Teachers, don’t set the deadline, let your students set their own.

Teachers should stop being demanding. I remember my former teachers in grade school and high
school who would always remind us and say, “taga-compute lang kami ng grades n’yo” every
time our grades and the list of honors are being released. Now that I have reached college, I am
quite surprised that no one has yet said that to us. I just assumed that their firm stand with their
imposed grading system is their way of saying that. I am just a bit disappointed with how our
attendance bears a certain percentage of our general weighted average -in some instructors’
grading system- when it should not take any part. After all, it’s the learnings of the students that
are being assessed when the grading system was imposed.
Now that I have mentioned learning, I want to define it as how I understand and believe what it
is. Learning in education can mean two things; learning as the knowledge gained by a certain
learner and as a process by which the learner acquired the knowledge.
Being part of the BSED English curriculum, I have encountered various philosophies that are
said to be relevant when it comes to assessing the learners. These philosophies that will lead to
the determination of what teaching approaches and methods will the educator employ in the class
in order to teach the students effectively. One of the learning philosophies that I would want to
talk about is the philosophy of existentialism as an educational philosophy. In this philosophy,
learning was mentioned as self-paced, self-directed and includes a great deal of individual
contact with the teacher who relates to each student openly and honestly. I mentioned this for I
believe that this philosophy has a relevant connection with the idea of setting a deadline.
Furthermore, I believe that in a classroom or class, everyone’s welfare should be prioritized and
everyone’s weaknesses should be addressed.
I want to speak out about this matter specially in this time of pandemic in which everyone is
engaged in online class. It is a first-hand experience and I must say that this modality of class is
quite hard. It is basically a self-study way of learning, where you teach yourself and learn on
your own. This is not me completely discrediting the teachers, rather this is me saying that
existentialism is real. This is why I want to appeal to the teachers not to impose deadlines and let
your students set their own. Anyway, the teachers’ main role is not to spoon-feed the students.
Hence, they provide the NECESSARY scaffolding to achieve the set objectives for the class.
Imposing a deadline for a certain activity to be submitted by the students neglects the idea of
existentialism. It deprives the students who have self-paced learning achieve their full potential
for they are to submit a requirement at a certain time. This way, the students are only driven by
the due date, not mainly their passion to learn. This makes me think and ask, “Are the students
genuinely learning? Are the class objectives genuinely achieved?” I think not.
Imagine an institution with a mission of producing competent graduates with a system as talked
about; how competent is competent that would be embodied by those graduates. Thank you!