It is finals’ week, I’ve got my students’ final grades in place, and now I’m facing the one thing I’ve been avoiding for two months now – the five students I must fail. I have five students in my class who decided to stop attending somewhere towards the beginning of October. I reached out to them: sent them emails, flagged them, and then, sent them more emails. But I received no response. It was difficult trying to keep up with them. Initially, I was willing to work with them (if they decided to come back) and help them get back on track. But they didn’t until the first week of December! Four of the five students met me during the last week, before the finals’ week, to try and make up for the entire semester that they missed! Imagine my frustration. One of them told me that if he didn’t get a C in this paper, his mother would send him to England to live with his “strict” grandfather. Note that this student had only turned in his Essay 1. Another student sent me a very long email, four days before the final grades are due, apologizing for disappearing and wondering if there was anything he could do to make up for it.
When talking to these students and trying to understand why they disappeared, I realized that the common theme was “I couldn’t handle it”. They had nervous breakdowns and difficult family situations and found no better way to deal with those issues. Yet, I had to apologize and explain how there was nothing I could do – “It’s too late”.
What am I supposed to do now? I still have to fail them, whether I’m aware of their issues or not, whether I believe them or not, whether I understand or no. Isn’t that a little frustrating?