Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Today I'll talk about some grading policies that are being practiced in several schools (not just ours, but not by me) that I don't agree with.

First of them is the "cancel the lowest" exam rule. This means that during the term when a teacher gives several exams, the lowest of these will not be included in the computation of the average, a percentage of which is used in getting the final grade.

Just recently, a student failed in a subject where this rule was enforced, because the student got sick during one of the exams.

The teacher, instead of giving a make up exam to the student who had a valid medical certificate, said that this exam will be the one that is canceled from the student's grade.

Well, so much for the purpose of getting the students to increase their efforts then.

With only one or two exams left to pull up his grade, the student was not able to make the cut. And this is a senior that was enrolled with the juniors. He will now have to take the class with the sophomores next year, extending his studies yet again.

Next peeve is teachers who give their students their class standing so far with respect to a hundred percent of all the requirements as yet given.

This is the case with the previous teacher of one of the classes I picked up in the last three weeks of the term. Their standing was not including the practical exam (twenty percent) and the written finals (another twenty percent). So when it said ninety percent, it meant ninety percent of the sixty percent, which is fifty four total, not even passing!

That's why I had to emphasize to them that if they take the written finals (as if they had a choice) their grade could only go up because I practice accumulation of points, where everything the student does can just add to his or her grade.

Of course, if they don't take the finals, their grade can only go down.

I couldn't really do anything about this because it was three teachers ago that they were supposed to have been given the grade breakdown, which should have included the written and practical exam.

Session 1453's emphasis on minimal effort won't work on an accumulation grading system. Class dismissed.