by hilzoy
Scott Eric Kaufman has been hurting his students with his words:
“Every day I wanted to discuss with you about the way you grade my papers and the way you teach the class, but I could not because the things you say in class and your words disturb me so much I can not. You make me completely uncomfortable with the little things you say in the class like how you talk about television or how you talk about when you are grading our papers and trying to be fair. You do not seem to care about our grades only that they are up to your too high standards and I can not talk to you because you make me completely uncomfortable. For example, you say you will talk to us about our grades but you really will not because of how uncomfortable you make me feel with your words and what you say.
I will plan to contest the grade you have given me in this class when I get it because I know it will be much higher with any other teacher. I am a very religious man and you are not a bad person but you do not choose your words with enough care like a teacher should. You try to be objective and the very attempt becomes your flaw because you try so hard to grade fairly and comment wisely that you become biased to your own ideas. You criticize our writings because we are college students and young but do not realize that you offend most of us when you do this. I am always offended when I go to your class and have been on many occasions but I never tell you of my offense because you make me completely uncomfortable so I never say a word. (…)
After this quarter I am hurt and tired and feel like talking to you now will do me no good. I wanted to go to your office hours but I could not find the time or make myself because of your words. I feel like my paper was written to the best of my ability in reference to your teaching skills in the discussions. You grade my papers poorly but do not realize that you do so because they reflect your teaching skills. Other people may have done well with your skills but I did not and would have talked to you but what you said about grading fairly made me uncomfortable. I take my responsibilities as a man and I have never complained about my grades but this one I will because I did not need you to teach me how to read or to write. I have made very high grades in all my other writing classes and even though I had many disputes with those instructors we always settled them to my happiness. Now for the first time I can not talk to you to settle my grades because I am uncomfortable to talk or even write to you.”
And then, at the end, the kicker:
“I will forward this letter to the head of your department so he can see that I am a serious student who does not deserve the grade you will give him because I write so very well.”
To coin a cliché: Sadly, No. — In comments, Scott Eric Kaufman, who got the original complaint (which he says he redacted slightly), says that the student is “a native speaker of the upper-class, Wonder Bread variety.” I thought so when I read it: in my experience, students for whom English is a second language tend to write quite well, unless they have only very recently arrived in this country. It’s the students who don’t seem to have mastered their first language who are the problem, not the students who have mastered more than one.
***
My first job was at a very good liberal arts college with a strong teaching tradition. During my first year there, I was asked to come to a meeting of students and faculty about how to foster more student-faculty interaction. This surprised me a bit: there was already lots of student-faculty interaction, and I couldn’t see why we needed to brainstorm about how to make more. It was sort of like having a meeting about how to deal with the problem of inadequate moisture at the bottom of the ocean. Still, I dutifully showed up, and dutifully listened as one after another person bemoaned our failure to have more interaction between students and faculty. (It was part of the ethos of this college that there was always a need to do more to foster student-faculty interaction.)
The moment when this meeting went truly surreal was when one student said: I know all the faculty members have office hours, and are willing to meet with us at other times, and all, but even when they seem really encouraging and open, sometimes we don’t feel comfortable enough to make appointments with them. What would really help is if we saw them at college sports events, so we could start talking to them then; that’s a much more comfortable setting for us. — And everyone there said: Oooooh, good point! Sports events! What a great idea!
I, meanwhile, thought: wait a minute. I have office hours. I try to be approachable. I encourage my students to come and talk to me. I have long arguments with them over lunch, in public campus places where other students can come over and join in. I really like students, and I think this comes across. But this isn’t enough. No: I am supposed to hang out at e.g. college wrestling matches, on the off chance that some student who has not felt comfortable coming to my office hours will be at that very same wrestling match, and will for the very first time feel able to come over and talk to me.
Huh?
I mean: that’s just crazy. And it’s crazy in the same way as a student blaming a teacher for the fact that “what you said about grading fairly made me uncomfortable”– so uncomfortable that he was unable to talk about it all semester.
Mercifully, my students tend to be completely decent, and not given to this sort of thing at all: a fact for which I daily give thanks.
Hilzoy: I’m not tracking on this tonight. I’ll give it a fresh read tomorrow.
