http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/as-have-been-harvards-most-common-grade-for-20-years/#postComment is the link to the page where someone posted the following excellent description of how many students feel when they get into an elite school. It gives an important insight which I commented on in my reply, which is below. (It is especially important to note the final sentence of this person’s comment.)
“Maybe the bar to get into Harvard and other ivy league schools has become so high that by the time these students get their foot in the door achieving A’s in their classes is a piece of cake compared to what they had to do to get in.
We’re talking about kids who did everything they could to get gain admission to Harvard including taking college level classes in high school, enrichment courses, starting clubs, organizations, businesses, some have even been researching a cure for cancer!
Grades for the most part still depend upon performance on exams, papers and class discussion. These students have mastered those skills well before they ever stepped foot on campus so obtaining an A grade for these over achievers in not something that should raise eyebrows.
And finally, why should it be considered more valuable if some students receive C’s, D’s or F’s? Why should the failure, or near failure, or mediocrity of some students, raise the value for others? If the professor is doing his or her job and teaching well, every student should be able to learn in the class and demonstrate his or her understanding of the course material through their written work, class discussions and exams.” (emphasis added)
That final sentence, combined with treating students as customers explains so much about today’s problems in higher education.
Here is my reply,
“…you express an attitude that many students have been taught. You are expressing one of the effects of turning students “..from being supplicants for admission to courted customers..” (David Riesman)
Think how hard it is to tell many of these students that they didn’t learn that much in high school. (You tell them implicitly through courses.) No matter how empathetically you tell them – and no matter how important it might be to their education – few college “marketing” people would want a professor to do that. Only a few places are willing to tell their students something like CalTech’s math department does: “.. AP tests..are woefully inadequate in explaning, or testing, why things work…” (Princeton does something similar.)
Just one of the effects of this marketing is a vociferous group of students who truly believe that if they don’t understand something the professor says, then the professor is not good. (How could it be otherwise?) Thus, professors avoid explaining, or testing, topics that many students (even the best) will have trouble with the first time around. I don’t have time to explain how it works here, but you can read how they do this in my post “How to Make Calculus Students Believe They Know Calculus When They Don’t” on my blog inside-higher-ed.com. You can also read about how far universities have gone in catering to “consumers” by reading the “A Tale Out of School” on the blog.
Yes, the students are smart. No, they aren’t educated, yet.”
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