Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Midterm

This the a gut check time of the year around the campus scene; fall semester mid-term.

For the freshman class, which hasn't had to consider failure since tenure was taken away from their high school teachers, this is a very disturbing time. For many, the idea of failure is much like telling them that they've got cancer or HIV. It just hits 'em like a ton of bricks and then they go through the somewhat predictable stages of denial (I can bring my grade up even without going to class...), anger ( the professor is the worst professor at the College...), begging and pleading (Please, please, please, don't fail me...I promise I'll come to class, I promise I'll make time to study, I promise I'll do my homework...) and, finally, acceptance (can you sign my drop sheet?). For those who are only taking 12 hours and are staying in the dorms this means that they are now on dorm probation for too few hours and any little thing that they do wrong can get them kicked out. Many of them are absolutely terrifuied to go home to their parents for our short fall break and dealing with having to break this disturbing news to them.

For the sophomores there are two things going on. For some, this is a confirmation that they really don't have a clue what it means in college. Those that did poorly last year promised themselves they'd bring up their grades and this may be the first really tangible proof that they haven't done that. It's a bitter pill to swallow to learn that for all your good intentions, you're still the same person you were last year with all of the same bad habits. The bigger group are the students who didn't have too much trouble with their freshman basic classes like english comp and algebra but now are struggling with their first really college level classes. These are the students I'm working with. They were good students in high school and got above a 3.0 their freshman year but now they're in physics, calculus, organic chemistry, statistics or equally challenging courses. They find that they really don't know it all and the years of cheating the system using last minute/half-assed study techniques may cost them their free ride.

So the stress/angst level is a little high right now. I've seen losts of tears and long faces the lat week or two as the realization that the tooth fairy isn't magically going to rescue their grade has begun to sink in. For me, I've had half of my two algebra-based physics classes drop the course and for the most part that was at my urging. Teh remaining students are looking around with a sort of spooked demeanor wondering if maybe they should have dropped too. Most of the remaining students will be fine but there are one or two that haven't gotten past the denial stage and will be very frustrated and disappointed come December.

On the positive side, I've got more than half of my students that are doing fine. I've got good studnets who study regularly and get their work done dependably. What I don't understand is why can't the other students use them as role models? It's an interesting question I may have to ponder.

Thanks for reading.

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