Grading Hell: Death to the Teachers!!!

[Wraith]

--"and the teacher trainees have no brains to speak of."

I've been saying this kind of thing ever since I had to put up with a public junior high and high school...

You should just be glad you didn't get stuck as a TA in an education course, or else you'd be hammering #2 pencils through your head over the course material as well as the students.

Wraith
"'Educational' refers to the process, not the object. Although, come to think of it, some of my teachers could easily have been replaced by a cheeseburger."
-- Terry Pratchett

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Azazel
How about this?

We take Organic Chemistry 2 for Chemists together with the guys from Materials engineering. The Professor is extremely naughty, so much so, that he sometimes wonders out loud, why would someone attempt to answer a question, if he doesn't know how. I, too, was called to the board to show the mechanism of a particular reaction, and I, too, made some mistakes. I didn't think that he insulted me by saying I was wrong.

Some people, namely some of the Materials engineering guys wrote an anonymous letter to the professor with a CC to the vice-dean, about how, apparently, the professor verbally abuses the students. I think that he's a kickass lecturer, plus, I didn't think he did anything that terrible, but noooo, they had to whine. So our union leader sends a letter in support of the professor, and the leader of the Materials people calls us suck-ups. He didn't even take the course that simester, he doesn't know what the **** he's talking about, and just because of some whiny *****es got their panties in a bunch, we have to shut up? we like that professor, he explained the material very well.

There are good and bad ways to do this. I studiously avoid humiliating the students.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Agathon
I've never read Derrida and I don't plan to.

So sayeth the man who hates Derrida?

What are the structuralists you've read? I find it funny, this hard line between French and English philosophy: the English world can't stand the structuralists, while the French world can't stand the utilitarians.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Arguments must be structured sufficiently to eliminate confusion and ambiguity.

Science students seem to have problems with simple ethical concepts because science doesn't deal with value. Students that come from backgrounds like poli sci and English, where values are an important topic of discussion are simply better at doing it because they are used to it.

Just what do you mean that Science doesn't deal with value? This is a blatant ambiguous argument that confuses me...

And Asher is prime evidence of what is wrong with a lot of them. They believe that only what is useful has value. But if it does then the value it has must depend on something which is intrinsically, as opposed to instrumentally, valuable. In fact the really important things are those with intrinsic value since that is what we study the others for the sake of.

This doesn't even make sense. You should make an unambiguous, clear argument.

Knowledge is in some respects intrinsically valuable, since people are naturally curious. Universities are in part set up to promote activities in the service of this desire. So complaining that people study things with no practical use misses the point. After all I fail to see how philosophy is any less useful than studying the properties of distant stars, which may not ever yield any results other than satisfying our curiosity about the origins of the universe.

Perhaps because understanding distant stars gives us greater understanding of closer stars, which is important because the Earth will not exist forever, and the people will eventually overcrowd this Earth.

Having Knowledge about Kant and Sartre is rather trivial in the grand scheme of things when the Earth gets destroyed.

How's that for perspective?

[Provost Harrison]

You just slag them off on bulletin boards instead

[Agathon]

Asher you had your arse kicked in a thread about this about six months ago. You can refer back to your humiliation there if you want a response.

OB. I never read structuralists. I work in the Analytic tradition and I mainly deal with Greek philosophy.

[the_ceebs]

A teachers point of view

rantingteacher.co.uk


Oh and good to see you're into proper Greek philosophy Agathon.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Asher you had your arse kicked in a thread about this about six months ago. You can refer back to your humiliation there if you want a response.

IIRC, all you said was a whole bunch of famous scientists invented things back when they were called "philosophers".

[Az]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
You just slag them off on bulletin boards instead

[Agathon]

That was a different thread.

Here's a gem I just read.

testing students is wrong because the students who fail the test will see themselves as failures

I'd like this person to see themselves as a failure.

[Asher]

So you disagree with her, so she gets poor marks.

This is why I disagree with Philosophy as a course worth anything in Uni. Opinions are right or wrong...

[Ben Kenobi]

So Asher:

Do you believe that there can be gradations in competence among Philosophers?

[Asher]

I think Philosophy courses should not be worth marks. Take them for your own interest or your own "betterment" persuits. In my personal experience they've been rather worthless, and I despise a few being requirements for me. But I do understand that it fascinates some people, and is useful for some people, but I still don't think it's a subject that lends itself to grading, since it's supposed to encourage free thought and not mould into right/wrong in the perspective of the prof.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Asher
I think Philosophy courses should not be worth marks. Take them for your own interest or your own "betterment" persuits. In my personal experience they've been rather worthless, and I despise a few being requirements for me. But I do understand that it fascinates some people, and is useful for some people, but I still don't think it's a subject that lends itself to grading, since it's supposed to encourage free thought and not mould into right/wrong in the perspective of the prof.

Marks in philosophy look at the validity of logics, the structure and the depth of the argument, the quality of the writing. All of this is gradable.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Marks in philosophy look at the validity of logics, the structure and the depth of the argument, the quality of the writing. All of this is gradable.

While nice in theory, I don't think that follows in practice.