A letter to the teachers of English: 88Punished by rewards (2) [Archives:2005/856/Education]

Dr..M.N.K.Bose ([email protected])
Associate Professor of English,
Faculty of Arts, Ibb.
Dear Fellow teachers,

Success achieved through unethical practices such as cheating in the examinations, bribing the teachers or other people concerned etc may be pleasing for sometime but such success will not be satisfying at all as the sense of guilt will bother both the parties involved in the malpractice. Similarly, boosting the marks of undeserving students, being unduly liberal for the sake of favours and correcting examination scripts callously will also result in 'punishing by rewards'. I have heard many students telling me that they know how to get through certain subjects or certain teachers; you know what they mean.

By giving them more marks than they really deserve, we are in a way punishing them by rewards (not in the sense in which Kohn presents his case). I have several evidences to my claim that we spoil our students by being 'generous' in giving marks; they develop a false judgment of themselves and they more often find it difficult to accept their real standard or get a shock of their lives when their weakness is exposed in higher classes or when they come across teachers who are not 'generous' and act in a just way; they refuse to see the reality when they get exposed. In one of my earlier letters, I have quoted an example – a weak student challenging me how he could fail in my subjects when he has passed in a few other subjects taught by some of my colleagues.

Some of us think that we will be hurting the feelings of the students if we are strict in correcting the answer scripts; but aren't we duping them when we give them false hope about their abilities? Won't they feel more hurt when they find out later, in real life, their real abilities, which we were concealing for some reason or the other? Moreover, we will be doing injustice to them as well as to our profession, when we indulge in such practices knowingly or unknowingly. Some others tell me that they are softer to the students as they are weak in English; I go along with them to some extent, but at some point of time we have to take a decision, though hard it is, in the interest of their development, don't we? Psychologists and psychiatrists suggest that the persons with handicap will feel bad if we sympathize with them all the time; similarly, students who are weak in English will not be happy if we sympathize with them all through their course; instead we should encourage them to win even if it is struggling hard in spite of their weakness.

There are so many ways in which we can help the students improve their abilities, but we should, to begin with, enable them to self-evaluate themselves. This can be done at every stage of their course of study, if not in schools, definitely in colleges so that they do not overestimate themselves and disappoint at a later stage. A proficiency test at the beginning of each course is one of the ways to give them an idea about their level of competence. The entrance tests conducted in the Universities are meant for this purpose but, unfortunately, the performance of the students in the tests is never studied and analysed by the teachers nor are the students informed of their performance; most often the tests are ceremonial and are an administrative routine. We should have access to the test papers and the Depts. of English should make it a point to study the performance of the students and give feedback to them. This should be used as a bottom line for the preparation of all the courses offered to those students. Let's continue the discussion, shall we?

Yours fraternally,

Dr.M.N.K.Bose.
——
[archive-e:856-v:13-y:2005-d:2005-07-04-p:education]