Teachers, students point fingers in argu­ment about grades

With midterms just finished, misplaced complaints about ex­ams are making their rounds coming from both students and faculty.

Almost everyone has proba­bly experienced that test that half the class fails. In those situations, some find it hard to believe that it could be anything but the teach­er’s fault.

Jon Grace, a pre-nursing junior from Ruston, sometimes blames the teacher, along with some of his classmates.

“Most of my core classes have over 150 students, and just the top 10 or 20 will make A’s. Most blame the teacher for not teach­ing,” Grace said.

Another common scapegoat, though, is that one person who did make an A.

Carly Smith, a medical labora­tory science major from Bossier City, said, “I don’t think students blame it on the teacher; I think they just hate that one kid who made an A.” On the other hand, teachers who get back a class full of bad tests sometimes jump to disappointment in their students.

Patricia Roshto, an account­ing professor at ULM, tries to see both sides.

“If there is a question on the exam that a very high percent­age of students miss, I evaluate whether the exam question fairly represents course material. How­ever, to the extent a question fair­ly represents course material, stu­dents are held accountable,” she said.

However, after talking with a professor, Grace changed his tune.

“It’s probably a mixture of both, because there’s only a set amount of time to teach in depth materi­al, but students don’t always go home and look it over either.”