My late Prof Dr. N. K. Sinha, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, when once I had told him that the student had fully xeroxed the assignment answer sheets so he deserved zero mark; the Prof. had said to me to give him atleast 5 marks out of 20, since the student had retained the name of the original student, and besides that he had written his name, and had submitted the assignment before the deadline.
***
*_No human is a zero...._ *
A student studying in Russia shared this...
The highest score for most of the exams in Russia is 05.
If a student does not answer any question and returns back the exam paper blank, with NO question answered, student gets 02 out of 05 marks.
In my first days at the University of Moscow, I did not know about this system and I was surprised.
I asked Dr. Theodor Medraev : "Is this fair that even when a student does not answer any question, you give 02 marks out of 05 ? Why not give Zero ?Isn't that the right way ?”
He answered: "How can we give Human Being a Zero ?
How can we give Zero to someone who was getting up at 7 am to attend all the lectures ?
How can we give Zero since they got up in this cold weather and used public transport and reached to do the exam in time and tried to solve the questions ?
How can we give Zero for the nights they used to study and spent their money on pens and notebooks and bought a computer for studying ?
How can we give Zero when they left all other life styles and pursued their studies ?
My son, we do not give Zero to students just because they did not know the answer.
We at least try to respect the fact that they are Human Beings having brain and atleast they tried.
This result which we give, is not just for the questions in the exam paper, it is also about showing appreciation and respect to the fact that this is a Human Being and deserves to have a score."
*Truly I did not know how to respond.*
_There I knew my value as a Human Being._
*Zeros can actually decrease motivation on students and can quickly destroy them and make them stop caring about their studies altogether.*
_Once a Zero score has been put in the grade book, they need no longer care about that subject and they may assume that, there’s nothing they can do about it..._
*An excellent message to all the Academicians, Governments, Parents and Teachers, so as to change the system of education which we have in our country...*
*****
