The Grinch and the Grad Student

As I get ready to start the new semester teaching undergraduates, I want to draw your attention to this series of PhD comic strips from the Christmas season.

• How the Grad T.A. Stole Christmas, prelude
• How the Grad T.A. Stole Christmas, Part 1
• How the Grad T.A. Stole Christmas, Part 2
• How the Grad T.A. Stole Christmas, Part 3
• How the Grad T.A. Stole Christmas, Part 4
• How the Grad T.A. Stole Christmas, the Conclusion

The end of last semester was an interesting one for me as it was the first time I had to deal with students (notice the plural, it wasn’t just one, it was several) who felt that they’d been unfairly graded, and who waited until after the final to decide to care about their grades. One even used the word “fair” to say that they shouldn’t miss an A by 2 or 3 points. My high school English teacher only had three rules, one of which was “Fair is a four letter word used by people who don’t get their own way.” (The other two were “Mr. Helm is always right,” and “Don’t do anything stupid.”) And that’s exactly how this student was using it, they wanted things to go their way. I told them that “fair” was exactly what we were doing by giving everyone the exact same opportunities to earn points and that “unfair” would be giving some students extra points and not others. Students get the grades they earn. That’s fair.

Another student tried to accuse me of not wanting them to succeed. Which is not true. I do want my students to succeed. But I might define “success” differently than they do. For them “success” is simply a matter of getting an A in a class. For me “success” is learning something and being better for the experience. So if that means that they’ve learned they have to pay attention to class and that one or two points really can be a big deal and they’ll be more careful in the future, then that’s success.

I have never accused a teacher of being unfair or gone and begged for mercy when I missed an A by a point or two. In fact, I missed an A in weight lifting my sophomore year of college by two sit-ups. Two lousy sit-ups! I’d calculated how many I had to do to get an A and I only did that many. Except my calculations were off. If I had pushed on and done the total required I would’ve gotten an A. Did I go talk to the teacher and say it wasn’t fair I missed an A by two points. Nope. Because it wasn’t the teacher’s fault I didn’t do those two sit-ups. It was mine. I took responsibility for it and moved on with my life.

As the new semester starts and I have a new batch of undergraduates to deal with this semester, here’s hoping they understand fair, success, and responsibility. If not, I’m going to need more chocolate.