[lit-ideas] Re: Grade inflation
- From: "Michael Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 23:46:17 -0500
Is it possible to be truly arbitrary, I wonder. "Even debris has it's
favorite positions", as Merwin says. Surely arbitrariness is nothing more
than undeciphered calculus or unrecognized prejudices. Both calculus and
prejudice have standards. Does the weight of ink on a paper determine
whether it falls on the 'A' stair rather than the 'B' stair when thrown? If
so, it's not arbitrariness. Does an arrogant little know-it-all get an 'F'
just because he reminds the professor of all the ass she had to kiss to get
her degree? If so, it's not arbitrariness. There is cause and purpose. It
all comes out in the wash, as they (proverbially) say. Here we have the
workings of poetic justice, the inexorable process of ineluctable laws
playing themselves out in undecipherable events, subconscious behaviors.
Only God can be arbitrary.
Utah Pius
Florida State Correctional Institution
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Paul" <Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 9:51 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Grade inflation
> [Students should, says John] 'learn to deal with the fact that customers,
> clients, bosses, and, yes, even police and other government bureaucrats
> frequently make what seem to be arbitrary judgments.'
>
> I doubt that they are all that innocent these days about bosses and the
police,
> but shouldn't they also be allowed to learn what it would be like to
experience
> a world from which the 'arbitrariness' had been wrung out as much as
possible?
> I(This might teach them something about reason giving if nothing else.) f
I
> can't justify an assessment by pointing to specific features of the work
ibeing
> assessed, it really would be arbitrary, and the very idea of evaluating
student
> work--or anybody's work--would lose its point. One might as well throw
darts.
> But having set forth his own criteria (elsewhere in the post to which I'm
> responding again), I'm not sure why John wants to imply that their applica
tion
> is arbitrary, in the sense of being undiscussable or inexplicable. (I have
to
> confess that I've taught for a long time at an institution where grades
are not
> much talked about, and where students have a pretty good sense of their
progress
> without reference to them.)
>
> Robert Paul
> Utopia
>
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