[lit-ideas] Re: You don't say.....
- From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 14:01:22 -0700
Steven G. Cameron wrote:
> **Related concerns are often exhibited in our students requesting
> better grades because: their scholarships depend on them, their parents
> demand them, they feel entitled (without accompanying warranted
> substantiation) -- and moreover without making the required efforts.
> Their responsibilities, it seems... are frequently limited to merely
> wanting to be thought more highly of. We suffer a severe reduction in
> ethical standard at present -- and poor role models to observe/admire.
This phenomenon is not so new. (I suspect it's as old as the practice of
assigning grades.) As a Teaching Fellow at Cornell (in the early 1960s),
I had the sad experience of failing a student who had clearly failed: no
borderline case here, just plain failure. His plea for reconsideration
was based on his needing to keep a certain grade average in order to get
into medical school.
There is a wonderful story by Lionel Trilling, 'Of This Time, Of That
Place.' Its high point for me is a scene in which a cocky, ne'er-do-well
student and an English Professor at a small college are discussing the
student's grade. I commend it to anyone who has ever had to deal with
the sorts of things Steven mentions.
Robert Paul
Tyrannosaurus Rex
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