If that student expressed himself as incoherently in his classwork as in his letter, I can understand the bad grade. I’m still not sure what the beef is: that Kauffman made him feel uncomfortable by talking? That being fair and impartial is wrong? That Kauffman didn’t make an effort to understand him as a person? That hard work should be enough for a good grade?
Your anecdote about brainstorming how to be more available to students bemused me. When I was in college, there were terrific professors who made sure they were ‘available to students,’ but there were an equal number who seemed to regard teaching as a regrettable if necessary chore to be fitted in around research, writing, and conferences. Undergraduates just weren’t worth their time.
The continuum from “disinterested lecturer” to “Professor I’m-Your-Pal” must be difficult to navigate. For students, it can be a real shock to be in an environment where they’re totally responsible for themselves, after 18 years of Mom and Dad and Teacher hovering over them to one degree or another. For professors, it can be rough, too: either they’re young enough that their students are almost their peers, or they’re old enough that their students could be their kids.
I have office hours. I try to be approachable. I encourage my students to come and talk to me.
But do you have beer in your office?
CaseyL: I should say that I would have reacted to that meeting very differently had it taken place in other universities I know. But that one — that was a place where students I didn’t even know felt free to stop by my house at 11pm to ask if I had some philosophy book they wanted to read. It was a place where it was taken for granted, and deeply part of the culture, that teaching was the heart of your job. I’m sure there were profs who didn’t live by that, but by and large it was a very student-centered place.
Tim: no.
I knew I had forgotten something.
CaseyL:
If that student expressed himself as incoherently in his classwork as in his letter, I can understand the bad grade. I’m still not sure what the beef is: that Kauffman made him feel uncomfortable by talking? That being fair and impartial is wrong? That Kauffman didn’t make an effort to understand him as a person? That hard work should be enough for a good grade?
In my experience, your last query sounds like the right one. There is an endless supply of (usually) well-meaning, privileged, and entitled students out there for whom “A for effort” must at some point have been an actual lived experience.
And when I give them a C+ it’s like I’ve accused them of being morons. Or I’ve failed to value their personhood. Or something.
I used to teach physics, which meant I could be pretty hard-nosed about grading.
It was an obvious strain for a lot of the students that my idea of an exam obliged them to figure out the problem, figure out what equations were necessary, etc. Just plugging numbers into equations I gave them was what quite a few students thought “physics testing” should be….
We grad students got together and decided that no “A’s for effort” would ever occur. Any student who tried pleading effort-but-no-result got flayed.
I’ve always felt pretty brutal about education and egos–it does no benefit to the student if the teacher fails to evaluate the student properly. And it certainly will not assist the student when he goes out into the Real World and has to deal with Real Employment.
Kaufmann’s student seems to have studied at the feet of George W. Bush’s talking-points briefers: In every appearance, our dim bulb in chief has one or two phrases that he repeats to the point of absurdity.
This has made easy pickings for the Daily Show, who most recently feasted on Bush’s petulant but persistent defense of his offer of closed-door, no-oath, no-transcript appearances for Rove and Miers as “reasonable”. He must have said it nine or ten times.
The student’s magic word is, of course, “uncomfortable”.
When I was in college, there were terrific professors who made sure they were ‘available to students,’ but there were an equal number who seemed to regard teaching as a regrettable if necessary chore to be fitted in around research, writing, and conferences. Undergraduates just weren’t worth their time.
Same here. These same professors made it clear, should you be foolish enough to actually show up during office hours, that you were wasting their extremely valuable time and ought to be pestering a TA instead. Some professors were careful to arrange their office hours at times when undergrads would be unlikely to be able to attend. The sporting events idea is pretty silly, but why not ask the students *why* they aren’t coming in during office hours?
mythago: the thing is, so very many of them were. They came by office hours, they asked us out for lunch and coffee (‘asked us out’ in its literal, non-dating sense); they called us in our office and at home; they invited us to their plays; I personally played ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ at their talent show, with two deans I had roped into it; we advised their student groups, etc., etc., etc. All of this was completely taken for granted there. And I really liked that: I normally teach that way, and I liked both the fact that it was expected and regarded as obviously part of our jobs, and the knowledge that if I tried to do right by my students, I would not be penalized for that.
