All you need to do is show up

"I have never worked so hard for a *sneer* B in my life!"
"I deserve an A!  Look how far I have come during the term!"
"I deserve an A because I never missed a day and really worked hard!"
"I thought you liked me."

This term I had two of the most incredible classes.  The students were all of high caliber and together we worked hard.  They were also rather high-maintenance students.  I spent hours and hours with them individually and in groups.  I hand-held many as they worked through the problems of speaking in public.  Each one of the groups in my Small Group Communication class imploded at some point and I needed to mediate.  I met for 15-30 minutes at a time with individual students in my public speaking class outside of class, often every week over the past three months.  And the pay-off for all this work on all our parts was that the speeches and the group projects and the term papers were some of the best I have ever heard/observed/read. Their analysis of their class was that they worked harder than ever, hated most minutes of it, but think the lessons and skills they learned were some of the most important they have gained from college.

All was great and swell and warm until it came to grading…….I was feeling great that students had earned more A’s and B’s than any other term in my career.  This was not grade-inflation.  They really earned these grades! The average for both classes was not a C average; it was a B+ average. I was busy telling my colleagues how great this was and how I felt I had really worked with them to help them achieve such high standards.  I was feeling pretty okay…..

Until the first student came into my office in tears.  She was devastated that she was "only getting a B."  Mind you, this student had never received a grade higher than a B+ on any of her assignments, a nice build up from a C at the beginning of the term to a B+ on her final speech.  I pointed this out to her, trying to figure out what would have caused her to think she might earn an A for the term.  She said she knew what her grades were but, "Look at how far I have come!  And I spent literally hours and hours, many of them not sleeping, putting together my speeches.  I can’t simply roll them out in 10 minutes like you can.  I didn’t sleep most the term because of this class.  And I can’t believe I am not receiving an A for all this work!"

She was only the first of a string of students with the same general sentiments.  They worked hard and deserved an A for the amount of work they did.  My 3:00 leave time turned into a 6:30 leave time as I continued to meet with students.  Standards that needed to be met in order to earn an A were irrelevant.  They hadn’t missed class any/many/often.  They spent hours outside of class working/thinking/doing.  Apparently that’s all that matters…..not the things they learned.  Not that those who earned an A deserve that their A means something.  Not that they worked hard to pull themselves up from an average level to an above-average level.  Meaningless.  Because they felt they weren’t being rewarded for their efforts.  It is, after all, "just a speech class!  It’s not like a real class like math or chemistry!"

When I was back in Pittsburgh I noticed the new trend that clerks and cashiers, sales persons, were no longer focused on customer service.  The cashiers at the grocery didn’t even give the customers eye contact, talk to us, nor pay attention as they rang people up.  They would talk to each other over our heads, talk on the phone, or simply scan/ring/bag.  And when I encountered a sales person who did paid attention to me while I was being waited on, I would write a note to the management about how well she was working.  And then I stopped to think…..it was not that the sales persons who attended to me were going above and beyond their job duties.  I had reached a place where simply doing their job–attending to customers–was now of a perception that they were going way above the call of duty and deserved to be specially rewarded.  It made me sad.

Standards change.  But academic standards need to be kept clean.  It is all about the reputation of my college, my discipline, me…and ultimately of my students that I do not inflate their grades.  I had rewarded them verbally throughout the term.  I had rewarded them with donuts on occasion.  I gave them many extra hours of my time.  But I wouldn’t give them a grade they had not earned.  So be it.

peace~~