I get that argument a lot from students -- that they're better than I'm grading them. I shake my wee fists of blame at the education system that inflates grades to make parents happy. When they arrive in law school it's probably true that none of them have ever been anything but top 10% of their classes in high school and college, and I try to patiently explain that the math is now against 90% of them remaining in the top 10%. The student in front of me always thinks it should be someone else, and I end up repeating that I'm the one who read all the papers.
The weather on the outer banks has finally improved, after days of rain and cold winds. We're headed out to Jockey's Ridge so my DH can try to fly and my puppy can try to eat the beach.
Well, what can we do if we're getting a D, but we don't think we're D students?
Point them towards this study.
Yeah, their midterm pretty obviously separated the people who understand the material from the people who didn't -- 20 people got 75 or higher, 9 people got 66 or lower, and nobody got between 66 and 75.
During law school I got to listen to one of the other students in the advanced wills and trust class explain very earnestly to the professor that she really should be gearing her grading towards the lowest common denominator instead of the people who were doing really well in her class.
Law students make some really terrible arguments for people who are supposed be advocates.
I've gotten this sort of "I'm not a D student" or "I'm not a C student" argument before (sometimes way more hostile than this girl was), and I so don't get it.
My favorite response to this (if the person was at all assholish) was
always,
"When I came home with a 90 on a test, my father would ask why I didn't know 10% of the material. Do you really think I'm going to have sympathy for you?"
That's all so insane.
I'm doing poorly in one of my classes right now. Not terrible, but not what I can do. It's mostly that I haven't cared. The class has had A LOT of busy work, and with the thesis, I just didn't keep up on it. Well, I just switched it to pass/fail so it doesn't impact my GPA. But, I know it's all me and my effort.
I hate it when people don't take responsibility for things like their grades. Makes me insane. Though, I do have to admit, the class that I've learned the most in? The prof didn't assign a grade until the end of the semester. And the grade was measured, not by how people in the class did, but rather by how much you individually improved over the course of the semester. While it was terrifying for me, the grade whore, I do have to say it really pushed me. I couldn't just skate by in that class. Though, there aren't many subjects you can do that in.
Catching up from waaaaaay back (I've missed you! and been reduced to sporadic lurking) ....
Susan, all my sympathies - I hope you can use this time with your mother to make some good memories.
Congratulations to vw for the thesis.
I've loved hearing about Byron and his progress - sounds like he's adjusted well (aside from the giant collar).
And Laga, you know what works even better than sage for cleansing a place? setting the offending person's hair on fire. (and report the ass!)
Hugs to all.
I've gotten this sort of "I'm not a D student" or "I'm not a C student" argument before (sometimes way more hostile than this girl was), and I so don't get it.
I have to confess here that I've used exactly that argument, though only once, for one class--a set design class in which the professor said, essentially, "You know that boy, Leonardo da Vinci, in the class ahead of yours? That's the quality of work that gets an A. Now that I've taught Leonardo, that's the standard I have to hold everyone else to." Which, frankly, still rankles; there was indeed a Leonardo in the class before mine, and he was... well, he was Leonardo with set design. Grading everyone who ever took a class after him based on a curve in which he was the A standard was a pure guarantee of near-failure for everyone else.
And the professor admitted that his Leonardoness was the determining factor: yes, I understood the principles of design; yes, I was doing the required work; yes, I was doing extra credit assignments; yes, I appeared to be working to the top of my abilities; but neither I nor anyone else in my class was Leonardo or Michelangelo or Bernini or anyone but a perfectly respectable but non-immortal craftsperson, so, no A's for us.
Conversely, I've totally gotten Cs and Ds that I never contested, because I knew damn well that either I was an A student slacking off or I just plain didn't understand the material and was thus earning exactly the right and just grade.
