me: > > nice idea. You're not a teacher, are you? Michael Smith wrote: > I was, for a while. Gave it up, because I had to do > grading. I hated that, for two reasons: > > 1) It was an exceptionally squalid business. It made > me feel like a combination cop and butcher: Patrolling > for plagiarism, taking attendance, surveillance > against cheating, on the cop side, and issuing a little > blue stamp, on the butcher side, after the abattoir had > done its work: US Prime, Grade B, whatever. Revolting.
I think "not plagiarizing" is something people should learn. I take attendance, but typically ignore the score. Having more than one version of the same test implies that anti-cheating monitoring much less painful. I think grades should be revamped (perhaps the way I suggested in an earlier missive) to make it more of a matter of communication. > 2) It got in the way of education in any meaningful sense > of the word. What happened in the classroom was all about > the extraction of a grade (on the kids' part) and > the withholding of it, to keep it suitably valuable, on > mine. The subject matter just got flattened out into an > arbitrary field in which the kids could display their > gifts -- or their "deficits" -- and I could put them > through their paces, like some ghoulish ringmaster. college teaching is better than that, thank the gods. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
