Comments on: SCENES FROM A COLLEGE CLASSROOM

By: Hah-Man

Hah-Man — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:03:38 +0000

Why have I not found you before? Genius! Bookmarked.

By: Undergrad

Undergrad — Sat, 16 May 2009 00:41:05 +0000

As an undergrad here at IU who studies the social sciences, I can say that for the most part, most of my classmates put in very little effort and expect at least a B in a class. Now, I've turned in some pretty sketchy papers before, but I realize that when I don't put in the effort, I don't deserve a decent grade. I'll fight it and attempt to clarify my responses to possibly better understand the material, but if the professor takes a stand, they take a stand. Grades are earned, not given. I think that professors and graduate students who just hand out As and Bs do a grave disservice to those who have an inflated sense of accomplishment in college. Many people, especially in my program just sort of go with the flow and rarely do their assignments and read their material. They only do enough work to do decently on a test, and that's it. Then they leave college and expect to just have things handed to them, just as their professors did.

Keep fighting the good fight Ed.

By: Victoria

Victoria — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:22:49 +0000

I teach high school science and recently had my students research the chemistry of fireworks. I was amazed by a few of the results. I had two separate cases of plagiarism where the offenders admittedly copied someone else's report and did not bother to change a thing before turning it in to me. A number of students had their papers marked down due to grammar and mechanical issues, one of those students felt the need to argue with me over it. She told me that this wasn't an English class, so it shouldn't matter (I wish I had read this page earlier!). She also said that I did not know what I was talking about, that the way she did her paper was correct, and that I needed to go back and take an English course. I told her that when she gets any kind of degree, let alone a graduate degree and is certified to teach, she can come back and talk to me about it, but right then, she needed to sit back down. She later apologized, but then said that she was taught by her current English teacher to argue for her grades. This is a completely foreign idea to me and I wonder how much of that is her misunderstanding the teacher's policy somehow. The student said we can argue the finer points of what I call grammatical errors later, I simply replied with "no, we won't." I have many students who have a sense of entitlement and do not understand why they do not get As on everything. I have found that it does, indeed, go back to the parents. I have had phone calls with parents who repeat the same whining arguments over their child's grades. I have had parents threaten to somehow affect my employment based on the fact that I will not approve a student for a gifted level of class!

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:21:20 +0000

Was this the student who emailed you?
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_man_first_in_his_family_to

By: SarahMC

SarahMC — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:28:44 +0000

I have heard horror stories from friends who teach, from grade school to university-level, re: awful, entitled parents and their special, special snowflakes. I blame the parents.

By: Bugboy

Bugboy — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:58:32 +0000

I was once employed in the lab at the small private jr. college I received my A.S. from through a workstudy program, and was floored to realize that one of the chemistry professors was incapable of setting up the mass spectrometer machine for his lab exercise, so he asked me to do it. While I WAS technically "lab assistant" this fell WAY outside my job duties.

This particular instructor offered what was basically "Chemistry for Dummies" while us Enviromental Tech. folks got to take the real thing and had our brains run through the ringer by the head of the Chem. Dept. His students usually got A's and B's while we would struggle to get B's and C's but with a far superior education when it came out in the wash.

Youth has the tendency to say "but that's not fair!", but someone explain to me how fair has anything to do with getting good grades with a poor education vs. mediocre grades with a great education? The extent grades have been overrated in society as a measure of your merit has always given me heartburn. How many students have you seen who could barely tie their shoes, but who could routinely ace tests?

By: dbsmall

dbsmall — Sun, 10 May 2009 19:22:23 +0000

P.S. I'm a tool, a jerk, and not that interesting.
But I make a really great pico de gallo. And I married well.
We all have our strengths.

By: dbsmall

dbsmall — Sun, 10 May 2009 19:21:00 +0000

I'm old.

Back when I was in college, in the late 80's, we used to tell these same stories.
(They were compounded with self-aggrandizements—"oh, our school doesn't grade inflate…we curve around a C+")

Fact is, public schools oughta curve around a C+.

Given the incentives for private schools to inflate, there needs to be an objective authority with a "multiplier"…You went to Podunk state, majoring in Liberal Studies? Your formula = 1xGPA + 0.05. You went to CalTech and majored in Physics? 1.1 x GPA + 0.3 (note, numbers are for illustration, and not actually calculated.)

That way, any employers or grad schools or *anyone* who gave a crap could re-calibrate GPA's. Also note, it's probably not a polynomial…but rather something that allows a 4.0 to be pretty close to a 4.0, everywhere, but stretches the others, and centers them near the appropriate averages.

If I could think of a way to credibly claim to be objective, and to make $$$ off of this ratings system, I'd do it.

And Ed, I'd probably ignore the student. I bet that student is humiliated enough already. (It's possible they're just not that self-aware. But I'll bet they just didn't think things through—and wanted to set the negotiations anchor high enough. Plus, they've probably successfully renogiated grades, before, so this wasn't an unreasonable attempt.

By: Patti

Patti — Sun, 10 May 2009 16:58:39 +0000

Totally agree with the meddling parents problem. My favorite story was the father who drove 3 hours to campus to complain about the starting salaries of our school. Keep in mind… his son was an incoming freshman, and had not been accepted to one of the programs for which salary stats would have been relevent. I sat for 20 minutes, biting my tongue while this man went on a tirade that someone who earns $46,000 per year cannot be successful.

It gave me great pleasure to remind him that these were averages, and his son could actually earn WAY less than that.