It just made that one meeting odd, is all.
Nell et al. – in case you didn’t see it, check out this comment from the translator of that poem we discussed recently here.
in comments, Scott Eric Kaufman, who got the original complaint (which he says he redacted slightly), says that the student is “a native speaker of the upper-class, Wonder Bread variety.” I thought so when I read it
Last night when I read this, “upper-class, Wonder Bread” bugged me a little. I thought well I’m tired, revisit tomorrow. But it still bugs me. I’m not sure how it is any less offensive than “lower-class White Trash” would be.
I’m not a PC type, but it seems offensive to me that a (former) teacher wrote this about a student in a public forum. (Meaning Kaufman not Hilzoy of course).
He also seems to have edited more than a little:
I redacted it in the style of the student, so only about two sentences made it in without some alteration in placement, grammar, or style.
I’m left to wonder what the student actually wrote and why a former teacher would think it appropriate to share it.
OCSteve: Last night when I read this, “upper-class, Wonder Bread” bugged me a little. I thought well I’m tired, revisit tomorrow. But it still bugs me. I’m not sure how it is any less offensive than “lower-class White Trash” would be.
Because it is less offensive to make fun of the over-privileged than it is to make fun of the under-privileged.
Just as when a student tells a joke about a teacher, it’s funny. When a teacher tells a joke about a student…
…which I believe is your point?
(And I agree with it, I have to say: if this is an actual e-mail sent by a student to a teacher and the student would recognize his/her own work on Scott’s blog, then I think that’s appalling. If it’s been tweaked so that no individual student will recognize an actual e-mail they themselves sent, not so much.)
I think OCSteve has it right. Kaufman has taken all the outrage out of this letter by admitting he wrote the whole thing. At best it is now ‘False but Accurate.’
http://acephalous.typepad.com/acephalous/2007/03/i_am_making_peo.html
The letter is written in the style of the student’s complaint, but I had a little fun with it. The student may find some of the phrasing familiar, but I freely admit to doctoring the original email.
Nice. So the student may recognize that they are the source for this little bit of “fun”.
But only the outrageously entitled will think poorly of me for mocking outrageous entitlement … and I’m not interested in pandering to that particular demographic.
Wrong. I personally identify more with the trailer park than the gated community and I think poorly of him. He may be mocking entitlement but he is also mocking a student in a public forum.
Accurate or not, the attitude of “I have a right to a good grade and to never be told that I’m wrong” is something I have certainly encountered among my fellow students. Wimps.
I remember one incident in law school where a bunch of students went to the dean and forced a professor to apologize to the class. Her sin? She had snapped at a student, who had obviously come unprepared to class and had the bad fortune to be called on, something like “alright, you’ve now guessed two wrong answers in a row, there’s only one possible answer left, what would you like to guess?”
Which I personally considered a) deserved, (b) accurate, (c) instructive, (d) well within the bounds of the Socratic instructional style that we had all been told to expect, and (e) a lot less painful than that student would experience if he didn’t learn to prep for meetings by the time he graduated.
I told the prof so afterwards, and the dean.
@rilkefan: Thanks for the pointer!
OCSteve, again we agree on something. This is very much “a pox on both their houses” scenario.
Trilobite, your point e) is very well taken. Too many students expect to be treated as if they were fragile things and entitled to kid glove treatment. Unfortunately, the real world is not likely to care about what they want.
The last does not apply only to students, BTW.
It was interesting reading the comments that my son’s students made in their ccoutrse evaluations for the class he taught last term at Northwestern. For the most part they were extremely glowing (which of course is to be expected considering his parentage). There were a couple that almost followed the lament shown in this post.
He was almost sure which two students wrote them and told me that they were always the least prepared for any of the classes.
