I recently gave a student from my spring comp class a passing grade. The operative word here being "gave" - because the student certainly didn't earn it. So why did I do that? Because I simply decided I didn't care enough about this student anymore to pursue it. It's sad, I know, but it's true.
The student - let's use the name Hisher, pronoun s/he - had been in my fall comp class, and had barely made it by with a passing grade. The only reason Hisher passed, I think, was because s/he had a buddy in the class who pushed Hisher to show up and do the work. Both are players on a college sports team.
Now, before you go - oh, yeah, right, and you hate sports so you were hard on Hisher... I love sports. I can hardly wait for fall football to start, and get depressed when the Superbowl is over. I love basketball, especially the playoffs, and enjoy softball and baseball. Men's and women's in all of these (I can hardly wait to move downstate and see my first women's football game!). If anything, yes, I am "hard" on sports players because I think they should be able to carry an academic load as well as an athletic load, and do both well to succeed. I refuse to let athletes who cannot pass basic skills classes represent our school in sports. Privilege, not a right and all of that.
Hisher didn't start out the second semester very well. In fact, s/he was absent a lot in the first several weeks, showing up once a week to a 3x/week class for three weeks. That's pretty bad. I pulled Hisher aside and asked what the heck was going on, s/he just goofed me some answer, no answer really. "I know your buddy is gone this semester, so you're on your own to pull it together and pass this class. If you miss any more classes, you'll fail. Don't do that." S/he nods and says alright, promise I won't, and sure enough Hisher didn't.
But when grades came out, Hisher didn't pass. It was that first paper. S/he bombed it by not meeting word count in addition to it just being pretty poorly written. I asked Hisher to resubmit with electronic copy to verify - to come and see me about it, but s/he never did. It would have given me the opportunity to work with Hisher more, to encourage better writing, to help with a rewrite of the paper, to set goals for doing better in the class. S/he never came to see me. Just let it slide.
Once the grade hit, of course, s/he was immediately in my e-mailbox, questioning why (in some of the most poorly written e-mails I've seen from a college student in a long time). I explained why. Told Hisher to resubmit the paper with electronic copy and I would reconsider. S/he couldn't get an electronic copy, using Mac not MS - tried to send file, it was blank, complained s/he was working, did not have time to come to campus. After a week of e-mails like this every day, I finally said - no more e-mails: by Friday or not at all. That's when Mom called the college, and the Vice President called me.
I held my ground. Told VP the whole story. VP asked if I would give another week. I said no. Two more days. That's it. Otherwise, they could pursue it as a formal complaint. VP agreed. Two days later, I had the paper and electronic copy.
Rereading it, I was shocked at how bad it was. I could see why I wanted to talk to Hisher, to try to get Hisher to work on just writing more, to develop stonger skills. I knew s/he could do better. And, yes, it was short on the word count. Only by a couple of words, but, short is short, and it concerned me at the time that s/he couldn't even meet a minimum word count.
Looking at the paper again, thinking about how much I cared about Hisher during the semester and wanted to help, I thought about Hisher now. Working in Hisher's family business, not a great sports star, parents still fighting Hisher's fights - because, in the meantime, Mom e-mailed me, on behalf of her child, wanting clarification as to why her child hadn't met requirements, why I was asking for what I was, why this, why that - but no disrespect... Then why ask?
Where was Mom when Hisher wasn't showing up for class but once a week? Where was Mom when Hisher was coming in hungover to class and burned out on partying? Where was Mom when Hisher had papers due that were turned in at less than a high school level? Was Mom on Hisher as quickly and as diligently as she had been on me?
I didn't need this shit.
That's my breaking point line. I know when that comes out of my mouth, I have really hit the end of a fight and need to quit.
That was the point where I looked into my heart and realized this was not a student I cared about anymore. I had once. I had thought I could have made a difference. I held that paper grade because I thought Hisher would care. But it was clear, s/he didn't and never would, not about this anyway. I was still caring more about Hisher than s/he cared about his/herself.
Hisher was the one student in my class that semester who, from pre- and post-writing samples showed absolutely no progress whatsoever. I realized it wasn't my fault. I couldn't change it. I could make it worse by holding to the failing grade that s/he truly deserved. I could ruin Hisher's life for a little while, but would only do it if I thought it would ultimately make it better. I knew deep down, it wouldn't make any difference at all. Not for this one. Not me. Not this time. It's for someone else, somewhere else, some other time to reach this kid.
I gave Hisher a passing grade. Because I just didn't care anymore.
Hisher sent me a thank-you e-mail - with poor grammar and technical errors. I deleted it without responding.
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