Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes

[thunderbat30]

I've been chuckling and nodding through this entire thread. There are so many stories I could add but my biggest pet peeve in my classes is students believe they should not lose few/if any points for late work. It is amazing how I can even give work time (high school students) and they still won't have it finished the next day. Teaching is the easy part. PR with students, parents, the public and co-workers is the stress. Many complain about how easy teachers have it but always tell them you can always go the school to teach. It's definitely a great challenge everyday.

[TheCrew07]

Why should any system, elementary, high school, or college, have to focus on educating the parents as well as the children? My parents were involved as were all of my friend's parents, not because the school wanted them to be, simply because that's the way it was. Education was and still is a privilege, not a right, and was to be taken seriously, as were any extracurricular activities, being committed was just a given. I'm only 33, it's not like I'm 4 generations removed from the children I work with and come from a small town in north eastern Wisconsin, things aren't any different in small or large towns, this is just the way we've become.

 

In school, the administration, parents, and teachers all used to be on the same side... It's now everyone for themselves. If a kid gets disciplined in class more often than not the parents want to know why their child was singled out and unfairly punished instead eradicating the behavioral issues. It's no different for us coaches in the field or on the court, the majority of parents do not hold their children accountable in any way. When I was going through school in the late 80s and early 90s it was unheard of to schedule shopping trips, dentist appts, senior pictures, and family vacations during practice time, however this has become the norm. The same parents then think we as coaches play favorites and that's why their children don't play, when in reality all they do is continually put their child behind the curve. If an athlete continually causes trouble in school, misses practice, or fakes injury so they don't have to practice, there is a going to be a consequence for those actions. If the child doesn't get that from school or at a home, then when are they going to learn that success just isn't handed to them?

 

The expectation seems to have become that because their child is part of the team, they should get to play... to some extent I agree and we do go lengths to make sure that everyone plays at the elementary and middle school level. At the high school level sports are not an activity, that means they aren't something you can show up once in a while and participate in. Sports are a program that requires commitment and while everyone who attends practice EVERY DAY will get to play as a freshman and a JV, varsity games are results orientated, winning and losing matters. A player has to be able to carry out his/her assignment to get playing time, and our athletes just don't have the same basic fundamental knowledge of the games as my generation did. Some of that is video games, kids just don't go out and play the games for real. Instead of getting 6 guys together to get a game going, 3 or 4 get together at someone's house and play a console game of sort. There is a huge difference between grabbing a ball and playing for real vs console gaming, you don't pickup any of the nuances of the game unless you're actually playing it for real. Also, instead of watching sports on TV during their free time, there's 200 different alternatives in TV programming alone. Most parents just don't understand how they and their children themselves continually undermine their own goals.

 

The part of this that I have the biggest problem with is how many times I've heard something along of the lines of, "My child says event X happened which caused result Y". Really? Since when do children tell the truth? Did any of us lay out the exact truth to our parents? Do adults in today's world tell the truth? I have a very hard time understanding how so many parents get duped by their kids, believing what their child says word for word. I'm thankful my parents were not that gullible even though I would have had a much easier time of it, I'm much better off now. For all of the problems we have with the he said/she said stuff at least in coaching it's an easy solution, come watch practice, come watch the games. For a teacher, I'm not sure what they do, and at least in the 3 school districts around here that my family members teach in, the administration is more concerned with keeping their jobs than doing what's right by children, which essentially puts the teachers out on an island. I'm not claiming that all teachers are perfect, far from it, but as adults we have the responsibility of building up our children, preparing them for the "real world". Instead we get caught up in doing what's easy instead of doing what's right, and for the most part it's everyone involved because even the good teachers seem to get beaten down by the fight over time.

