Discussion 7: grading policy -- July 19

Your COMMENT is required.  REPLIES are welcome but not required.

 

Do not address me directly: you are talking to your classmates, not me.

 

To All:

I am committed to fairness to all and treating everyone by the same standards.
This is the fundamental reason why I don't make exceptions to the rules I set out.
In the Western culture, in general ,negotiating with and challenging authority is
considered a valuable skill and a sign of character.

By negotiating I mean requests such as: "Could you please?"

By challenging I mean reactions such as: It's unfair to take away points for this little mistake";
and: "What does that have to do with learning the content?"

There are many students who come from cultures where this is simply unthinkable.
Moreover, because of different social codes, women in particular
are discouraged from advocating for themselves,
even when they have a legitimate case.

As a teacher living in the XXI century in multicultural USA
I am ethically required to be mindful of this WONDERFUL
NEW reality and opportunity to do my part to educate the future
leadership of the country.

Second, and less important but still relevant:
if I were to accept excuses and grant exceptions,
I would never see the end of it. I would spend the rest
of the semester dealing with a shower of messages
with all sorts of requests for delays, make-ups, revisions,
second versions, better versions, correct versions, etc.

The situation is even worse in online courses.

I am not, however, unreasonable or infallible.
If you have a legitimate case that you can document,
just provide proof right from the beginning.
Do not force me to ask you to prove that your grandmother
or cousin really died (surprisingly I never never had one single
grandfather die in decades of teaching.) 
Nobody likes to be put in the position to sound callous
and insultingly uncaring.