the bell curve

In the beginning of the school year, I began to get worried that my class would become too easy. I mean, my assignments were pretty simple, and I wasn't giving out a whole lot of them. As the grading period came to a close, I tried to make sure that I had at least a few substantive things to give them grades for. But I was still worried that I was going to end up giving out a bunch of A's.

My students really took care of that for me.

They're all good kids. Don't get me wrong. And they're all relatively bright. But many of them lowered their grades significantly just by not doing the work. I was really stunned. I couldn't understand why they didn't just do it.

But should I have been really surprised?

Several weeks ago, Corey noticed that my left headlight was burned out on my car. I sighed. A new headlight on a VW Beetle costs around 75 bucks. That totally sucks. And the other one can't be far behind, since the car uses daytime running lights all the time.

Now I know that it's illegal to drive with one headlight out. But I continued to do so. (Why did I do that?) And tonight, I got called on it. End of the marking period, you might say. Mister Police Officer pulled me over and "notified" me that my headlight was out. He also gave me a little slip of paper to serve as a reminder. It says, If you don't have your headlight fixed in 30 days, you're going to get an F on your report card.

(I'm grateful, actually. He didn't have to give me the "second-chance" ticket. Say what you will about policemen. This one was professional and courteous.)

So I guess my students and I aren't really all that different, are we? The thing is, part of my job as their teacher is to help them learn the value of turning things in on time. And the value of getting headlights fixed right away. So they don't feel the crunch of a $75 repair bill during a month when they might not have the $75 to spare. Building good habits now will save them time and money in the future.

And now that I'm feeling energized about helping them learn these things, I've got some papers to grade. Good night, everybody!

Posted: Mon - October 6, 2003 at 11:13 PM

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the bell curve

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