 

Raw talent or intelligence isn't the issue, in most cases it's simply the effort. A less intelligent person can succeed through hard work in the same way that a less talented athlete will succeed in the field or on the court. I've always been in the top 1 or 2 percentile depending on the testing measure and I didn't finish at the top of my class because I got by purely on my natural smarts, while the students that weren't as smart worked harder and got better grades than me. I was right there with them in classes that were math/science orientated, but when there was material that had to be learned in most cases (except history) they knew the material better than me because they worked harder than me. How is that any idifferent than how things go in life? We get what we put in. I understood that and didn't really care, I wasn't concerned with academic success until I got to college. I've often thought that it would have been better for me to have had to work a little bit harder in school, I would have been much better prepared for college, I learned some hard lessons about life in college. The problem has become that we're more concerned about what we get out than what we put in, and in many cases we expect to get more out than we put in.

 

In life the reality is that everyone doesn't win, and I'm not talking about becoming a millionaire, I'm talking about being successful, getting the most out of what we each have. I'm not sure as a society we're even concerned with maximizing our talents at all, we're into "what about me?". It's unfortunate and people keeping telling me the pendulum is going to start swinging back the other way but I honestly just don't see it. The generations before us overcame great struggles which gave them perspective, how have we been challegened? The war on terror? Most people don't even think about it unless something significant happens. My grandparents lived through the Great Depression, fought 2 wars, lost children in Vietnam... what have we done? I'm not trying to romanticize war, but the reality is that going through life and death situations, having absolutely nothing, then dealing with the hardships of rationing, losing loved ones, and so on tends to give a person a different perspective on life. We've been spared those events thus far, but at the same time I feel we've lost some perspective into our own lives. I'm big into history, and every empire that has risen, has also fallen... maybe we've gotten so full of ourselves that we're starting our fall.

[bani1717]

Many just don't seem to grasp the concept of working hard for a grade...that you can't get by with minimal effort like in high school. I know a girl that equates watching some stupid show on MTV with a notebook on her lap to studying and wonders why she's barely carrying a 2.0. Is it ever her fault? Of course not. The professor isn't fair, there should be less emphasis on exams, there should be extra credit, etc.

 

I could go on and on about this as well.

I laughed out loud when I read this. It fits one of my housemates PERFECTLY, except that she watches The CW, TLC, and the History Channel. It's really kind of irritating, but it would REALLY feel like a slap in the face if she actually got the grades the rest of us do. I honestly wonder how in the world she got into school here at Madison.

 

I have another friend who got by in high school purely by smarts, not by effort. Now, in college, he skips class all the time, and expects my friends and I to help him out when he misses, including things like letting him copy assignments. (He actually got caught for having someone else do a final project for him for a class because he just didn't feel like doing it.)

 

He had also planned a week-long cruise with his parents 2 weeks before spring break. Talk about planning that for a good time. And then he talked to a couple professors who are going to give exams that week, and they actually gave him permission to take the exams at a different time. On top of all this, he came up to me a few weeks ago and said he literally had no money, an empty bank account, and no food, because he was waiting for the paperwork on a new loan to go through. A friend of mine loaned him $100 for a week, but my thoughts were, you didn't know you were this low on cash two weeks ago? And then, if you're that low on money, why are your parents paying for you to go on a cruise rather than for you to go to school? (They ended up canceling the cruise because his dad is now in the hospital with a somewhat serious condition. I feel sorry for him for his dad's troubles, but for nothing else.)

 

Sorry to rant, but it is very irritating that people like this with no work ethic and no common sense will earn undergrad degrees from UW-Madison just like I will.

[statman0007]

I, like many others apparently, think this sense of entitlement is a huge issue that our society is going to have to deal with in the future. The generations that are in school right now are going to get a rude awakening when they hit the working world and figure out that you're accountable for your actions and just showing up isn't good enough. If you never fail, you'll never learn to truly succeed.

