William Shakespeare put it well in The Merchant of Venice, “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed: it blesseth him that that gives and him that takes…”. Mercy and how it relates to teaching is the focus of this note.
While not all situations may warrant a consideration of mercy, there are situations where mercy might be a good thing to offer, and it depends on the context. In this note, we will explore situations where things are not 100% black and white, where blind obedience to a rule does not always make sense, where the spirit and intent of the guiding principles is not always well-stated in the carved-in-stone rule, where second chances are justified, and where the redemption and reformation of a deserving student is worth the effort.
Mercy does not mean that a student gets a free ride or gets away with something. Mercy for one does not mean that this is uniformly unfair to others. It depends on how the mercy is dispensed. There are also ways to anticipate the types of mercy that might be warranted in a course and build in some mechanisms that can be activated as needed, and mechanisms that can be fair to all. Furthermore, it is ok in our opinion, to have strings attached to mercy and have conditions that need to be met for the mercy to be dispensed.
Note, any student receiving a measure of mercy needs to have demonstrated a level of mastery in the course that warranted the ‘final’ assessment. Marks are not just given out without cause, and any mercy must be justifiable with evidence. Marks should not be at the whimsy of the instructor!
Why show or consider mercy? It is because students are not perfect, students will make errors in judgement, students will misread instructions, students will forget things, students might be affected by other students’ actions, students might have a bad night’s sleep, and so on. Junior students are more likely to be less perfect; until they learn the expectations and learn what happens when the student does not do what is expected. For example, the junior student might be following the accepted behavior at their high school, and get a rude awakening when the same behavior is frowned upon at the post-secondary level. If mercy will help with behavioral modification or provide a learning moment that will avoid a future problem, then the consideration of mercy is warranted. The consideration must take into account malicious conduct, conscious game-playing, repeat offences, and the student’s attitude; factors that might determine whether or not the student is worthy for mercy. The consideration must also take into the reality of the situation. Is it reasonable and feasible for the student to satisfy the associated conditions without creating more issues? The scheme must allow for success and not designed to fail.
It is possible to simply explain matters to a student in a rational way and hope that the student will listen and modify their behavior. This might happen in some cases. It is also possible that any behavior modification will require a reward mechanism or other form of incentive; e.g., a chance to recover lost marks.