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
cik lah, bersabar la. mane tau kot2 2 jam itu telah menjadi pengajaran kepada pelajar itu.hehe
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...
He needs a slap on his face..
Edward
Mana sampai hati...
mmg membazir!
;)
CC - mmg nak kena piat nih...biase ni!
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.
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.
Hahaha.
And thanks for the support... :)
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 - Too true...sometimes I do feel that the assessment mechanism may not reflect the student's real ability compared to others.
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?..
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... :)