There’s no reason to resent the student for his folly. Students are in school because they need to learn. They’re ignorant, and a teacher’s job is to educate them. This student’s plaint is no different from the child’s plea that “Daddy said I could have it” — it’s just a childish attempt at manipulation. My response to such complaints is to smile and say, “No, you don’t understand the ramifications of what you’re saying.” I then make a brief attempt to explain their error. Usually it irks them that I am ignoring what they perceive to be their rights. A few of the more self-righteous have taken their complaints higher. Big deal. Let’s never forget that grading is intrinsically a conflict between the student who seeks to maximize his grade and the teacher who seeks to maintain a proper set of grading standards. Because it’s a conflict, students will always attempt to manipulate teachers. Teachers must ignore such attempts at manipulation.
I’m with OCSteve:
1. Kaufman has admitted that he wrote the letter to illustrate a “type” — the “upper-class, Wonder Bread” type. I’ve admitted never heard of this type before, given that the upper classes very seldom eat Wonder Bread (in my limited experience). Wonder Bread is not upper class. (Indeed, this is a weird classist mix: It’s almost as if Kaufman is offended by the kid whose parents just got money, and therefore continue with some some lower-class preferences.)
2. Jes: “Because it is less offensive to make fun of the over-privileged than it is to make fun of the under-privileged.” Why? And, even if this is the case, what’s the advantage in making up a letter to make up a stereotype?
3. Based on this post and made-up e-mail, I’m not very sympathetic to Kaufman. He’s probably not quite the teacher he thinks himself to be.
I’m with OCSteve:
1. Kaufman has admitted that he wrote the letter to illustrate a “type” — the “upper-class, Wonder Bread” type. I’ve admitted never heard of this type before, given that the upper classes very seldom eat Wonder Bread (in my limited experience). Wonder Bread is not upper class. (Indeed, this is a weird classist mix: It’s almost as if Kaufman is offended by the kid whose parents just got money, and therefore continue with some some lower-class preferences.)
2. Jes: “Because it is less offensive to make fun of the over-privileged than it is to make fun of the under-privileged.” Why? And, even if this is the case, what’s the advantage in making up a letter to make up a stereotype?
3. Based on this post and made-up e-mail, I’m not very sympathetic to Kaufman. He’s probably not quite the teacher he thinks himself to be.
Students are in school because they need to learn.
That opinion puts you in a distinct minority, I suspect. My (liberal arts) college experience involved far more classes that were graded on attendance or ‘participation’ than on anything relating to actual knowledge. Kids who failed their finals could still end up with an A; kids who aced the same exams were failed for not showing up at a specific room at a specific time three or four days per week.
I don’t think this was by accident nor do I think it was unique to my school. College in the 21st century has far, far more to do with socializing students into the rote work and routine schedules associated with collecting a low-level paycheck than it does with anything so mundane as knowledge or critical thinking. Most modern college graduates don’t know calculus. The ability to place a comma in a sentence, or even to identify what a comma denotes, is no longer a requisite to earn a degree.
Sorry for the double post.
I’ve admitted never heard of this type before, given that the upper classes very seldom eat Wonder Bread (in my limited experience).
Wonder Bread = white student.
Kaufman has admitted that he wrote the letter to illustrate a “type” — the “upper-class, Wonder Bread” type. I’ve admitted never heard of this type before, given that the upper classes very seldom eat Wonder Bread (in my limited experience). Wonder Bread is not upper class.
He hasn’t ‘admitted’ writing the letter from scratch — he said he rewrote it, preserving the tone (I assume to keep it from being traceable to the student):
I redacted it in the style of the student, so only about two sentences made it in without some alteration in placement, grammar, or style. The diction and circularity, however, belongs entirely to the student. The best comparison is a cover song, in which the (dubious) brilliance of the original is largely responsible for the quality of the cover.
And in context ‘upper-class Wonder Bread’ makes perfect sense — he means that the kid comes from an affluent middle-American background, not from circumstances where his difficulty with writing in English might be explained either by poverty or by having learned English as an adult. ‘Wonder Bread’ isn’t classist, it’s conventional shorthand for ‘no obvious strong cultural influences other than American Anglo.’
Where are these push-over professors?
I thought my working-class/ex-convict with kids’ background would shield me from B’s and C’s!
I thought really wrong.
Jesuits were no joke.
Most modern college graduates don’t know calculus.
Or ancient Greek. What is the world coming to?
Most modern college graduates don’t know calculus.
