee said…
I've been there. They are the new breed of I deserve it rather than I've earned it.
Gukita said…
NO... It's not time wasted.. It's time of imparting the most valuable lesson anyone can ever give.. I'm sure he will remember this fof the rest of his life; for better or for worst. And he learnt another lesson.. He knows YOU.

Popular posts from this blog

Help is always far away

Help is never far away. That is the old adage that has been drummed into us ever since we were young. No matter where you are, and what difficulty you are going through, someone will be close at hand to help. Except they aren't. Many a time no one in your vicinity gives a rat's ass. Or could be in a mess of their own to even think that someone else may need the support. Just that little bit of assurance to show that they care. Sometimes it can be in the smallest things. A kind word. A check up of how one is doing. Yet help does come. Someone takes the time to respond, in short messages, all the way from across the Pacific Ocean. Someone does take the time to relate, and share their own experiences, and offers words of comfort from across the country. Yes, help is at hand, but it is always far away. *picture credit here

The Forbidden Kingdom No More

Yesterday is a day that would forever go down the sands of time as... "The Day I Fed Two Hundred Ravenous Mouths with Bottomless Pits" Oh the horror!... The Pain!... The Suffering!!! Like a swarm of locusts they came, wave upon wave upon wave... Like a farmer protecting his crop I could only look on and stare, as they darkened the sky, before zeroing in for the kill... Tears streamed down my eyes as I watched them strip every last grain of maize and corn that I had planted at the begininning of the year... My knees thudded to the ground, as I numbly watched the carnage around me, my tired brain barely registering what my eyes perceived. "So this is what it feels like"... I thought in my brain... "This thing called Open House" . .. ... Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut I'm just being dramatic here ;) Yesterday was actually a day that I'm going to remember for a long time, simply because it was graced with the presence of those eager young minds I he

My nightmare come true

This is it. It's finally happened. The stuff of bad dreams for many language teachers has today materialised for me, rearing its ugly head, scoffing at my abilities as a language professional. This is an actual letter from one of my students as part of their coursework. Final year student. Soon to graduate and meet the workforce of the nation. Read it and weep...