A for Average
This article in today's Times -- "Student Expectations Seen As Causing Grade Disputes" -- hits the nail on the head in describing the culture of grade inflation and college students' sense of entitlement to As and Bs just for having shown up and done the reading (or written the essay).
The causes of said entitlement are beyond me, but I can attest that between the students' belief that they won't get a job (much less a good job in our current economy) after college if they don't get all As and the (junior) professor's belief that they won't keep their job if they don't get good evaluations from their students, the once lofty goal of learning for learning's sake has flown out the window.
It's a sad state of affairs when a freshman takes your class pass/fail because he doesn't want to risk a B on his transcript and when a professor makes it clear on the first day of class that everyone on the class list will get an A, regardless of their performance and effort in the class. I've been getting my "your goal in this class should be to learn something, and not solely to get an A" patter down, but I'm not sure anyone's paying attention.
The causes of said entitlement are beyond me, but I can attest that between the students' belief that they won't get a job (much less a good job in our current economy) after college if they don't get all As and the (junior) professor's belief that they won't keep their job if they don't get good evaluations from their students, the once lofty goal of learning for learning's sake has flown out the window.
It's a sad state of affairs when a freshman takes your class pass/fail because he doesn't want to risk a B on his transcript and when a professor makes it clear on the first day of class that everyone on the class list will get an A, regardless of their performance and effort in the class. I've been getting my "your goal in this class should be to learn something, and not solely to get an A" patter down, but I'm not sure anyone's paying attention.
Labels: Profa
posted by SJB at 9:46 AM
2 Comments:
This is one thing I am grateful for about my job: a large part of the student body is used to being "average" and really doesn't expect to get all As. Not that I don't get the occasional grade-grubber (including the girl who emailed me to tell me that the C I gave her on her presentation was "unexceptable" [sic]), but I'm able to smack them down quickly and am supported by my chair when I do so. Our dept actually looks with skepticism on people whose evaulations are so fabulous that they suggest lack of standards. Imagine that!
Unexceptable.
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