Was there ever a point in time when most college graduates knew calculus?
In my previous post I wasn’t trying to defend an entitled student, but do we really need to open another front in the battle against straw?
Lizardbreath
You write (your quote from Kaufman in italics):
So maybe 2 sentences in the letter are real; everything else has undergone “some alteration in placement, grammar, or style.” (That pretty much covers the possibilities, doesn’t it?) And based on this admission, those 2 real sentences may very well have been moved from their original position, or their meaning been altered by the wholesale alteration of the text around it.
Moreover, in his follow-up post, Kaufman makes plain that his alterations are intended to make the student appear more stupid and outrageous than less:
To which I say (again): what an ass. The guy is a caricature of privilege and ego, seeking provide his insights into white male patriarchy (sorry, the white male partiarchy, since there is only one) to his poor students and members of the culture at large — none of whom are quite up to snuff.
By the way, note how dishonest Kaufman was when he first introduced the letter, calling it “A slightly redacted version of my favorite student complaint ever” (emphasis Kaufman’s).
Would you call a letter that you’ve revised every sentence, save two, “as to placement, grammar, or style” as “slightly redacted”? Does “slightly redacted” equate in your mind to “The letter is written in the style of the student’s complaint, but I had a little fun with it. The student may find some of the phrasing familiar, but I freely admit to doctoring the original email”? And, given that none of us have the original email — assuming it even exists — why the heck should we take Kaufman’s word that his most recent explanation is, at long last, the correct one?
To which I say (again): what an ass. The guy is a caricature of privilege and ego, seeking provide his insights into white male patriarchy (sorry, the white male partiarchy, since there is only one) to his poor students and members of the culture at large — none of whom are quite up to snuff.
Jeebus. Have you ever read anything else of Kaufman’s, von? It sure doesn’t sound like it.
And, given that none of us have the original email — assuming it even exists — why the heck should we take Kaufman’s word that his most recent explanation is, at long last, the correct one?
Because the point isn’t the specific student in question. You should read through the comments to the original thread if you haven’t already; regardless of whether or not Kaufman made up the original e-mail, it certainly rang true with a bunch of people who have been in the same situation.
I’ve had some conversation with SEK in comments, and found him to be one of the most reasonable people I’ve ever encountered.
Which may not be the kind of praise he’s looking for, given the source, but take it for what it’s worth.
I too stumbled over the “Wonder Bread” bit, but I didn’t care enough to ask.
If in one post you put on the bottom half of a donkey suit and the next you pull on the donkey top, I’m quite willing to call you an ass without reading much further.
Because the point isn’t the specific student in question. You should read through the comments to the original thread if you haven’t already; regardless of whether or not Kaufman made up the original e-mail, it certainly rang true with a bunch of people who have been in the same situation.
As originally presented as a “slightly redacted e-mail” (again, Kaufman’s emphasis), it was this single student. Kaufman only retreasted to his “type” defense when it became clear that this wasn’t a “slightly redacted e-mail”, but rather a made up e-mail that Kaufman is currently claiming was intended to represent/loosely based on/rewritten from a real e-mail.
Eh. Kaufman is clearly representing the edited email as funny to pretty much the same degree and for the same reasons as the original email — as a fair representation of the flaws of the original email. If you trust him, there’s nothing wrong with this. If you don’t, he’s an awful, awful person. But without the original email to compare it to, you don’t have any basis from this set of posts for deciding to trust him or not.
I’ve read enough of his stuff, and interacted with him enough, that I trust him to have fairly represented the original email. If you don’t, you don’t.
If in one post you put on the bottom half of a donkey suit and the next you pull on the donkey top, I’m quite willing to call you an ass without reading much further.
And what about when people who know better than you say, “that’s not an ass”?
As originally presented as a “slightly redacted e-mail” (again, Kaufman’s emphasis), it was this single student.
To you, maybe. Clearly not to all the people who responded in comments. Hell, I’ve never done much teaching and I knew the type.
Is “Wonder Bread” a mistake for, or an idiolectic variant of, “whitebread”? I too find it hard to imagine what sort of person is described by both “upper-class” and “Wonder Bread” (a stereotypically lower-class food).
