I received the stack of 10 page research papers that I have to go through in a weeks time and am finding the process quite fascinating, but very difficult. First of all, since I have a pretty good idea of who pays attention, sleeps in class, shows up late, etc... I felt I had a pretty good sense of who my A students are, who my B students are, etc...
So to usurp my pre-disposition, I ask the students to turn in their papers with their ID numbers only, no names, so that I could read each paper individually on its own merits. At the time, I felt like this would be the most fair and equitable way to judge the content for the contents sake, without regard to the note-passing, cell phone disruptions and late attendance sign-ins. I think part of me did this because I pride myself in being judged on my skills and not my race, age, sex or anything else.
Not only do I now realize how much more work I created for myself, but am questioning whether or not teaching and grading discriminatorily might be better for everyone. Not to mention the fact that people are stating things in their papers that I don't even know if it's true or not??? And how much do you focus on terrible grammar and lack of sentence structure?? I could easily say, I get what they are trying to say, but they said in such a horrible way, that I should not place myself in the position to make assumptions for what they are writing...
I now realize that I shouldn't show prejudice towards any one, but I HAVE to discriminate. Let me explain.
There is no easy way to determine who is going to be successful after school based on their school performance, so it becomes a question of who do you spend the most time trying to help? Do you spend your time pushing the talented but lazy ones? Do you spend your time raising the mediocrity bar higher in hopes that the collective will gain from a higher standard? How do you balance the two because there are clearly people that need a lot more help than others.
Unless you can discriminately choose who to help and when, then everyone gets the same level of attention which is not necessarily needed which translates to my time being spent uneconomically. I'm going to continue down the path I've started, but I'm questioning whether or not this was the right thing to do. But the whole process is very 'priest-like' in a way in that you find yourself gravitating towards 'need', you seek it out and the people that are okay, you let them be.
There are systems in place at most schools to reward the best and ensure that they are promoted and given the special attention they deserve, while allowing the rest of the people, the mediocre, to float by and somehow receive validation that there is a place for them in this world. As a matter of fact, most universities and damn near our whole economy is based on the mediocre.
I've realized that college is a sort of dumping ground for the middle class. It is a safe place that parents don't mind paying the money to keep their kids off of the streets and relatively out of trouble because you are placed in an environment where the extent of lawlessness involves getting high.
Most of the kids are there because their mothers placed them there and only a handful have made the conscious choice to study architecture because it is some lifelong dream or have received some sort of calling that has brought them to the profession. The rest are just mediocre in most everything they do and are content to be so.
So a B for one person means a lot more than a B to someone else who may feel like they deserve an A. This is why grading is so difficult because many students see grades as a sort of validation to their parents are themselves for any number of things rather than focusing on the enrichment of their minds and understand that they are at a University to gain as much knowledge as possible and there is no grade that anyone can give them that will properly measure that.~C
CD of the moment: Various Artists - After Dark: Chicago
