Day 152 - The Students Who Never Came To Class

empty classroom image by earthisthering, via Flickr.com

Another purpose for that big book in the English Department was to record grades of students. At the end of the first term, I learned that the members of each class would be listed in the book for the teachers to record their grades. Grades in Romanian universities ranged from 1 to 10 with 5 or higher passing.  Since my classes were Conversation or American Culture, the grades I gave were admittedly subjective. I didn't have tests or papers with grades to total up and average.

The first term, all of my classes were second-year English majors. The second term, only three of my classes were second-year English majors. One class was third-year French majors with English as their minor. And one class was a fourth-year elective course developing writing skills in English.

Three of those classes met in the evening. It was inevitable that some of the classes were held in the evenings, given the number of hours students spent in the classroom. It was challenging to get all the students to attend the evening classes. They followed a break of at least two hours, long enough for the students to get back to their dorm rooms or their apartments at the other end of town. Sometimes they just didn't make it back for that evening class.

The third-year French majors and English minors were one of those evening classes. Most evenings at least two of them showed up. Sometimes there were as many as five. Once none of them showed up, but I think that was one of the classes who heard I had gone to Bucharest.

It was very difficult to figure out what activities to plan for when it wasn't clear how many students would be in attendance. One of my favorite activities was something we also did in Iran called Dialog Cards. This exercise involved an ambiguous dialog written with only one half on each of two cards. The class would decide ahead of time if the dialog would be spoken by two men, two women, or a man and a woman. The class would decide which emotions the two speakers would put into their half of the conversation. The two speakers would look at one another while they spoke the words on their cards to one another, using the emotions the class had decided on.  The results were always hilarious. And the same cards could be used over and over again with different results just by switching the emotions and combination of speakers. But with only one pair of speakers, a class planned for this activity ended pretty quickly.

While I never saw them all at the same time, in all there were probably seven students in that class. I kept thinking about what I could have done during the term if they had all attended. So when the term ended and I opened up the big book to provide grades for those seven students, I was shocked to discover that there were 14 members of that class. Seven students came at least once. but seven more never showed up at all.

I gave them all 0's.

Within a week, one of those missing students came to the American/British reading library with a large bouquet of flowers and an explanation. She apologized for not attending any of my classes. She said she was married and had an infant. Once she got back to their apartment after her daytime classes, she had to take care of the baby and it was just too difficult to leave the baby behind for her to return to the university for the evening class. I asked her a number of other questions to get a better sense of her English ability. At the end of the conversation, I told her I would think about what she had told me and would consider changing her grade.

The next day, another of the missing students appeared outside the English Department and asked to talk with me. She said she had heard from her colleague that if she asked me, I would change her grade. I countered by explaining that her colleague had come to me, showing more courage than any of the other members of the class, that she had apologized to me for not showing me the courtesy of attending my classes, and that she had explained her reasons for not coming back to the university in the evening. Based on those factors, I had assured her that I would think about whether or not I would change her grade. I did not tell her I would change her grade. I told her I would consider it.

The following day, a third of the missing students appeared outside the English Department and told me she wanted me to change her grade. I was a bit surprised at the abruptness of the request so I told her I didn't have any reason to change her grade. Her counter to that was to tell me that if I didn't change her grade, she would have to retake the class in the summer and that meant that I would have to stay for the summer to teach the class again. I replied that whether she had to retake the class had nothing to do with whether I had to remain to teach it. But still she didn't give up. She said I had to change the grade because 0 wasn't a grade. So I replied, "And that is just what you got - no grade."

In the end, I changed the grade of the first student who came to explain and apologize, but I don't think I made it a passing grade. I didn't change the other grades. But I did add a note in the big book to explain why I had given the seven students who never came to my class a grade of 0. And I explained that I had been asked by some of the students to change that grade, but that I didn't feel I could in good conscience change grades of students who had never attended a class. But, since I didn't know all the implications of my decision, I would understand if someone on the faculty felt it necessary to change the grades in my place.