THIRD TERM FAILURE

I have noticed that my students' grades for the third term are dismal. I know that not using partial credit is a contributing factor, but there is something going on beyond that. (Many of the students would have failed the tests anyway - partial credit or not.) I cannot quite figure out what the problem is. Is it the fact that all of the information builds on itself, and that if the students never truly mastered the first semester information, it is very difficult to be successful the first semester? Is it just the fact that the concepts we are covering are much more complex? Is it the fact that the students can smell the end of the year coming and are simply slacking off? Is it the fact that very few of my students are actually in class and on task every day? Are they neglecting my classes in favor of spending more time on state tested subjects? Is my instruction worse than it was the first semester? I would like to know what is causing such a dramatic drop in performance so that I can attempt to address it. (I am willing to take some responsibility for my students' lack of success, but definitely not all of it.)

Last semester I was willing to drop the lowest test grade for either one or both of the first two terms while the students were still getting used to me. This semester, I told them that I would not drop a grade and that they should retake any tests that they fail because the grade would otherwise count. If I stick to this, I am afraid that the percentage of my students failing for the term will be more than twice what it has been. Most of my students either do not take the time to come after school to take a retest, or if they do, they don't take advantage of the fact that I am willing to tutor them to better prepare them for a retest. They instead come in and ask to take the test right away, and often perform worse on the retest than on the original test.

I can now see why grade inflation exists. If I fail a large percentage of my students, I will likely have to justify the large failure rate to an administrator. I don't really want to deal with that. Then there are the parents who might decide to come up to the school ranting and raving. I do not want to be in a position of having to deal with a hostile parent because, frankly, I don't know how I will handle myself. I am typically able to hold my emotion until after a meeting and not just go off on somebody in the heat of anger, but there are those moments when the anger runs over. My students keep telling me that my class is messing up their GPA or that my class is the only class that they're not doing well in. I don't pay much attention to this, however, because often when I ask them how have they done previously in similar classes, they will admit that they barely squeaked by.

Before I become too alarmed, I will see how things shake out next week. There is still hope since the students have two test grades remaining - a test and a paper - that will give them the opportunity to bring up their grades. I hope that they are taking these seriously.

THE PATH TOO OFTEN TAKEN

From November to February, I lost sleep for numerous reasons - coming home late after a basketball game; staying up late to finish homework for class or trying to complete an assignment for the online course that I am being forced to take; traveling to Ole Miss on the weekend (sometimes after driving to Greenwood or Indianola for a basketball game); getting up early for work or church; etc., etc. After basketball season ended, I was very disappointed that our team did not make it to the Coliseum even though we were definitely talented enough to make it there, but at the same time I looked forward to having a little more personal time and some time to get adequate rest. Unfortunately, the rest has still not yet come. I have been trying to catch up with some of the grading that I didn't have time to do for the last couple of weeks. I guess I will have to save the sleeping marathon for spring break (except for the fact that I'll still be working on homework for class.)

Last week I lost sleep for another reason. A family member informed me one day that a store nearby had been robbed at gunpoint by two young people, and that the news channel showed the two people being arrested by the police. We wondered about whether it was hunger or an extreme need that would drive someone to rob an establishment in broad daylight. Of course we had no way of knowing the answer to that question. The following day, I overheard my students saying that they felt sorry for a particular student. I asked why, and they said as if I should have already known - you know she robbed that store.

I could not believe it. I would have never thought that one of the people involved in the incident that I heard about the previous day was one of my students. She was just in my class during one of my planning periods a few days before making up a test and talking to me about several things. I would never have seen it coming. That new information put me in a bad mood for the remainder of the day. I could not help but wonder if there was something more that I or another adult in her life could have done or said to her to discourage her from choosing that course of action. I have awakened in the middle of the night a few times wondering about this, and praying for her that there be some slim chance that she may one day overcome the consequences of her action.

My students spoke of her as if she were dead - "She was a good student, too." Unfortunately, events like this are often insurmountable for young people. All too often, after they have served their time, they are often stuck in a cycle of crime and drugs. I pray that my student does not follow that path, but the sad truth is that she he has already taken the first step on that path.