 

Also an interesting side note on grades: from my experience at UW-L, what classes you're taking have a very large impact on the distribution of grades. Most classes use a program that allows you to see how the class is performing as a whole, so it is very easy to ascertain the classes that are more difficult than others. It seemed to me that in most liberal arts classes a "B" was considered average or even below average while in most math and science courses the average tended to be more of the traditional "C". The university actually acknowledges this discrepancy to some degree as a 3.75 is required to make the Dean's list for liberal arts majors and a 3.5 is required for math and science majors. I don't really get why grading isn't standardized across all majors.

[owbc]

I've definitely seen plenty of these things at Madison--but I agree with statman that there's a definite difference between science/math/engineering courses and humanities. Grading is a very touchy subject and it varies greatly by department/major. I took Econ 101 last year, which is the "weeding out" class for economics/business majors. I was around the middle of the class but was completely shocked when I got an 'AB' in the class. It turned out they curved the class where 50% get an AB or higher. I was used to math classes, where 50% get a C or lower. I have heard stories of people complaining to professors that they "are paying too much money" to receive such a low grade in a class. In the end, I'm not sure how much it matters--the business students need to maintain a 3.7 or 3.8 to go anywhere, while science/engineers do just fine with a 3.2. I'm not really sure when we got away from the idea that a "C" was average, but Madison has a 3.1 average GPA, so I guess a "B" is average now--and that goes up to about 3.3 for seniors.

 

In the end, the better students are going to make it out on top. However, it seems that the overall bumping up of the lower students reflects a general trend in society. The people that failed the most are the ones who are getting the government bailout money, right?

[logan82]

Good post TheCrew07. I don't think that education of parents was quite the right way to put it. There is a lack of accountability in many cases though. Is there really any penalty for unexcused absences and such. Even if there is, are they enforced.

 

I am really unhappy with how the education system as a whole. It is geared towards the worst students at the lower levels. There is so much time put into passing the stupid "no child left behind tests" that not enough is done to keep smarter kids interested. I would go so far as to say the the smarter kids get neglected. At the school my kid goes to they said that they didn't like to make kids feel singled out. Load of crap in my opinion. I don't blame the teachers or even the administration though. Their funding is based on getting as many students to pas the standardized tests as possible.

 

My kid turns in work late all the time and he still gets enough credit to make honor roll. He is only in 6th grade though and the middle school principle made it clear that as he gets into 7th and 8th grade and even high school, there will be more responsibility placed on the student to get work in on time.

 

We went to a meeting with the principle where he told us that starting pretty soon, parents are going to have meetings with the principle and their kid about future plans and school. They showed us his standardized test scores and asked our son what he wanted to do in the future.

[RU Rah Rah]

I don't want to sound like a fuddy-duddy "things weren't like that in MY day" type . . .

Same here. What's ironic is that I was a pretty laid-back student in my day. I drank, goofed off, etc. -- very typical undergrad experience. But ultimately I took ownership of my education and did the things that needed to be done without too much complaint or reliance on my parents.

 

I once handled admissions for an undergrad major at UW-Madison, and we routinely rejected half of all the applicants. You wouldn't believe how many irate parents I had to soothe every semester. What made it especially difficult was that the students would feed misinformation to their parents about their grades/activities/the admissions process. A very typical conversation would involve a parent saying, "Well, Jane's roommate had a lower GPA and fewer activities, and she got into the major. That's not right!" These parents never seemed to realize that maybe -- just maybe -- Jane wasn't providing the entire story about her roommate's record, or her own.

 

I also think that somehow the cultural norms about arguing have changed. I think there's more of a sense now that you have a right to complain/argue with anyone, anywhere, any time, about anything. My students will argue with me about policies clearly stated on the syllabus -- policies that they knew about on day one of the course and accepted.

[RyDogg66]

^^^^^ in light the things werent like that in my day...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus

[jazzytrav]

If I had more faith in the decision-making abilities of all teachers, I would say toss out letter grades and percentages altogether. In high school students beg the teacher to give them certain grades so they can get into a certain college. The teacher gives them the grade, hands them off to the college, and never sees or thinks about them again. Then in college, the process repeats. I was absolutely amazed at the lack of intelligence in my first college course. We had to pass around our papers and have others read them. Every paper came to me with crappy spelling, run-on sentences (and paragraphs), and absolutely no development as a paper. It makes me feel like my degrees aren't worth much.

