Failing a class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is only March. Shouldn’t there be more projects to come, that will balance the grade out a bit more? Otherwise what are they doing in that class from now until June?

Maybe she can’t redo the project but could she do some work for extra credit? Something like that? This seems very harsh.

IME most HS electives teachers are reluctant to actually fail a kid, unless there is a severe issue with effort or behavior. One of my own kids also has a horrid experience with ceramics BTW. Also related to big project gone wrong. I think she ended up with a C in there when all was said and done. Maybe even a B-. But, it was very stressful.

They have 2 terms. Term 1 ends at the end of March and term 2 starts in April so her grade for term 1 will be F. That’s the term she will have to retake next year. Im waiting for the teacher to get back to me on what else she could do but she said the teacher did refuse giving her more time

So even if she tries to retake next yr, it’s going to still be there on her transcript when she is applying to colleges in the fall. That is BS. I’d talk to the teacher and take it to the principal or dean of students if the teacher is not being reasonable. No one she get an F in ceramics that is showing up and putting in effort. Projects breaking is part of the process in ceramics. This isn’t college, this is a high school elective- meant to expose kids to arts. That is literally the purpose of these electives. As long as students are following the directions to the best of their ability they should pass with at least a B. It isn’t supposed to be a class that demands proficiency or expertise.

Art is not an elective any more than math or PE are electives. You get to choose which one you want to take. But you have to take it. And just like math and PE require proficiency to get a good grade, so does the fine arts class. Its not just About exposure.

Ceramics class is absolutely an elective, as is PE

[Anonymous]

Seriously OP— why are you crowdsourcing before you’ve even heard back from the teacher? I can’t imagine the kind of nervous vibes you must give off in your home and to your daughter if you are like this.

The skill to learn here is how not to freak out when something goes wrong. Your daughter is learning by watching you.

[Anonymous]

That’s an ahole art teacher to fail a student over a ceramic mug.

[Anonymous]

If she gets a 50 on the mug and that is 50 % of the grade, she still gets a c. sometimes classes are hard. sometimes teachers are tough. and kids get worried about things...hopefully this is a b or c and not an f.

[Anonymous]

Newsflash-It's never the teacher. I blamed so much om teachers, my kids did the same thing.

your kid is skipping class or not doing the work and did the ole my mug broke trick and it backfired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is only March. Shouldn’t there be more projects to come, that will balance the grade out a bit more? Otherwise what are they doing in that class from now until June?

Maybe she can’t redo the project but could she do some work for extra credit? Something like that? This seems very harsh.

IME most HS electives teachers are reluctant to actually fail a kid, unless there is a severe issue with effort or behavior. One of my own kids also has a horrid experience with ceramics BTW. Also related to big project gone wrong. I think she ended up with a C in there when all was said and done. Maybe even a B-. But, it was very stressful.

They have 2 terms. Term 1 ends at the end of March and term 2 starts in April so her grade for term 1 will be F. That’s the term she will have to retake next year. Im waiting for the teacher to get back to me on what else she could do but she said the teacher did refuse giving her more time

So even if she tries to retake next yr, it’s going to still be there on her transcript when she is applying to colleges in the fall. That is BS. I’d talk to the teacher and take it to the principal or dean of students if the teacher is not being reasonable. No one she get an F in ceramics that is showing up and putting in effort. Projects breaking is part of the process in ceramics. This isn’t college, this is a high school elective- meant to expose kids to arts. That is literally the purpose of these electives. As long as students are following the directions to the best of their ability they should pass with at least a B. It isn’t supposed to be a class that demands proficiency or expertise.

That’s my concern and the fact that there was nothing to alert me as a parent that she was going to fail the class. The app shows A every week on all the participation and random things. Her grade was updated to F this week. Going to F from A with 0 explanations doesn’t make any sense to me. Im still waiting for the teacher to get back to me to see if there is more to the story but getting an F in Ceramics while all her other classes are A & A- is crazy to me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Newsflash-It's never the teacher. I blamed so much om teachers, my kids did the same thing.

your kid is skipping class or not doing the work and did the ole my mug broke trick and it backfired.

Maybe so, which is why i emailed the teacher. But i check the app weekly and her ceramics grade is always A as she gets a grade for participation weekly n other things they do in class. If there was any inkling that she was missing work i should’ve been alerted to it. But to go from A every week to the grade upgraded to an F suddenly doesn’t make any sense to me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Newsflash-It's never the teacher. I blamed so much om teachers, my kids did the same thing.

your kid is skipping class or not doing the work and did the ole my mug broke trick and it backfired.

I believe OP and probably her kid. OP said she checks her grade weekly and it’s been an A all semester, which has been mostly participation points. Sounds like their school does the 90/10 grading, ours does. Tests and quizzes are 90% of grade and anything else is 10%. Maybe this final project is the only “test” for this term, thus bringing her grade from an A to F immediately when she gave her a zero. Which is ridiculous and I would take this as high as I could

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Newsflash-It's never the teacher. I blamed so much om teachers, my kids did the same thing.

your kid is skipping class or not doing the work and did the ole my mug broke trick and it backfired.

Maybe so, which is why i emailed the teacher. But i check the app weekly and her ceramics grade is always A as she gets a grade for participation weekly n other things they do in class. If there was any inkling that she was missing work i should’ve been alerted to it. But to go from A every week to the grade upgraded to an F suddenly doesn’t make any sense to me

Why do you need to be alerted? Your kid needs to be responsible. Let them fail, it will teach them a lesson.

[Anonymous]

What school district? Talk to admin.

You don't get an F for cracking one mug.

[Anonymous]

Write to her school counselor as well

[Anonymous]

Apparently ceramics at my kids high school is a class that all non artistic students stay away from because one of the teachers is a terribly hard grader. Mine is taking a traditional art class and the teacher is not grading effort as is dictated by the grading rubric. Many of the kids are completely negative on art now. It’s a shame. My kid is checking the box on the art requirement and never taking another class. They have a friend in another school district having a similar experience in a photography class.

I would go to the counselor over this. I’m never one to advocate parents stepping in on grades. These are electives they are factoring into a gpa like the other classes this could impact your kids ability to get into college which is crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What school district? Talk to admin.

You don't get an F for cracking one mug.

+1

I wouldn’t listen to the harsh replies here. Not on this one.

I’d start with the school counselor and go from there.

[Anonymous]

Just providing an update. Thank you everyone for chiming in. After a couple of emails with the teacher, she has agreed to allow her to remake the mugs and bowls and revise her grade accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just providing an update. Thank you everyone for chiming in. After a couple of emails with the teacher, she has agreed to allow her to remake the mugs and bowls and revise her grade accordingly.

How many broken mugs and bowls was it?
Why more than one at the same time?