I just flunked several students

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@MissTake

TheKid is having major problems with her math teacher (9th grade Algebra) and will probably be doing summer school. He writes the assignment on the board, she writes it down in her planner. Somehow it seems to change from the time it’s on the board to when it’s turned in, and she perpetually receives minimal grades on everything. She transferred into the class a week and a half late - he was gracious to give her two days to complete all the back homework. Work she had already done in her other Algebra class, but since it was a different textbook she had to do it all over.

He is pretty strict - nothing can be turned in late unless you have an excused absence. If she is out Monday, her homework that was due Monday and the homework that was assigned Monday is due Tuesday. The turning Monday’s homework in Tuesday is the ‘extension’.

This would work out fine if he posted the syllabus online timely. We were reviewing the assignments yesterday and he has nothing since last Wednesday listed.

I am not saying my poor baby is being abused by the mean teacher. She calls him “Whats-his-face”, admits to not paying attention, doesn’t grasp the concept of showing her work, and constantly whines about no practical application of Algebra to “real” life. He offers tutoring help, which is useless for a kid who dislikes him anyways. My suggestions to confirm assignments falls on deaf ears. She will not talk to him.

Any ideas?

Get tutoring elsewhere?

Also if he is going to be teaching the summer school class, she might want to kick it up a notch to avoid that.

[Chronos]

There are always worse students. A couple of years ago, I was TAing one of the introductory-for-majors physics courses, and on one of the finals, there was a name that none of us had recognized, a student ID number that wasn’t even in the right format, and most of the test filled with silly doodles. On the last question, he drew a picture of a bear paw, and wrote “Go Griz!” (the University of Montana Grizzlies are our main rival).

OK, fair enough, so a UM student finished all of his finals, and came here and took one of our finals as a joke. I can laugh at that. That’s not the sad part. The sad part is that that Grizzly got the second-lowest grade in the class on that test. One of the students actually enrolled in the class managed to do even worse. And it was his second time taking the class. And, I’m sad to say, he was in my lab section both times.

[MissIntent]

I’m a student, but just had to throw in a recent story…

I’m about to graduate from business school, and one of the courses I was taking was a management course that you only take your last semester before graduating. So if you’re in this course, you are expected to be in your final semester. A senior. Been doing the college thing for a while, know how it works.

So on the first day of class, back in August, we are given a very detailed writing assignment, which involves writing a paper that covers everything we cover in class, is at least 25 pages long with no max. The professor will answer questions, make opinions on drafts, basically do everything he can to help us. It was a long, thoughtful assignment, and I’ve never turned in a 55 page paper before, but it was possible. We had lots of guidance. Oh, and the paper is worth 1/3 of our grade, that’s worth noting.

Went to class last week, and half the people I talked to hadn’t even started on the paper. When I turned it in today, there were students in class on laptops, still writing.

How in the world do you last until the end of college like that? Just wow.