 

There's so much urgency in the world as a whole that we don't have time to teach life lessons. Someone needs a certain grade to get into the College of Education, so they beg the prof for that grade even though it's not deserved. They HAVE to get in NOW. Well, what about next year? Audit the class, work harder, and try again later. Life isn't over if you don't get exactly what you want when you want it. Medical research allows life expectancies to get longer while we try to squeeze more and more into them.

 

Students just need to relax a little and realize that the world isn't ending tomorrow. We make mistakes and we pay for them, but that doesn't mean that we should wallow in them. Sometimes I don't change things when I should have, but that's not an excuse to not change it now.

[hammytime]

I had one today--thirty minutes of study hall time at the end of the day, he's already behind, especially in math, and he spends his time drawing. I ask him why--his reply: "I don't like math." But at the same time, he won't come to me for help. (Just another example of the whiney, give-up attitude I've dealt with for most of the year.)

[adamb100]

My first semester at UWM I kinda blew it off. This is alot because I heard UWM is an easy university, in that even if you skip half your classes you'll still pass. However this proved wrong for me when I toook at look at my transcript for the first semester: C, C+, D, F. 1.4 GPA and got kicked to academic probation. I didnt study for the quizzes, for one class I didnt do the big paper assignment(at this point I knew I was gonna fail said class). I had no idea what was going on and I blew it off thinking it was no big deal.

 

Since then I've of course changed my attitude. I actually dont rush the assignments, or papers. I do kinda blow off studying still though. :p I'm on the brink of getting dropped for a semester but I'm doing alright I think. I believe I'm getting all B's(and maybe even an A) in my classes this year. I feel much more connected than I did my first semester on campus.

[alorrigan]

I had one today--thirty minutes of study hall time at the end of the day, he's already behind, especially in math, and he spends his time drawing. I ask him why--his reply: "I don't like math." But at the same time, he won't come to me for help. (Just another example of the whiney, give-up attitude I've dealt with for most of the year.)

I'm sure this is not the case in any way but... I have my degree in art and really can't stand math. Well not math it self, just the work involved. If the kids got a creative mind he probably sees no point in the doing the same problem over and over again with different numbers. I could be completely off base and reading way too much into it but I think part of the problem with students is that they are round pegs shoved into square holes because the school needs them to pass the test. Sorry for my little art/math rant but I dealt with that in school too. I didn't really hate math, I just hated having to do the same problem dozens of times.

[pitchleague]

I have a doozy of a meeting on Friday morning with a parent who thinks that she can write a note to excuse her 3rd grade son from my general music class (and only my class) because he thinks I pick on him. Of course, she refuses to believe that the school needs a note without an expressly written reason to excuse him. This is a state requirement (as is music class from grades K-5) and our district could get into serious hot water if this is not followed through by our attendance secretaries.

 

Of course, the child will still be in school. He just doesn't want to come to my class. Ever since the end of 2nd grade when he was forced to do the music final test, he has despised me (or maybe it's my class--I don't know.) But it sounds like his mother is giving him the sense of entitlement that he doesn't have to take a state required course if he doesn't want to.

 

I plan on discussing that he doesn't have to come to my class if he doesn't want to--no reason to ruin music class for the other 25 students if he's just going to act up with an attitude problem. But he will have to do a music curriculum outside of my classroom. They probably won't like that. And since the kid is a very good student, he will be asked to do a quality job on the homework that I assign or he will be asked to join the rest of the students, since he can't seem to grasp things on his own.

 

And his 1st grade and 5th grade brothers are just fine. Little angels in my class who, like 99.5% of the remaining 600+ students in our school, love coming to my class (by far, most everyone's favorite specials class.)

 

BOY, I CAN'T WAIT FOR MONDAY MORNING!