Is “Wonder Bread” a mistake for, or an idiolectic variant of, “whitebread”?
I’ve heard it used in place of “whitebread” before. Usually in the context of “you’re whiter than Wonder Bread”.
idiolectic variant of, “whitebread”?
This, exactly.
Lizardbreath and Josh, does it not bother you at all that Kaufman first stated that this email was “slightly edited,” but has admitted that the e-mail was, in fact, completely rewritten?
Try this one: Let’s say that I want to establish that liberal arts professors are nutty types. I present an e-mail that I state is (1) from a liberal arts professor, (2) is only “slightly redacted” and (3) says a bunch of absolutely nutty things. I post it on RedState. My fellow commentators on RedState agree with me that they know “exactly the type,” have themselves received e-mails “just like it,” and praise me for demonstrating the reality of what it means to be a liberal arts professor.
Later, it comes out that the e-mail was not “slightly edited” but, in fact, completely rewritten with the intent of making it better prove my point regarding how liberal arts professors are nutty. Are you going to be very forgiving of me? Are you going to have much patience for those who might defend me on RedState as exposing a well-known “type” even if it wasn’t completely accurate? Will you accept that, because several Redstaters had posted that they know exactly the type, that my conclusion — liberal arts professors are nuts — must be well founded?
Fake but accurate.
Indeed, one irony of Eric “I implode myths of white patriarchy in my class every day” Kaufman is that Wonder Bread is very much a staple of lower class white and black families — families with whom Kaufman obviously has very little in common. Indeed, he likely selected “Wonder Bread” because it struck him as the perfect food of the “other” — the privileged, white, upper class students he wants to show are whiney complainers. In fact, these students and Kaufman almost certainly share nearly identical cultural preferences: they buy their “Ezekiel 4:9™ Sprouted Grain Bread” from the same Whole Foods Market and drink the same Fair Trade coffee.
Lizardbreath and Josh, does it not bother you at all that Kaufman first stated that this email was “slightly edited,” but has admitted that the e-mail was, in fact, completely rewritten?
Absolutely not, since the point is not to comment on the individual student, but to comment on the class.
Lizardbreath and Josh, does it not bother you at all that Kaufman first stated that this email was “slightly edited,” but has admitted that the e-mail was, in fact, completely rewritten?
Not really. Should it bother me that there never really were a couple of kids living in Verona by the name of Romeo and Juliet?
You don’t even have to make up a hypothetical using RedState to get where you’re going, BTW. David Horowitz does the sort of thing you’re talking about all the time. The difference there is that he does it in the service of a political position, one he’s actively working to make public policy. Kaufman… isn’t.
Absolutely not, since the point is not to comment on the individual student, but to comment on the class.
What class? The class of individuals who are supposedly represented by this fake student e-mail?
It would be bad enough if Kaufman were merely attempting an argument from anecdote — that’d be a simple, and pretty common, logical fallacy — but he’s actually attempting an argument from a false anecdote. We call that stupid and dishonest.
This reminds me of soemthing I wholeheartedly agreed with Von (from his interview the other day). The only real regret I have in life at this point is that I didn’t study harder in college. What a horrific waste of my time those years were…those magnificient resources at my disposal and I did so little with them.
The idea that students don’t have to own up to their responsibilities here makes me laugh. If they think it sucks that their professor doesn’t magically materialize at a sporting event or other place in order to be there ready and open when they’re finally ready and comfortable to ask a question, what chance will they have with a boss in corporate America who won’t give them the time of day but still demands results?
Seriously, universities need to be more demanding of students, not less, IMO.
Later, it comes out that the e-mail was not “slightly edited” but, in fact, completely rewritten with the intent of making it better prove my point regarding how liberal arts professors are nutty.
Except that you’ve brought in the intent for rewriting out of nowhere. Kaufman’s claim isn’t that it’s exaggerated to make his point, but that it’s a recognizable, even if altered, version. You don’t have to believe him about that — if you don’t know him, there’s no reason why you should. But if you believe him (which, from prior experience with his writing, I do), then I don’t see anything to take exception to.
