There was once when I was caught in a dilemma when my Mathematics teacher had done something which seems unreasonable to me.
It all happened when I applied for leave on one day of the mid-term examinations to attend the funeral of my uncle’s wife. After that day, I went to my Mathematics teacher and asked her about the details for my make-up test. I was shocked when she told me that she would only give me 45 minutes to complete my paper when the duration of the paper was supposed to be 90 minutes!
She explained to me that it would be fairer to other students since I were to take a make-up test. I could not understand why she would do that to me as she had said nothing when I gave her the letter regarding my absence for the paper beforehand. When she saw that I was in a hesitation, not only did she not take any pity on me, but she kept pressing on to ask if I still would want to take the make-up test.
I knew I had no other choice except taking the challenge (though I could have approached the Head of Student for help) as I did not want to make things worse. Luckily I managed to complete all the questions within 45 minutes. When I got my marked paper back from my teacher, I felt like I had just slapped her on the face as I could still score 86 marks though she might not have expected that.
Do you think that it was appropriate for teachers to cut down the duration of paper for students who take the make-up test? What would you do if you are in my shoes? Would you have approached the Head of Student for help or just do what the teacher asked of?
Hi Sinhui,
ReplyDeleteYour mathematics teacher is really so UNREASONABLE! In my opinion, I feel that she had not considered your feelings and the stress you were facing. Rather she deemed that you were using death as an excuse to miss the exam and cause her inconvenience. Hence this resulted in her hostile attitude towards you and her reluctance to set up another set of exam questions for you to attempt.
In addition, I feel that you have been responsible as you had taken the efforts to inform her before hand that you were unable to attend the examination. Hence she should have set another exam paper of a higher standard for you instead of trying to ensure “fairness” by reducing the exam duration by half. By doing this she had not only failed to ensure fairness, but ended up being bias to a student who had to miss an examination due to death of a relative – which cannot be prevented.
I feel that even if she is too busy with marking of examination scripts and unable to set a make up exam, she should have just reduced the exam duration by at most twenty minutes. Another alternative is to exempt you from the examination without penalizing you for it.
If such a situation were to happen to me, I would have voiced my displeasure to the Head of Student as I feel that she is abusing her authority as a teacher. I would want the Head to implement clear measures that a teacher has to abide when giving a make up examination. I feel that somebody has to take the first step to ensure that she will not continue “bullying” her future students.
P/S: I am so glad you managed to do well despite the time reduction :))
Regards
Valerie
Hi Valerie.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments!
I do agree with you that maybe it would be better to approach the Head of Student for help as to ensure fairness in the make up examination. Actually when I told my mom about this, she had scolded me for being too easy to be pushed around by my teacher. However, to me, working hard to prove myself might be easier than to persuade people to do things right. I guess maybe it's something like protest in silence. Anyway, it was a valuable lesson for me, to learn another way of dealing with problems;-)
Hello!
ReplyDeleteWhy did you not go and see the Principal or Head of Student??? I think it was a risk you had taken. Have you ever thought what would happen if you had not done well?
I feel that you should ask for help when there is Really a need to ask. It is Your right that you have that make-up test and not the Right of the teacher to alter the length of the time as she likes. It is not as if you had purposely skipped that test.
All in all, I still feel that you should have told someone of a higher authority to prevent others from "shortchanging" you.