Job Discussion Forums

[saharastars]

Students in the KSA , I have read on countless posts, live in the glorious realm of the Magic Kingdom, where their lecturers are mere portals of knowledge. This is where they can grade their own assignments and remark their own exams ( recent feedback from people at Bell).
So my question is, coming from a different reality- How do you go about teaching, without offending the norms out there?- and NOT going stark raving mad on the other hand. Should I keep two exam marks, one for the my own use ( and administration ,should anyone really want to know) and the students' own projected grade- or what they feel should be on the paper?

Happy days....

[johnslat]

Dear saharastars,

Depends on where you work. Whenever I was asked to "change a grade." I'd tell the Director that I couldn't do that, but that, of course, he could do so if he really wanted to.
Many times he did; sometimes he didn't. I guess it also depended on how much wasta the student had.

But where I worked, I could get away with telling the Director that and not get fired (Actually, I think the Director respected that.) I imagine that it's not that way in many other places.

Regards,
John

[Linguist]

As far as I know, teachers never alter the grades of their students. The administration does.

[Sheikh N Bake]

Correct. And in some institutions and training wings in the Tragic Kingdom, failing students actually flunk out, resulting in surviving students who are serious about learning. Personally, having taught for 23 years total in Malaysia, Japan, Saudi, the Emirates and Equatorial Guinea, I never worry about or try to get a handle on teaching and grading and classroom management in any specific sense in any particular country until I actually start work. Even in Saudi, as I mentioned above, different strokes for different folks in upper management. More general cultural references are, of course, useful prior to arrival.

[johnslat]

Dear Linguist,

"As far as I know, teachers never alter the grades of their students. The administration does."

Not true in my experience. The administration occasionally asked teachers to alter grades (almost always, if not always, because of "student wasta.")

Some teachers complied; others didn't. Then, the administration would alter the grades of the ones who didn't.

Regards,
John

[Linguist]

Very interesting John. Can we hear from others? Have you ever been asked to 'adjust' the grades of your students ?

[Mia Xanthi]

I was never asked to adjust the grades of my students, but I know many people who were asked. Often, the younger, more vulnerable teachers were asked to do this kind of thing, whereas they feared the wrath of the older and crankier teachers like myself. Or, as johnslat has said, they just changed the grade behind my back without ever telling me.

I found that my students rarely questioned my grades and usually accepted what I gave them. This was because I bent over backwards to be visibly FAIR in the grading process, giving them plenty of opportunities for re-writes and extra credit. I kept them informed of their progress all along, so final grades were not a surprise. In the end, they knew they didn't have a leg to stand on if I failed them....and I did fail a rather large percentage each semester.

[007]

[007]

007.

[Mia Xanthi]

I found that the failure rate was about 20% across the board. However, I had some classes with no failures, and others in which as many as 40-50% failed.