Dear College Student......
From the Forbes article "Dear Student: I Don't Lie Awake At Night Thinking of Ways to Ruin Your Life," by economics professor Art Carden:
"First, I do not “take off” points. You earn them. The difference is not merely rhetorical, nor is it trivial. In other words, you start with zero points and earn your way to a grade.
Second, this means that the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that you have mastered the material. It is not on me to demonstrate that you have not.
The fact that you “don’t understand” why you didn’t earn full points for a particular question might itself help explain why you didn’t earn full points. Don’t take this personally or interpret it as a sneer. See it as a learning opportunity.
Finally, I’m here to be a mentor and instructor."
HT: Greg Mankiw
11 Comments:
Finally, I’m here to be a mentor and instructor."
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"OK, but I'm the one who pays the bills, so you work for me."
Man, my instructors hated that.
"OK, but I'm the one who pays the bills, so you work for me."
When my students start handing me my paycheck instead of the college I work for, they can call the shots. Until then, I am in charge of the classroom, and they can take any problems they have any where they want to take them.
""OK, but I'm the one who pays the bills, so you work for me."
Man, my instructors hated that."
That's cause you're wrong (ad I was wrong when I thought that way too).
They don't work for you. They work for your potential future employer. The future employer relies on them to provide the feedback on your performance and knowledge.
They serve as an auditor.
That doesn't explain the thin-out courses, where that is the exact goal. If the objective was to learn, such courses would not exist.
Quoting it for an entry-level course to economics is disingenuous at best.
This comment has been removed by the author.
AIG said...
An unnecessary one that needs to be removed - easily done by banning anything beyond secondary education as a requirement.
"An unnecessary one that needs to be removed - easily done by banning anything beyond secondary education as a requirement."
Banning? I can't even begin to describe how silly this statement is. Who are you to "ban" what companies want to hire?
AIG said...
The only reason companies use it is out of finding some legally sound way of being lazy or to dodge another law.
My son got a 79.9 on the final. He got a C+. TA wouldn't give him a B.
"The only reason companies use it is out of finding some legally sound way of being lazy or to dodge another law."
You'll have to excuse me for saying so, but that is plainly idiotic.
PS: Perhaps, they also use it to weed out people who can't type in comprehensible sentences, like you.
jorod,
Why should the TA "give" him anything? Does a ref give a basketball player 2 points if the ball circles the rim three times and falls out without going through the basket?
Your son learned a valuable lesson about doing better next time. Did you read the original article? Parents need to set the bar high for their children, and blaming the TA does not do that.
I have this same grading argument with many students every semester. Someone always just misses a grade by a hair. You can't change a grading scale for one student without changing it for all students. And, YES, the other students WILL find out about it. Would you rather have a few students think you are unfair or a whole classroom of students think you are unfair?
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