[nate82]

And it's been accompanied by a drop in effort. In the big lecture course that I teach, my students routinely ask me to post all of the notes and PowerPoint slides online -- you know, so they don't actually have to attend said lecture and take notes. (Apparently I'm a tyrant because I expect them to show up twice a week.) I'm also obliged to provide a detailed study guide before every exam -- and God help me if that document doesn't include every last possible question. Also, there is now an expectation that students somehow possess a constitutional right to extra credit.

When I went to college which wasn't to long ago I just graduated a year ago. The professors I had would put their lecture notes on PowerPoint and online. They just wouldn't have the whole thing online parts would be missing usually the most important parts of the lecture were the things that were missing from the PowerPoint presentation. I actually liked this because it allowed me to look over the notes of the lecture so I could form questions about the lecture and they were usually answered by listening to the lecture.

 

As for the study guide a lot of the professors I had had a study guide. It was usually just something that outlined what is the most important things to study which was already in our notes. I never really used the study guide unless I was looking through my notes and I needed to find something to refresh on. Me and my friends used it more like a table of contents than anything else.

 

As for the extra credit I never ever asked for extra credit but I always took advantage of it when it was offered. Who wouldn't take advantage of something that could help you out a little bit? Most of the extra credit that I had were on tests were extra hard questions you could try and answer. The only other time I got extra credit was to have a research paper in earlier because the professor I had was going on vacation after the semester and wanted to have the papers in as early as possible and gave extra credit if you could get it in earlier. Nearly everyone turned it in earlier.

 

OK rants over. I do believe that people believe they are entitled to things that they just are not entitled to though. I saw it a lot during my time in college. People asking if they could miss class because of a spring break trip they had planned some professors saying no to it and then them whining and complaining about it and how their life is now just ruined. I never got that at all. It is easy to see what dates spring break falls on and in advance. I just don't get this entitlement to things that you have no entitlement to.

[Jimbo]

Just to clarify the comments regarding the lack of consistency in grading curves - that has been going on for decades. Attending the UW in the eighties, my observation was the liberal arts classes had a median grade of 'B' and the engineering classes had a 'BC' median grade. It took a 3.25 to make the College Of Engineering dean's list, and I believe a 3.5 or somewhat to make the list in L+S.

 

My old school moment was the first day of my first class freshman year. The prof announced "If you go skiiing in Colorado and miss the final, you will FAIL. If you miss the final because you will be playing football in a bowl game, you will FAIL."

[hawing]

My old school moment was the first day of my first class freshman year. The prof announced "If you go skiiing in Colorado and miss the final, you will FAIL. If you miss the final because you will be playing football in a bowl game, you will FAIL."

(emphasis mine)

 

Oh, Jimbo, I know when you went to school here. Was the prof actually talking about a football bowl game with a straight face? Or was he remembering the relative glory of whatever the most recent z-list bowl the Badgers had played in a few years before? (Garden State or whatever; I know you'll correct me)

[crewcrazy]

Looking around at my classmates now, I seriously think I'm in the minority when it comes to this generation.

 

I'll admit I get upset when I don't get at least an A-. I don't get upset at the professor, or the class, or the university. I get upset with myself, because the way I was brought up, anything below a B was unacceptable to my parents. If I didn't get the right grades, they didn't call the school to complain...they told me to sit my (butt) down and do the work. Usually, I didn't have a problem with it -- I grew up on a farm with no Internet access until I was about 12 or 13, and no cable/satellite TV until I was 17. I probably benefited from a lack of distractions like that, but I still had a PS2 for the latter half of my teenage years that my parents didn't like to see me playing. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

It was bad enough to get to high school and have my classmates constantly beg and plead for an extra point or two on every assignment corrected in class just because they thought the teacher worded a question in a confusing way (nevermind they were usually the only ones that thought so). My senior year of high school, one of my best friends was actually in position to be class salutatorian. The girl that was ranked #3 found out that she wasn't #2 heading into the last quarter, begged to get every last A- changed to A, and actually succeeded. After she usurped the salutatorian spot, she had the audacity to complain about having to write a speech for graduation.

