Professors not wanting LD accomodations
How would/do you deal with professors not believing that Learning Disability extended time accomodations are fair?
I had a professor try to say that students with time accomodations shouldn't get the benefit of a finals policy where if your grade on the final is compared with your cgrade in the class and you get whichever is higher. This came about as a response to my question clarifying the policy to ensure i understood it properly, which got somehow taken as "I get extra time, does this apply to me?" since that seems to have been what he was answering instead of my actual question. We ended up having a longish debate about this in front of the whole class, in which he tried to say that it's unfair for one person to get more time and it's now work for him to have to bring the test over abd grade it separately for one person, only it's not just me is 10% of the class, which he thinks is too high but its the average at most universities, and i felt like that "one person" was in reference to me having to take it 2 days later because my schedule is so packed that Friday is literally the only day with a large enough time slot... I just felt so sick to my stomach after the debate in which only me and another individual with a physical disability protested it, at which point he started debating not having the policy for anyone for equality's sake when really it just felt like he was targeting me as an A student getting disability accomodations.
As long as you're not actually faking a disability which it doesn't sound like the case, I think it's best not to fall into the trap of feeling like you have an advantage over others with extra time. With every exam some people will have advantages and some disadvantages - there's simply no way to adjust for everything.
As for the professors, if you're just asking about a general policy for the class and they start to bring up the exam accomodations, I think it's fine to interrupt and state you're not asking about accomodations, you just want to clarify the overall policy for the course. I think it was actually inappropriate for the professor to bring up that issue in the class. With professors where you know it's an issue - avoid discussing disability accomodations as much as possible and other questions like what you had about this class can also be brough up via email or in office hours in case the professor decides to drag in the accomodations topic into it again. Email has the advantage of offering a paper trail if other issues come up.
@AffyAvo Yeah that's true. I probably shouldve interrupted and clarified that i was just wanting clarification involving the policy. I was just so shocked by the way my question was misinterpreted that i was jumping to defend myself before i gave it thought as to what I'd just gotten into. The paper trail thing is also smart. I'll definitely keep that in mind for the future since then if i need to get disability advisors involved it'd be much easier.
Yeah, never before had i felt so much like questioning whether i was some sort of faker since I'm not as slow in that class as in physics...Though i wouldn't have felt so bad if my calc teacher didn't grade on the curve. It makes me feel like just the fact that I get 100% causes other students to get lower grades and some to fail, and like maybe a B is what I deserve if i can't work faster, especially when it's pointed out that im not the only one to finish late and everyone would benefit from more time, and when he said that it really got to me, both wishing i could get everyone to have double time and feeling bad for my own...Though in other classes like physics I'd literally fail every test if not for the time accommodation...
Ugh... i just hope that the failing students don't all hate me now... I probably seem stuck up to them now getting extra time as a 4.0 student who they r think doesn't need it
@ReclusiveReptile I can honestly say that in my 6 years of undergrad and then more years for grad school I have never heard anyone blame those who got certain accomodations for altering the curve grading scheme and leading to them getting a lower mark.
If a prof really thinks that those who got extra time did affect the curve, they could simply ignore that particular data group when determining the curve - that's on the prof, not on you.
@AffyAvo
That's a really good point. If he tries to say anything else about it I'll definitely bring that up. Thank you so much for all the advice <3
I feel like professors see me as some sort of special case since few people get 100% on nearly every test, and when the next highest grade is like a 90% uncurved and I had accommodations and the other person with 90 didn't it seems to make them more bold with protesting my accommodations if they were already feeling salty about having to walk tests to the testing center. I guarantee if I were just a C or B student he'd have never cared.
