After sifting through all those exams and essays from this long semester, it is time to tally up the scores and submit grades. You look over your math and verify that the final scores are correct. You enter the final grades for each of your courses and submit them to the magical land of the registrar, where their scores disappear into a magical document called a transcript. Like Han Solo frozen in carbonite, the marks your students received will remain frozen in perpetuity. Or, so you think. Often, the next day, sometimes within minutes, your inbox is inundated with pleas for a better grade.

It is a biannual event that has some great traditions. There are plenty of sob stories full of dead grandmothers (never dead grandfathers), financial stressors, and other drama tied to supposed obligations that kept the students from meeting their potential. For a time, some of these stories read like great novels with the same vigor as a Horatio Alger story. They were brisk and high energy, conveying a message for the cause of betterment.

It will never cease to amaze me how some students don’t grasp the gravity of the situation until it reaches this point. I can’t necessarily blame them. I also had a lot on my mind when I was their age. It wasn’t school-related because I was marching around in the desert sand. I don’t say that as a snide comment toward the youth. I made my decision, and they made theirs.

I call the time after I post final grades the Fallout Period because after I dropped the bomb of finality on the course, a few individuals didn’t take cover and stood staring at the flash and blast. As a result, they came to me looking for help after I gave several warnings that this day was coming. I offered supplies and shelter, but now they stand before me like radioactive mutants made popular in the 1980s. It’s too bad they didn’t become amphibians or gain ninja skills.

The saddest part is that student petitions have declined in quality since I started teaching. I remember my first appeal for a better grade coming from a student at the community college where I was adjuncting. The email was an impassioned piece that laid out a series of grievances and warrants for higher marks. Their prose was so beautiful that I almost felt pity for this person, but then I had a realization. If the student poured this much effort into their begging, imagine if they put a portion of that energy into the coursework.

Very rarely has a student told a convincing story that might persuade me to change my mind. Nowadays, students can’t alter my decisions, not because I am heartless, but because they no longer put effort into the song and dance. The last few I received were barely a dozen words. Many don’t even include a salutation anymore, which is hurtful to me. I would like to think that students would still want to approach such a dire matter in the same manner as someone with their hat in their hand looking for a sliver of grace. Here’s to hoping that one day students will return to common decency when begging for better grades.