 

Things aren't much better here in college. I'm a part of a small but highly regarded broadcast journalism program, and part of the reason my school has such a good reputation is because according to people in the business, the curriculum leaves us as some of the better prepared students in the area. As a result, the classes tend to be challenging. As a part of the journalism department, an emphasis is put on meeting deadlines. I was in one journalism class where I was one of 3 or 4 people in a class of 16 to submit all their stories when they were due. I'm in another where students constantly complain about how harshly the professor grades things (god forbid the man takes off half a letter grade when you don't do something he's told us to do at least 20 times in class). They even complain about the fact that the department requires all students to get at least a C in a prereq in order to take the next class. These people don't seem to understand that the entire point of majoring in something in college is to prepare you for a career, and that means turning things in on time.

 

I'm not about to worry for them, though. It's hard enough to get a job in this economy, but even harder to get a job in the journalism field (or at least one that will let you pay off your student loans on time). The less qualified people out there competing for jobs with me, the better. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif I'm sure when I go in for interviews, employers will choose someone like me -- who doesn't make excuses for failure, who does quality work and gets it in on time -- over some of my classmates who pout about having to do the simplest assignments.

 

This post is long enough, but I could complain about my generation for ages. I didn't even get into attendance policies or class participation. I don't know how anyone could think that it's enough to just sit in a chair for 90 minutes or so, then expect the professor to grant you favors (let alone know who you are). I can't speak for the various professors here, but it's been my experience that professors are more accommodating when you show that you're a dedicated student by not only doing the work but also participating in class discussions. You're more likely to get that absence excused or deadline extension if you prove yourself as being a responsible student who didn't just wait until the last minute to think of an excuse.

[Glennron]

Also an interesting side note on grades: from my experience at UW-L, what classes you're taking have a very large impact on the distribution of grades.

 

The university actually acknowledges this discrepancy to some degree as a 3.75 is required to make the Dean's list for liberal arts majors and a 3.5 is required for math and science majors. I don't really get why grading isn't standardized across all majors.

I'm assuming by UW-L you mean La Crosse. In the three years I've been here you've only needed a 3.5 to make the Dean's list for liberal arts, though I'll admit they probably could put it at 3.75.

 

As far as attendance policies in college, I've always thought being graded on attendance was kind of silly. If a student doesn't want to go to class, let them skip, it's only their loss and doesn't affect anyone else. If they skip often enough, their grade will likely reflect it anyway. On the other hand, if a student is struggling in the class, they'll be helped out just by "showing up", which doesn't necessarily mean you learned the material.

 

I think part of the problem of kids complaining about grades is the relative ease of the Gen Ed classes that are required. In the 3 or so semesters where I took mostly Gen Ed's, I can think of 3 or maybe 4 I legitimately had to work hard if I wanted a good grade. The others were either a moderate amount of work, or pretty much a joke of a class. That way when students finally get to upper level classes, they're used to not having to work too hard in high school or even their first few semesters of college, then all of a sudden they actually have to and are frustrated by it.

[stoutdude04]

I struggled with my gen eds. I think because I thought they were easier and I thought I wouldnt have to try as hard and show up. My first year I think I had a 2.1 GPA, or something similar. Once I declared my major and started taking coursed that I was interested in I never received lower then a B. I mean, I was required to take Anthropology....lame. Why would I want to go to a class that I dont want to be in, at 8 in the morning, for 2 hours? My grade reflected me not going. I would also say I was never a 'book worm' either. I had my fun and was able to live the college life. I ended with a 3.1 and my degree in education. Overall though, ALOT of my friends dont try and get fine grades. Maybe its because its Stout, but who knows.

 

Im not saying they are smarter, I am agreeing with most that they have a degree, but did they really deserve it? Maybe.

[RU Rah Rah]

I mean, I was required to take Anthropology....lame. Why would I want to go to a class that I dont want to be in, at 8 in the morning, for 2 hours?

So, if you're teaching now, how would you deal with teaching a student with this same attitude?

[sbrylski]

I'm in college at UW-Madison now, still struggling to shake my high school attitude towards studying. It doesn't help that I'm smart enough to put in minimal effort (skipping classes, only study for midterms the day of) and still net a 3.3 GPA. But its really starting to frustrate me getting B's and the occasional C in a class that I ace the final in. I prepare for the finals on my own pace, and learn the class, yet my work ethic drags my grade down.

 

But, I always know that the grade I receive is the grade I earned, and the blame/praise is 100% on me. I've only once asked for my grade to be bumped up - I missed an A by a tenth of a percent, which dropped my GPA from 3.4 to its current 3.3 (I'm a junior transfer with a limited credit load and therefore sensitive GPA) during the semester of my application to the Business School. I missed one mid-semester weekly quiz, 5 questions, that cost me that tenth and maybe my admittance. I did not receive any response from the professor.

[stoutdude04]

So, if you're teaching now, how would you deal with teaching a student with this same attitude?

Well, Im teaching elementary and there are children who dont want to be there. I get them involved in the class. My anthropology class was nothing but lecture, that I was forced to take. Yes, the curriculum is "forced" at the elementary level, but there are ways to get children motivated. I think its comparing apples to oranges.(college - elementary)

[pitchleague]

as I posted earlier, the child that I am having my meeting about on Friday is, apparently, a student in this category of "not wanting to be here." Again, most students love coming to my class because I make it fun and interesting. You never know what I might do at any time and that is part of the fun and excitement about coming to my class. One day, we may do a really cool magic trick. Other days, there may be prizes for a singing contest.

 

This particular student, however, has a bone to pick with every teacher in the school, I have found out. He has the attitude that everyone is out to get him. He was diagnosed with MRSA (staph infection) last year and he hates the world for it. And since the school had to make special provisions for him, he hates us all. I found out today from students that he is currently trying to get me fired. This is a third grader, folks, with this kind of attitude. He's trying to spread it around school, although unsuccessfully so far, since nobody--and I mean nobody--will take his side. Even his friends, who were trying to stick by him and support him told me today in class that he's "weird because he's trying to get you fired" and "we don't agree with him and would like to participate again."

 

I'm pretty much at a loss at this time. I've had students before that act up in music class. I've had parent meetings before to rectify the situation. I've drawn up behavior contracts for a student and for myself (I include one for myself to ease the student into thinking that I am trying real hard to "correct" my behavior, although I'm not really changing anything since I wasn't doing anything wrong to begin with.) I'm really not sure what we're going to do, short of him doing classwork outside of my room and basically becoming an "independent" study class.

 

I guess I'll know better on Friday.

[wallus]

pitchleague wrote:

 

This particular student, however, has a bone to pick with every teacher in the school, I have found out. He has the attitude that everyone is out to get him. He was diagnosed with MRSA (staph infection) last year and he hates the world for it. And since the school had to make special provisions for him, he hates us all. I found out today from students that he is currently trying to get me fired. This is a third grader, folks, with this kind of attitude. He's trying to spread it around school, although unsuccessfully so far, since nobody--and I mean nobody--will take his side. Even his friends, who were trying to stick by him and support him told me today in class that he's "weird because he's trying to get you fired" and "we don't agree with him and would like to participate again."

I have to admit I am surprised that you are talking to 3rd graders about this issue. I am a high school teacher and would not find that appropriate given the obvious delicate situation.

[pitchleague]

the students pretty much told me on their own. I shrugged it off and continued to teach. But it will be addressed to my principal tomorrow (couldn't talk after school due to a meeting off campus.) But, otherwise, you're right. The other students have no need to know either side of the story and I'm trying to keep it that way. But kids talk to each other and I can't stop that.