alt Hacker NewsThis is a really interesting framing to me. You say "forced," would you have preferred to give them a better grade even though they didn't do the work because they were smart?
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Jolter • today at 3:46 PM
Forced, presumably, by the student themself.
I said "forced" because there's a grading framework that I had to follow and there was no amount of flexibility within that framework that made it so I could pass them... Especially since they didn't leave the class really understanding the subject.
I knew they were capable of understanding what I was teaching, and I even made it very clear to students that if they are having trouble with the homework they can bother me and I will help them through it, and I will spend whatever amount of time it takes. A few students actually took me up on that, and they really did improve as a result, but some of the students simply seemed content on failing.
I take it as a personal failing; if a person is smart enough to pass my class and didn't, then I didn't do a good enough job making it interesting.