Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Feels Good

Our seniors are taking final exams today and tomorrow, and today I gave finals to all my stats classes.  Not a single person in the entire course failed stats.  And no, I'm not known as an easy grader.

I taught them something!

Update, 5/24/17:  Dang it, I missed one yesterday, so in each of the 2 courses I teach, I had one senior not pass.  I have about 90 seniors total, so the percentage isn't horrible, I guess.  I had a lot more seniors earn A+'s than F's, so that's something.

4 comments:

Pseudotsuga said...

That's a good feeling, to know that you have succeeded in your task.
Congratulations to your and your students both for all the hard work.

Anonymous said...

what's the normal percentage???

Ellen K said...

Our state requires all students to take one fine arts course. There's a range from choir, orchestra, band and theater to AP Studio, Art History and Music Theory. Unfortunately many of our seniors think it is a wise move to take the "easy" course of Art One. They think it will be glitter and glue and unicorns. So imagine their surprise when they have history, math, science and other disciplines thrown at them in the progression of what is supposed to be a foundation level course for students wanting to pursue art careers. Most kids take it in stride and some surprise themselves by doing well and seeking careers.

Then there's this one kid. He started the course showing up 45 minutes late the first day throwing off the quip "They aren't counting tardies the first day." He proceeded to be late every day that week. He's accrued 23 absences out of the last 90 days, and by all rights he should fail on absences alone. But Daddy has money, so he's been given ample rope...the last one was he showed up hungover in class and slept through it. In some ways I feel sorry for him in spite of his arrogance. He's dealing with all this lack of structure and in the meantime Mommy and Daddy are on vacation. I don't want the kid not to graduate because of just my class, but it's kind of a BS move to pass him just to get rid of him. The bottom line is that seniors should not be taking freshman level courses Spring of their senior year. Also, I really hate it that it's the third grading term that is the basis for admission and scholarships because behavior and work ethic really tanks after that point.

Darren said...

Our district requires a year of "visual or performing arts" to graduate, but I don't think it's a state requirement.