Indeed, one irony of Eric “I implode myths of white patriarchy in my class every day” Kaufman is that Wonder Bread is very much a staple of lower class white and black families — families with whom Kaufman obviously has very little in common. Indeed, he likely selected “Wonder Bread” because it struck him as the perfect food of the “other” — the privileged, white, upper class students he wants to show are whiney complainers. In fact, these students and Kaufman almost certainly share nearly identical cultural preferences: they buy their “Ezekiel 4:9™ Sprouted Grain Bread” from the same Whole Foods Market and drink the same Fair Trade coffee.
WTF are you talking about? The person I can most strongly remember describing themselves as “whiter than Wonder Bread” grew up in a comfortable suburb. There’s no political point behind it, it’s that Wonder Bread is chalk-white in color.
And Jesus Christ, von, how the hell would you know how much Kaufman has in common with lower-class families?
Not really. Should it bother me that there never really were a couple of kids living in Verona by the name of Romeo and Juliet?
So when I write that I’m faithfully reprinting an e-mail that’s been “slightly redacted,” it’s fair for me just to make it up to suit my point because, after all, there is no distinction between fact and fiction?
Wonder Bread means pasty white.
And Jesus Christ, von, how the hell would you know how much Kaufman has in common with lower-class families?
You’re right: I don’t know how much Kaufman has in common with lower-class families. I just know that his choice of Wonder Bread was poorly though out and he’s willing to pay fast-and-loose with the facts to try to establish a social point.
So when I write that I’m faithfully reprinting an e-mail that’s been “slightly redacted,” it’s fair for me just to make it up to suit my point because, after all, there is no distinction between fact and fiction?
Kinda depends on what the point is.
Indeed, he likely selected “Wonder Bread” because it struck him as the perfect food of the “other” — the privileged, white, upper class students he wants to show are whiney complainers.
This sounds more like something written with parodic intent than a serious claim.
I’d say the odds that Kaufman thinks of Wonder Bread as the perfect food of the upper class are close to zero.
Do we have some unresolved issues with the snooty world of academia, von? Is this something we need to talk out over Fair Trade coffee and Wonder Bread?
I just know that his choice of Wonder Bread was poorly though out and he’s willing to pay fast-and-loose with the facts to try to establish a social point.
In what way was it poorly thought out? And what social point do you think he was trying to make?
This sounds more like something written with parodic intent than a serious claim.
There was an element of parodic intent, but it is also true that I made the statement a little too strong to bear the parody.
Do we have some unresolved issues with the snooty world of academia, von? Is this something we need to talk out over Fair Trade coffee and Wonder Bread?
I get along quite well with the snooty world of academia, thank you very much, as I come from a family of academics.
I suspect “White Bread” seems less harmless than “Cracker.”
Kinda depends on what the point is.
Let’s make is simple: I want to have a good laugh at my students’ expense.
I get along quite well with the snooty world of academia, thank you very much, as I come from a family of academics.
The second clause does not follow ineluctably from the first.
😉
Or is “Cracker” specific for lower-class white, while Wonder Bread is specific to upper-class white?
Let’s make is simple: I want to have a good laugh at my students’ expense.
That’s a little too simple. *Why* do you want to have a good laugh at your students’ expense?
Or is “Cracker” specific for lower-class white, while Wonder Bread is specific to upper-class white?
cracker = lower class
water cracker = upper-class
By my reading “whitebread” = bland, white (in the ‘not ethnically marked’ sense) and lacking any distinctive character or substance.
“Entitlement” here should perhaps be read as the student’s (fairly common) belief that everyone should earn an A given a demonstration of competence and effort. I did not see it as being particularly concerned with social class.
Taken together, it does describe a type.
And even if Kauffman turned out to be a bit of an ass, that does not necessarily mean that he is not a good teacher. The two are not mutually exclusive Some of my better professors were asses and some of my nicest professors were not the best teachers.
Let’s make is simple: I want to have a good laugh at my students’ expense.
Well, sure. Laughing at a particularly comic student was certainly a motive behind Kaufman’s post. If you believed he had received the email substantially as posted, would you think that was improper? I’m not sure if you think he was wrong to make fun of his students for the way they write, or if you think he’s inventing students who write badly for the purpose of making fun of them.
