Exams - Day Two
Workday - 8:30am-3:30pm
Today I finished hearing the last of the piano exams. Getting them done meant working through my lunch period, however.
Nothing very interesting has been happening, lately. I was surprised at the number of students who were visibly shaking during their exams, today. These poor kids were just terrified. I just hope they were nervous about doing well, and it wasn't that I'm actually scary!
I think next year I'll not make the finals out to be such a big deal. I'm still used to my old school where I had to exaggerate the importance of everything just to convince a handful of them that it might be a good idea to do it (or, at the least, show up).
I have one student flipping out on me because she's only getting a 92 in my class. She tells me her mother will yell at her, because she got 99% in the course last year. She doesn't think her mother will understand that it's harder in the next grade up. Part of the reason her mark dropped is because she refused to play one of the tests from December. That leaves me with little choice but to give her a zero on it. Another thing pulling the mark down is her composition assignment that didn't follow the guidelines whatsoever. Of course, she wasn't the only student who made this mistake (the "mistake" of deciding this assignment was for them to compose whatever they wanted and somehow get marks). On the other hand, the other people who handed in "do what I feel like" assignments are getting Bs and Cs in the class anyway. This student needs to take some responsibility for her own education.
I really hate how students make it sound like their marks are the teacher's fault. We're (usually) not just coughing up some arbitrary number and calling it your grade! I say "usually", since some teachers might actually do that. I don't, though. I always have a system, and it's always fair. That's another thing -- I don't have "favourites". I have students I'm more friendly with, but they don't get any special treatment for it. I suppose my being fair ends up as a bad thing for those who think they're favourites.
Today I finished hearing the last of the piano exams. Getting them done meant working through my lunch period, however.
Nothing very interesting has been happening, lately. I was surprised at the number of students who were visibly shaking during their exams, today. These poor kids were just terrified. I just hope they were nervous about doing well, and it wasn't that I'm actually scary!
I think next year I'll not make the finals out to be such a big deal. I'm still used to my old school where I had to exaggerate the importance of everything just to convince a handful of them that it might be a good idea to do it (or, at the least, show up).
I have one student flipping out on me because she's only getting a 92 in my class. She tells me her mother will yell at her, because she got 99% in the course last year. She doesn't think her mother will understand that it's harder in the next grade up. Part of the reason her mark dropped is because she refused to play one of the tests from December. That leaves me with little choice but to give her a zero on it. Another thing pulling the mark down is her composition assignment that didn't follow the guidelines whatsoever. Of course, she wasn't the only student who made this mistake (the "mistake" of deciding this assignment was for them to compose whatever they wanted and somehow get marks). On the other hand, the other people who handed in "do what I feel like" assignments are getting Bs and Cs in the class anyway. This student needs to take some responsibility for her own education.
I really hate how students make it sound like their marks are the teacher's fault. We're (usually) not just coughing up some arbitrary number and calling it your grade! I say "usually", since some teachers might actually do that. I don't, though. I always have a system, and it's always fair. That's another thing -- I don't have "favourites". I have students I'm more friendly with, but they don't get any special treatment for it. I suppose my being fair ends up as a bad thing for those who think they're favourites.
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