Teaching Thursdays

I find value in both Professors Anne Kelsch and William Caraher’s reactions to the recent NY Times article “Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes.”  I even felt some comradeship with the complaints in the article itself.  However, those discussions miss a critically important teaching/learning opportunity presented by what the article presents as a negative dynamic.  Let me begin by touching on points of agreement as a way to set the stage for an important reframe.

Kelsch offers excellent suggestions about striving to make expectations as transperant as possible, or what Vanderbilt’s Dean Hogge calls ‘the rules of the game.’  I’ve added these devices (grading matrices, lists of criteria, etc), along with models of what I deem to be top tier work.  I’ve been pleased with the results.  I think that these tools clarify expectations for many students, and I try to vary my approaches in an attempt to facilitate as many learning styles as possible.  I think this begins bridging the ‘expectations’ gap, but fails to make the necessary leap to a new paradigm.

Caraher offers a critical examination of the hidden text of grades and credits, and—being the good historian that he is—looks to various roots in the American psyche.  Rather than an ahistoric “kids these days” conclusion, he ties the assertiveness of our students to aspects of American exceptionalism.  Still, he does not sufficiently break from the simplistic whining valorized in the article.  To focus on claims that “a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading,” is insufficient to claim a new “sense of entitlement.”  How did students respond to these questions in the 1980s or 1940s?  What of an age when aristocratic sons were the main recipients of education—did they expect to work harder than today’s students? I think it likely that some of the instructors in the article do not like to have their authority challenged.  Grades are the currency that allows one group to lord over the other in the university community.

But there’s little use in a pissing match over research design or by trying to start a class war.   Instead, I would like to suggest that the main problem is in framing the dialogue as an ‘us vs. them’ issue.  I’m not looking for a ‘grades free’ university or a radically democratic retreat from my responsibility as a professor.  Actually, as I believe my students will agree, I am a demanding grader.  What I am suggesting is that grading disputes offer a great opportunity for an open dialogue and process of learning.  I (almost always) encourage, enjoy, and enrich challenges to grades from students.  I see this as a great opportunity to get to do additional teaching.  That, rather than bitching about students, is actually my job.

I tell students (from the bully pulpit of the lectern) that I am fallible and that many of them are likely more intelligent than myself.  For those reasons, if they see a problem or have a question with any grade they receive they should come talk to me.  I remember, even as a non-traditional student, what a daunting experience that could be, and so I try to give them encouragement, meaning, I try to bolster their courage to come discuss the matter with me.  Sometimes I have simply made a mistake and I correct their grade.  Most of the time my grading holds up under inspection but I get a chance to engage the student in an important discussion of the material.  My experience is that several years later those students remember very specific details about those ‘grading’ conversations.  Sometime they recall substantive aspects related to the material of the class; just as often they learned new ways to professionally assert differences of opinion.  Regardless, I almost always offer some ‘bonus’ increase in their grade simply for having taken the time and initiative, and for demonstrating the courage and ability, to advocate for themselves.  Colleagues might think I have a line of students at my door looking for this grade ‘dole.’  Let me assure them that is not the case.

As a final statement, let me suggest that rather than bemoaning students who seek higher grades we should encourage that.  I make my students work harder than most of my professors did with me.  With that said, I must admit that it is often annoying when I open an e-mail from one of my partners in learning who are questioning my judgement.  Then, after I sit down with them, I almost always feel like the exchange was worth their time and mine.  With that said, those quoted in the NY Times article might suggest that I am playing into “the system in place.”  So be it.  What a terrible world if 40% of the students expected to earn LOWER grades for attending lectures and doing the reading!