When a Student is the Class Deadweight

There is this girl in my class that is holding my classmates and I back in terms of how fast we are learning and progressing.

And that is putting is very, very nicely.

She skipped a level to be in my class. Which is no easy feat, considering she skipped a little over an entire book (10+ chapters) of vocabulary and grammar. Not to mention the fact that her speaking, writing, and listening abilities are generally not up to par to the rest of us in the class. This isn’t just me being overly critical; hearing her speak in class and seeing writing samples proves this. How can she be on the same level as the rest of us when our speaking/writing/listening ability is the product of a semester’s worth of intensive immersion study, and not something we produced overnight?

It’s one thing to be a motivated student and pledge to catch up to be on the class level in addition to staying on top of current coursework. It’s another to not actually do any of that, and still expect to get by in class.

My class is the highest class level offered in my study abroad program, independent studies excluded. It’s not enough to just “get by.” I put in hours of homework a day just to prepare for the next day’s class. There are worksheets to complete, essays to write, new characters to memorize for daily dictation, texts to mark up with new vocabulary, grammar, and additional new words. It’s a tough workload, and it’s very draining. To do all that and catch up on the 10+ of materials the girl skipped is, in my opinion, a physically impossible feat. And currently, my opinion has yet to be proven wrong, because the girl has done absolutely nothing to start catching up. Other than hope that it’ll magically happen, without having to do any extra work of her own.

She has the gall to show up to class without any of the homework completed. Essays will go unwritten because she “didn’t understand the question.” (The essay topic was based on the text we had studied in class that day. It was pretty self-explanatory stuff – well, for someone who pays attention.) Worksheets will go uncompleted because she “was busy.” (With what? She didn’t have any answer to that question.) New words in the text will go undefined because… well, she had no reason for that one, either. (Looking new words up in a dictionary is pretty standard for any language class regardless of level, if you ask me.)

So much time is spent going over vocabulary and grammar that we already know but she has never learned, either in her previous class or through catching up on her own. It’s as though instead of learning new material, which we are supposed to be doing, my class is just constantly reviewing old material. She’s not a quick learner, nor is she a hard-working student, a deadly combination for this situation. If she can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum required for class, how is it feasible to think she will do the extra catch-up work required that comes with skipping a level? If her language ability is so clearly below mine and my classmates’, why is she still in my class?

I understand wanting to give every student a fair shot. I get that, I really do. But when doing so negatively impacts on other students’ learning, it’s time to cut the deadweight and move on. If she’s not making the effort and doing the work required of someone in her particular situation, why make the rest of us suffer for it?

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.