Today I had a final exam scheduled at 9:30 AM for my class of pre-masters students in this Huanan program. Or, at least that's what I thought. When I got there, the students were all there, along with an adminstrator who wondered why my phone was off. My phone wasn't off - he didn't have my number correct. Apparently the students had been informed by the office that the exam was at 9, even though the schedule the office sent me said 9:30. Anyway, after the test the administrator gave me a form with columns for "daily performance" and "final exam" scores. I would have liked to look over the results for a bit, you know, make sure I had graded everybody fairly, but of course he wanted me to write down the scores right then and there. Well, OK. Then I asked why the "daily performance" column was already filled in, and he said that the percentage was based on how many unexcused absences that student had. Now, I know for fact that the office does not have an accurate sense of how many unexcused absences a student had, because there's nothing to stop them from not telling the office if they miss a class or from writing their friend's name on the attendance sheet. I, on the other hand, was very careful in taking attendance every class and know exactly who was there, and who came in late, and who was disruptive, every class. I also know which students sat in the back and talked during class, which were unwilling to participate in conversation, which were enthusiastic and cooperative, and which did their homework. But because the office felt the need to calculate daily performance scores for me, there are some students with 100% in that category who deserved a D, and a few who were great in class but missed a few, and so are stuck with a 75%. Anyway after I filled in the final exam scores, the administrator asked me about one student who wasn't there - if he could make up the exam some other time. I said, sure, but I thought there was a rule that if a student missed 1/3 of the classes, they could not sit for the exam. This student had come to a total of about 3.5 classes, with some excuse about back problems or something. The administrator said, well yes, there is that rule, but these students are all wealthy and we don't always have to stick to that rule. (This is a true story.)
I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be OK with this.
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