Monday, December 17, 2007

Bloggers Unite: Acts of Kindness Day

The folks at Bloggers Unite: Blogging for Hope periodically organize a day for blogs to post on a unified subject (most recently on Domestic Violence awareness in July). They’ve designated December 17th “Acts of Kindness Day.” The task is simple: take a break from the usual blog topic to post a message about an act of kindness one has recently performed, with the goal of inspiring others to do the same.

I’m on the fence about posting one’s personal good deeds, which seems a little showy. But in the spirit of the day, here’s mine. My grades were due yesterday, and when I looked at the cumulative scores I saw one student was going to miss passing the class by a close percentage. This student was failing for reasons of her own making — the problem was less about the quality of her work than how infrequently she submitted it. Yet she had also been trying harder toward the end of the semester, and she was the only person on the roster who was going to fail.

I decided to go back and re-grade some of her previous assignments. I was able to identify one where I could stretch and justify increasing her score by a couple points, which allowed her to squeak by with a passing grade for the class. Did the student “deserve” this? Who knows. But people have done me favors in the past that I certainly didn’t deserve, so I decided maybe it was time to return the kindness.

Today’s mitzvah: Join bloggers around the world for Acts of Kindness Day.”

Enjoy this post? Click here for daily feeds.

No comments: