Indecent Proposal

‘Love letter’

By the time you were in Form 5 in an all-boys boarding school, there was almost nothing left in your closet, nothing you could possibly do, that could be so embarrassing or humiliating in front of your classmates. However, a classmate was once humiliated by our Physics teacher for requesting for some extra marks after test. I doubt the humiliation lasted more than a few seconds, but Mr. Pang did left me some lasting points about the whole ‘begging for marks’ practice.

A student came to see me today asking for a pass. I was reading the newspaper at the department lounge when he came in and ‘summoned’ me to the counter. He said that his standing marks are very low, and he thought that he did poorly in the final examination as well. So he came to ask me for a pass, perhaps by giving him some additional assignments.

What nerve!

There was no way that I was going to help him; not this late. Very low standing marks obviously point to an attitude problem and he had the whole semester to sort whatever problems he had, academically or otherwise, and get help. He certainly never came to see me even once. And now he came, dengan muka tak mandi, without so much of even a polite greeting, asking basically for a free pass.

It would be grossly unfair to the rest of the class if I were to give him the opportunity to earn some extra marks, though only to pass, as others can also use them to promote their grades.

It maybe a bit naïve on my part to be feeling shocked at the attempt; another student already came to see me with the same thing last semester. What troubles me is whatever gives these students the idea that they could even ask for such a thing.