Actually, you do have to. She teaches middle school not college. If you want middle school students to do something or not do something, you have to be specific and tell them about it. Including things they should have learned in kindegarten like don't hit others or raise your hand to speak. And then you have to reinforce the expectations all year long because they will forget.

good point. I should know this, since I have to sometimes remind my college students to raise their hands :)

Heh. I was considering making this exact post. With the same punctuation and everything.

::high-fives tommyrot::

I'm in favour of writing 'I conclude.' Apparently the academic community doesn't like this construction. I don't care. I'm the one who's bloody well concluding.

Oh yeah, that's just crazy. I have gotten more flack for trying to make things clear and engaging when they were supposed to be about Serious Research, I swear.

The year I studied in France the exchange program from our school would take the grade the teacher gave us, compare it with other native and exchange students in the class, factor in somehow the teacher's evaluation of us and our evaluation of the teacher, and *somehow* come up with a grade. I got a 12/20 in French lit and a 16/20 in Prehistory (he was so nice to me, for me to get that grade on an oral exam on a randomly chosen subject). My American GPA went up.

I'm still bitter about the fact that my 13s and 14s junior year were Bs to my university but As anywhere else.

I heard many times the explanation that they're really tough at University, especially the first year, because it's so cheap for French students to go to college that they need to weed a bunch out. I don't know how true this is, or was in 1996, anyway.

Sort of. There's just a big inclination to not inflate grades. I taught first years at one of the most exclusive universities in the country and my mandated class average was 10 out of 20 (I think for second years that went up to 10.5). So, if you wanted to give someone a 14, you had to really want to. I think 15 was the highest grade I ever gave and 7 was the lowest.

I also had to rank each student in my class and you were limited on the number of ex-aequos you could give.

I have bloody well concluded that y'all are funny.

OK, here's another topic: Why would you throw someone a surprise going-away party? If my boss hadn't just told me, I would have started to think that there wasn't going to be one! And I want a going-away party!

dude, your office, as a culture, is lacking in social skills.

It's just her office telling her, "Dude, nobody likes you. Surprise! We do like you!"

Word of warning - don't let anyone bring in a John Deere.

I suspect this opinion is shared by many here, but I really dislike surprise parties