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[elsterm]

I'm back after a few weeks without internet access. We're moved into the new place and loving it. There are still boxes everywhere, but we're starting to figure out where things will go and the place is beginning to look like a real home. I met the neighbors across the street briefly when we first moved, they're our age and they seem very nice

Comments

[ummserious]

I'm wondering how it would work to scrap the assignments and then pose another one but preface it with "There are few times you get a second chance as you gain more responsibility in the world-- I'm giving you one now but don't expect these every time you make bad decisions" kind of thing? They'd have to do more work and you'd have more reason to grade the way you want when you really did give them another chance- parents will need to respect that.

As for the kid who did no assignments...he reminds me of a close friend from high school. This guy was extremely intelligent. Although he wasn't poor I don't think the tax bracket had any effect on his work ethic. I just think he had trouble working within parameters. He definitely graduated with ho-hum grades when he didn't to and had to try 3 different colleges and time off before completing his degree. (He was at my college for a while in a philosophy class with me which I expected him to love. He came to exactly 3 classes, each time he was late.) It took a lot of this "failure" of sorts for him to realize that you need to play by some rules even if you think you are ready for the next step. It's kind of sad but at the age of 30 he seems to have turned it around a little and is supposedly at UMass Boston getting a graduate degree in English- go figure he wants to be a writer.

Your student is definitely not helping himself to earn any special treatment. My friend had a bit of the disrespect element as well, I think it came from his knowledge of his own intelligence which was unfortunate in how it played out- he felt he was smarter than some of our teachers. But I remember him receiving some punishment for that. I think that some of the personalities like this enjoy their own brand of "thinking out of the box" and dismiss the repercussions.