on sparing the rod

Music: Iggy & the Stooges: Raw Power (1973)

I recently had a student send me a series of frantic email messages, three in as many days, about her grade. She was literally a point-and-a-fraction-of-a-point off from the next letter-grade, and the difference made all the difference on whether she graduated. She did not know that I had calculated her grade many days prior to her realization, and I had "bumped" her up so that she would not be spending thousands of dollars and an extra semester to earn her degree. Really: if a student is that close she or he gets the benefit of the doubt from me---the doubt being about my calculation skills and less his or her performance in my class. I do not advertise this policy, nor have I ever told students about it, for more than a decade. But I exercise it routinely: if a student is less than two points away from the next grade, I bump them "up."

One might ask---well, to be frank, someone did---whether or not the student "deserves" the bump? My response is: well, she's in the ballpark of the grade she was aiming for. What would my strict enforcement of point-fractions actually do, or prove, or accomplish? My attitude is that learning is not a game of numbers, which is why we use letter grades in the first place. Getting "As" or "Bs" or "Cs" does not signify an exact percentage on purpose; the letter grade represents the qualitative character of educational assessment. [Insert diatribe about "accountability" measures and the reduction of education to "scores" here.]

I mention this recent, "real life" incident in the life of an educator to help frame an interesting discussion I had with a self-identified "conservative" person, a trusted fraternity brother, some weeks ago about higher education. He had taught high school for some years, and we were commiserating about how politics (that is, politics external to the institutions of teaching) had become burdensome for educators. (As you might imagine, living in Texas the burdens of a politicized educational system are not unfamiliar to conversations at work.) He lived in a different state, but we had similar stories. Somehow we got to assessment, and our differences concerning the "grading" of students emerged. He stressed how important it was to grade fairly and accurately, and that he would fail a student even if it pained him to do so, for "his own good." I said that I understood his position, however, at least in my position I was very loathe to fail anyone on the matter of principle alone. "If a student wants to argue his or her grade," I said, "I'll hear them out. And sometimes if they're looking for a fight, I'll give in just to avoid the dynamic."

He looked perplexed, then disturbed. "What?" he said (I'm paraphrasing). "You give them the grade they want?"

"No." I replied. "But usually if a student is haggling over a grade, it is usually for a minor bump, not like a C to an A. More like a C to a B."

"So you just give in? What is that teaching them?"

I explained that I don't give in, but rather "give up my role for them." If it's a student who is failing, more often than not it's impossible to justify doing anything but failing them. That's not the case I'm talking about. I explained, rather, that most students who want to argue about a grade are students who are arguing for a minus-to-plus sort of situation, for single-digit percentage points (minor percentages). In my experience, insofar as these conflicts involve relatively minor point spreads, students who are angry with me or my grading policies are not upset about their grade but with me. "It's personal," I said, "except it's not really about me." As an authority, I have come to represent someone else who has treated him or her unfairly in the past, perhaps a paternal figure, or "society," or "those liberals" or whomever. "It's on my syllabus that if you have a problem with a grade, you have to state that problem in writing and send it to me, then come see me," I explained. By the time they've come to my office, they've worked out an argument for why they deserve X grade instead of Y grade.

What I did not explain to my fellow teacher is that more often than not, I do not get an actual argument. What I get is "I worked so hard," or "I studied so hard," or "I put forth so much effort." Or worst of all, "if I don't get a B in your class I cannot graduate." These are not arguments, but rather, claims based on the worth of the student as a person who does stuff . . . but I digress.

