Recently
I wrote my testimony for my Evangelism class.
When the grades came back I had received a 20 out of a possible 40. At
first I was dumbfounded and then I was angry. How can a professor possibly give
someone a 20 out of 40 for a personal story.
The
reason I am angered by this is that I feel the professor wants some great
conversion story—something I don’t have. I’ve been saved since I was a child…I
guess my “GREAT story” is that I have maintained my faith in Christ even during
the hard times in life. Can you really consider that I student may not have a
recovery story since they’ve been saved for so long?
Today
I remain prayerful on how to handle this grade, since I don’t think it’s a fair
grade in light of my salvation being since I was a child. Please pray with me
during these next couple of days as I decide on what I should do.
Rachel,
ReplyDeleteAsk your professor if s/he wanted a fictionalized story or the truth andif a fictionalized one was acceptable, offer to redo the paper! As you said, not everyone has a story like Paul being knocked off his horse or or an angel appearing to Joseph!
"Conversion" doesn't happen to everybody! What a blessing for those who do, but the vast majority of us are taught by our parents, brought to Sunday School or CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine for Catholics), and then we continue to grow on our own as we search out additional help for ourselves during the harder times in life or when we decide we just want to learn more about religion. We all know there is a reason for everything that happens, but we may not learn what it is until much later or after we die! It isn't his/her job to critique that! S/He is there to teach you, not convert you to whatever his/her beliefs are. A 20/40 grade equals a failing grade. Do not let him/her get away with this or s/he'll bully you again on another paper! You can ask him/her what they were really looking for ... did they want something that you may not have understood? And if what you gave him/her was really what s/he wanted, then take it to the Dean of Studies! Ask around to others in the class to see how s/he graded their papers if they had a non-exciting 'I've been in the same faith, practicing the same way since I was a child.' kind of religious up-bringing, and they got better graades or like you got low grades, beprepared to take action. And if there are a few others like you, go in numbers to the Dean. There is great strength in numbers!
Many, many years ago my sister, who is now deceased, had a priest professor at a Catholic college that never gave her more than a "C" on her papers and she worked very hard doing each one. She finally took one to our then parish priest who had a PhD in Theology and was a very learned man in many other areas. She brought her next paper to him and he made a few corrections, a few more suggestions and told her to come back once she ahd reworked her paper. He then gave her more suggestions and made a few more corrections an said bring it back again. He read the last draft and told her to go ahead and submit it ... he was sure it was an "A" paper. So she did as he said -- and it came back a "C" paper again! The priest that had helped her said find out how he graded others in the class ...and she eventually learned that he had a grade chosen for each student after the first day of class and there was no way they would get anything different! He wasn't very happy when as a group they talked with the Dean, who suggested they retype their papers but not put any name on them, just some sort of mark that would distinguish/identify their paper. There were many students in the class and though he MIGHT have read them before, there was no way he could remember which student had written what. All the papers were collected before anyone entered the class, and they were given to him to reread and regrade each of them, according to the Dean's request. Just about all of them got higher grades on the 2nd shot, where there were no names! Oh! and they also added a handful of papers from those who had gotten good grades the first time around and and this 2nd time, some of them went down!!! Mind you, this was in the 1970s, and things were a bit different then, but it ended his games of throwing the papers up or down the stairs (one of his other games) and grading them on whose paper was picked up first, since it was the closest, making it less work to pick up, fewer bending moves needed!
Bullying should not be allowed in college! Its bad enough that it goes on in middle school and high school! If you'd like another very different example, contact me. I have seen a number of these kinds of professors as I was working on my BA and MA!
Trudy Goodman Tauria515@yahoo.com