"Learning should be a joy...?" It all depends on what you mean by "should".
If you mean that, given an individual learner it is better that they learn
joyfully than otherwise, sure. But this does not mean that we can or should
refuse to teach anybody who is there for some lesser motive than "the Joy of
Learning".
Some real work is fun. Some isn't, but is necessary anyhow. (And some is
a complete waste of time, but that is another story.)
Here, we have an option for students who really are interested in
learning for its own sake. Most universities do; it's called "auditing" and
it means that you can sleep in on exam day, not be graded or evaluated, and
learn just as much as everybody else. Maybe more because you aren't wasting
time studying the stuff you don't think you need. And do you know how many
students have taken this option in my courses over the last decade? One.
Evaluation is part of what students pay for. I for one would enjoy
teaching much more if they didn't want to be evaluated as well, but that
isn't in the cards. So I spent most of the last week grading exams and
projects.
Well, to be exact, some (many?) students really want high grades
rather than evaluations - at least, so long as prospective employers, etc.,
are allowed to believe that a standard grading scheme was followed. Assuming
the story about Deming's grading to be correct, I don't suppose many
students complained about Deming giving A's out with the rations, as
somebody upthread mentioned; but they would undoubtedly have complained like
mad if Deming had also arranged for their transcript to _indicate_ that
their A's indicated nothing beyond registration in the course, and were a
philosphical statement rather than an assessment of the studnet's
performance.
BTW: What would his recommendation have been to a manufacturer who
discovered that a supplier was providing a product that was low-grade but
usable for some purposes, and labelling it as top-grade? Would he have
advised a manufacturer to engage in such labelling practices?
If not, it follows (at the best) that he did not consider academic
grading to have much to do with industrial quality control. Therefore, his
expertise in the latter field should not give him much credibility on the
former.
-Robert Dawson
