One of the hardest thing as a teacher is deciding how to meet the needs of the individual student. My life as a parent has helped with this. After all, daily I am trying to balance the needs of the family with the needs of the individual child.
Today, I had to make the decision of how to help a student succeed while still being fair to my other students. He is an international student and has struggled in my class. There were several things with his paper that needed help. I made the executive decision to give him a few days extra for the assignment if he would use the writing center to improve his paper.
He had turned in his paper a couple of days early and I knew that he had a few major mistakes that were going to cost him a good grade.
I really want to see my kids succeed. I can't do the work for them, but I try to give them the guidance and tools they need to succeed. If they chose not to use them, it is their choice.
I hope in this case I did the right thing. I worry that by giving him additional time, I'm not being fair to the class. Or, that he will start to expect that he will always receive extras. I just have to remind myself that he didn't ask for special treatment.
I hope I've made the right choice.
edited to say: I had an email from the student thanking me.
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