Getting good grades

When I was in school it was often important for me to get good grades. I remember that Dad gave me a dollar for each quarter's A when I was in grade school. But I was really a B+/A- student. Through high school and my undergraduate years I never worked hard enough to get all As unless I wanted to impress the teacher of the class. In math and science I struggled just to get Cs. Actually, due to a brief window of opportunity regarding math I was able to avoid math entirely in college.

All this is preface to an interesting experience I've had this year. I have students in my speech classes who are choosing not to do the work even though they remain in class. Now this is something I don't understand. Why would someone just not do an assignment? Especially when all the directions are given and all one needs to do is follow the directions? I can only assume that these students are content to get low scores. I try my best to make sure everything is absolutely clear in class and every direction is written down. I ask for questions. I respond within two to 20 hours to every email.

Perhaps they are having an experience similar to mine after I was busted at age 19. As I was waiting for my case to come up before a judge in Alameda county in 1972, I entered a community college that we called UCLA -- University of Campbell at Latimer Avenue or Waste Valley. I decided that semester that I would reform myself and turn away from bad behavior and commit to something I could make money with -- business classes. So I took shorthand, accounting, business methods, and, for fun, music. I wound up dropping each of the classes and eventually just flunking music because I really had no interest in any of the courses.

Maybe my speech students are the same. All they want is a class and because they don't care about the material they aren't doing the work. I can respect that. Why do work if you don't care? And so far none of them have complained about their low grades. So, really, I guess it's not a problem. Their choices WOULD be a problem if they gave a few balls of deer excrement what their grade was going to be.