The Kind Teacher
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Loading ...Once upon a time, there was a very kind teacher. He loved every one of his students equally and he strove to treat every one of them fairly as well. But, he was troubled by how many students were failing his class, roughly twenty percent! Some students were simply not mentally as bright. Some students were having a rough time at home. Then again, some of his students were just lazy. Regardless, he sympathized with every one of them; he didn’t want to see any of them fail. But, how could he keep twenty percent of his class from doing so?
Admittedly, he was slightly jealous of those students that had been born brilliant, or had good, stable family lives, or were just hard workers. They always seemed to get A’s no matter how hard the assignment or how much homework he gave them. The other sixty percent of his class had grades ranging from B’s, to C’s, to D’s.
One day while grading papers, the kind teacher had an idea. What if he were to secretly start taking those students who got A’s, drop them down to B’s which was still a very good grade, and use those points to boost the failing students up to D’s? D’s were still not very good grades, but at least it was passing! He immediately implemented his idea, and it worked! Within a week he had no failing students in his class.
Three weeks later, he noticed a disturbing pattern in the behavior of his top and lower twenty percent students. The top students stopped working as hard. Apparently they had realized that they could never get an A no matter what they did and started accomplishing less. They still worked, but now it was only enough to secure a B. Some of the top students even dropped his class and took the one next door with the hard teacher who hated slackers.
The bottom students worked even less than they had before! They realized that no matter how little they did, they couldn’t fail. Word had spread how easy the kind teacher’s class was and attracted some of the lower students from the hard class next door.
Well, this had major consequences for the kind teacher. Now there were far less top students earning B’s in the class and the lower students were failing once again. In order to prevent this from happening, the kind teacher began secretly dropping the B students down to C’s to once again boost the failing students up to a D.
This worked temporarily. But, as with the first time, less work was done and now even students who had been earning B’s before all this change had taken place were dropping his class and joining the one next door. Even more lower students joined. This dropped the entire class average down to a D.
By this time the kind teacher was frustrated. Most of the A and B students had dropped his class, and the C students had become angry that they were working hard to get C’s while the failing students did hardly nothing to get D’s. The C students stopped working as hard and the whole class was sliding into failing. Next door, the hard teacher was having unparalleled success with his students’ grades.
Sound familiar? Apply it today’s politics.
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:26 am
As a student, I often wonder why in certain classes my hard work doesn’t pay off. I think I fall under the “hard working” student category, because my life is far from perfect. So how come some teachers bump us down to B’s while others bump us up to A’s?
Well, to paraphrase one professor at my university; it really depends how much he or she likes you. If you’re a male student with a feminist teacher, there’s nothing you can do.
So remember that. THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO! If you go to a state university which are notorious for housing slackers, if you try to succeed you will fail.
A hard working student cannot succeed in a slacker’s school. The best thing you can do for your grade point average is stop trying and join a fraternity. That’s all they care about, especially a state universities.