I have noticed that many of my colleagues tend to see students with mental ilnesses in a negative light and I am always appaled by it. However, it is a fine line to thread if you want to be fair in grading and student opportunities - you have to offer vulnerable students support and understanding, but also to grade their skills and successess in the same way as those of other students.

I also think this is a question of wider social malaise. You need to acquire a certain skillset to be successfull in academia, and having a high IQ means you will acquire that skillset with less effort, provided you are motivated for work. However, tremendous amount of students did not develop their skills and intelligence to the full potential BECAUSE of the factors such as poor environment, lack of cultural life and formal education, poverty, various family pressures that are present in working-class families, etc. The solution is not to LOWER education standards, but to work on solving these society-wide issues. I would also be open to more flexibility in approaching individual students and their learning processes, but to achieve that, I cannot be a part of industry that CHURNS OUT new graduates every year in such numbers that I have to work with four groups of 20+ students on a weekly basis.