/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7652326
I take zero pleasure out of having to give my students bad grades or giving them failing marks... but part of being a teacher, especially a science teacher, is the responsibility you have not just to your students but to your community. Getting a passing grade is a certification that that person has a satisfactory understanding of the material covered in the class - and passing someone who clearly doesn't understand the material can have serious consequences. An engineer who doesn't understand Newton's laws is going to build a bridge the fails. An architect who doesn't understand thermodynamics is going to build a skyscraper that burns down and collapses. A doctor who doesn't understand chemical interactions is going to prescribe a patient something that will kill them.


Last year I had to give a group a failing grade on a lab on Archimedes' Principle. The goal in the lab was to calculate the amount of weight needed to sink a model boat and after four tries they were still a factor of twenty off.

The student measuring the volume couldn't read the digital calipers. The one measuring the displaced mass left extra weights on the scale. The one doing the calculations couldn't divide to balance an equation. I pointed out their mistakes and told them to try again and they threw a fit and started bitching and moaning to me about how unfair I was being by making them check their work and how I was making a big deal out of stupid little mistakes.


I asked them what they were studying to be - a vet, a pediatrician, a surgeon - and I flat out told them,

>"You just killed someone's pet, you just killed someone's kid, you just killed someone's husband... you're going into fields where mistakes get people killed, I think that's kind of a big deal."


That was the last time they got anything less than a B on a lab, so I'd like to think I got through to them.