"By the time they see me face-to-face," I said, "it's no longer about the course, or the assignment, or the point of taking my class in the first place. It's about me as an authority figure standing between them and what they want." I explained that, given this dynamic, it makes no sense for me to be a hard-ass or to assert my authority (ultimately, to say "NO!") for two reasons. First, the educational institution is "customer service" oriented. While every single "hearing" I have had with upper administration about a student's grade has gone in my favor, there is nevertheless systemic discouragement from having a student petition upstream; the notion that the "customer is always right" has infiltrated education, which has effectively eroded the authority of the teacher when it comes to conflict. Yes, the teacher is usually backed-up, all I'm saying is that it's very unpleasant getting to the point where the institution says "I'm with the teacher." We're supposed to handle the conflict at its source. Educators no longer live in a Hogwarts world in which the educators and the administration are united in their authorial expertise (and respected for it); the public no longer consider the professoriate experts who know how to best educate students. (Goodness, there's a lot more to say here, but my friend and I did not go into it and I won't here.)

Second, and more importantly, it no longer makes sense for the student's education to be a hard ass about grades. Whereas telling a student two decades ago he or she deserved a D on her paper would have been the end of discussion, today it is "just your opinion." This is directly related to the first reason---the customer-service-ification of education, of course. Half of the student body still recognize the professor as an authority figure, as someone who has expertise (and many of these first generation college students, who are excited to be in college at all), but the other half understand the professor as a servant-gatekeeper who provides the necessary hurdle for a degree that leads to a job. Nine times of ten, the student who comes to me to protest a grade is in this latter category, in which case, again, it's not about the principle or the point of the assignment or learning, it's about getting in the way of the paper/job/career aspiration.

"So if they come to my office wanting to fight, I give in," I said. "'What grade do you think you deserve?' I ask the student. Usually it's a mere fraction of a point, or a very minor thing, and so I say, 'sure, ok.'" I explained to my fellow teacher that the student is usually shocked that I don't argue with him or her. They seem, frankly, dumbfounded. They came into my office expecting some sort of dramatic conflict, and I completely dissolve whatever fantasy they had envisioned---some sort of battle, I imagine. I don't give them that battle. They get compliance, an ok, an agreeable professor whom they expected would be a formidable foe. I give them what they thought they wanted.

They leave my office confused, but with the grade they sought.

My fellow teacher was visibly unnerved when I told him this. Much like the student who comes in expecting a fight and doesn't get one.

"But you're doing the student a terrible disservice!" he said, angrily. "You're teaching them that they can turn in substandard work and still get buy. [later edit: I see the slip with typing "buy" instead of "by." Not intentional, but I'm leaving it.] You're actually teaching them the opposite of what they need, you're telling them the opposite of what they need to hear!" he said. He was, frankly, disgusted with my approach to the disgruntled student. He believed, and not without good reason, that I may be setting up disgruntled students for failure "in the real world."

This former teacher believed the teacher had more power than he or she actually does. Culturally this is part of the problem with the politicization of education in our world today: teachers used to be in loco parentis. That is so very much not the case in higher education today. And unfortunately, the role my friends in primary and secondary education have inherited. My friend who teaches 5th grade disciplines (and parents) as much as she teaches, but I'm digressing again . . .

I am not sure my brother was a good teacher, I don't know. I do know that he did not teach long. And I know that he came at our discussion holding two assumptions that I do not share: (1) that the university is not "the real world"; and (2) that as a professor I have the power to mold minds and build character.

I've been teaching since 1996. What I have learned from teaching (and teaching is learning, unquestionably) for sixteen years cannot be summarized in a blog post. I can say, however, that I do not have the power to mold minds or build character. I can only nudge along, encourage, and occasionally inspire. I aim for nudging, encouraging, and inspiring. If I wanted to discipline, I would have pursued politics or law enforcement.

Tickling curiosity and inciting interest is what I like to think I do for young people.

Now, if we shift gears to talking about graduate student education, my philosophy shifts substantially. That is different, if only because we're training, not just teaching, our grads. And the students are very different, too. In graduate education, however, I've rarely given anything lower than an "A"---the student has violate the very principle of admission to a graduate program to get below an "A"---and very very rarely does that happen. Even so, I have seen the "rare" case . . . but again, I digress.