Korean Job Discussion Forums

[stevemcgarrett]

Not even the best band in the French Quarter of New Orleans could shake me from this one.

I knew a lot of crap goes down when grade sheets are turned it at my university but today was a first for me. Not one, not two, but three students in my class were given perfect scores of 100 for the semester because they requested enrollment in an equivalent course, albeit at the 4th year level. It was not made known to me that they were enrolled in my sophomore level course until it was time for me to sign the official grade sheet. Nor was it brought to my attention even then; I just happened to notice three 100s among the normal (re: earthbound) scores. Now I might have been able to overlook even this travesty but because the university has a bell curve policy, the three students actually on my class roster who earned A's in this course were bumped down to B's. Not an eyelash batted, in that oh-so-typical-dare-I-say-East Asian-indifferent attitude. Ho-hum, let's erase another student's sincere and trusting effort who played by all the right rules. And with a flick of the finger, presto, a new grade. Oh, and never mind that I'd already notified all my students of their grades.

I was truly at a loss to grasp the rationale for this policy, assuming their was one other than smoke and mirrors typical form over function East Asian charade-making.

Then the cynical reality was brought home to me by a younger colleague who's been in the Hermit Kingdom much longer than me. Apparently, the university has this unwritten policy, promulgated by its bobbing head administrators, to do whatever is needed, ethics to the wind, to retain students. In other words, they want to get as many students to graduate as possible. If too many students get high marks, they are likely to transfer to a higher-ranked university and with them goes the lucrative tuition and fees.

By the way, I never encountered this when I taught in Hong Kong or mainland China. But then again they have far more students than university places, unlike Korea. To be sure, sometimes grades were altered there as well, but not at the expense of other students' grades.

Does anyone else out there have a similar experience? Or one that can top this for sheer outrageousness?

[Real Reality]

Ghostwriters investigated
A professor who was part of an examination committee that accepted several ghostwritten theses said, "The quality of the theses was poor, but I didn't want to disqualify them. I never knew they were written by others."
by Kang Joo-an, JoongAng Daily (March 17, 2003)
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200303/17/200303170205221879900090409041.html

[Young FRANKenstein]

[Pak Yu Man]

I just put my grades into the computer a few hours ago. I was cringing everytime one of my A students dropped to a B and getting pissed of when a bunch of retards who failed got belled up to a D. But a D sucks anyways...lol.

I had one student go from a 32 to a 61.
Two go from mid 60s to 71.

Bell curving sucks ass. At least I can include the F losers who never attend class in my curve.

Yesterday the secritary from the English Dep. calls me and asks about a specific student. He didn't enroll in the coure but was attending. There where 5 days where an extra student number showed up on my sheet.

So the student called her to ask his grade. I told her "let's see. Went to class five times. Didn't hand in the first assignment, nor the second. Didn't write the mid-term, nor the final. Ummm How about an F".

"You can't give him an F...he already graduated" WTF?

So I had to go in and sign a sheet saying I flunked him.
I think he flunked himself.

[Bondrock]

grades....

korea....

get real...!