That’s a little too simple. *Why* do you want to have a good laugh at your students’ expense?
I dunno; why did Kaufman?
Well, sure. Laughing at a particularly comic student was certainly a motive behind Kaufman’s post. If you believed he had received the email substantially as posted, would you think that was improper?
But why is there any basis to believe that he received the e-mail “substantially as posted” given that Kaufman has admitted that he did not receive the e-mail “substantially as posted,” but, in fact, rewrote it?
The blog seems to have moved onward to poetry.
Those lips that your own mouth did move
Breathed forth the sound that said “I grade,”
To me that anguished to improve.
But when I heard your words conveyed
Straight in my heart discomfort rose,
Shaking that pen that ever strong
Was used in writing graceful prose,
And taught it things it knew all wrong.
“I grade” you garbled without cease
And fouled it as rotting pomes
Doth foul a bunch, which, like old grease
From kitchen to dump is cast from homes.
“I grade” you thwarted with a care
That ruined your course, saying, “as fair…”
I can’t say as any of my professors ever inspired me to compose such verse!
“Entitlement” here should perhaps be read as the student’s (fairly common) belief that everyone should earn an A given a demonstration of competence and effort. I did not see it as being particularly concerned with social class.
Kaufman described the student as “a native speaker of the upper-class, Wonder Bread variety.”
Von: Jes: “Because it is less offensive to make fun of the over-privileged than it is to make fun of the under-privileged.” Why?
For the same reason as you probably wouldn’t be objecting if a student had written a letter mocking the style of a lecturer’s e-mails to their students.
Is it really so hard to understand, Von? It’s funny when people mock upwards. It’s not funny when people mock downwards. A student making fun of a teacher is funny, whereas a teacher making fun of a student is nasty, precisely because of this. (Sorry, Hilzoy. But it is.) Why is it so hard to understand the humor gradient, Von? Just because you’re at the wrong side of it for almost everything I can think of?
This thread, it confuses me. A few things: LB shoots and scores on the “Wonder Bread” comment. I don’t think it’s a matter of idiolect so much as dialect, however, as I heard (and said) it all the time growing up. (Poor, I should add, and in the South.) As for von:
As originally presented as a “slightly redacted e-mail” (again, Kaufman’s emphasis), it was this single student.
I assumed readers would know that I’d never post a student’s email verbatim. The sarcastic “slightly” was meant to hammer that fact home. The “slightly” always meant “heavily.” After the post garnered attention outside my regular circle of readers, I felt the need to explain to those unfamiliar with Acephalous what that “slightly” signified. (A White Bear nails why in this comment.)
Kaufman only retreasted to his “type” defense when it became clear that this wasn’t a “slightly redacted e-mail”, but rather a made up e-mail that Kaufman is currently claiming was intended to represent/loosely based on/rewritten from a real e-mail.
It’s not a defense, as no one is attacking me, but a clarification, i.e. this particular student fits a type. That’s why this makes no sense:
It would be bad enough if Kaufman were merely attempting an argument from anecdote — that’d be a simple, and pretty common, logical fallacy — but he’s actually attempting an argument from a false anecdote.
There’s no argument in that post, or the subsequent ones. The reason “Wonder Bread” came up was because some people thought I may have been writing about a non-native speaker. I clarified. The only argument I might make here is that there are some students who admit to using the threat of grade challenges to force people on the fringes of academia into giving them the grade they (mistakenly) believe they have a right to:
I have made very high grades in all my other writing classes and even though I had many disputes with those instructors we always settled them to my happiness. Now for the first time I can not talk to you to settle my grades because I am uncomfortable to talk or even write to you.
To an adjunct who wants a job there the next quarter, that’s a threat, one which this student seems to have wielded before to great effect. The letter is written by a braying, bullying student whose demands have always been met, from that pony when he was seven to the BMW he currently drives. He expects people to give him what he wants. When they don’t, he threatens them. If they still refuse to back down, he talks to their superiors. If they won’t bend to his will, &c.
Also, you’ll note that I titled the post “And Yet, I Still Miss Teaching.” I’m on a leave of absence right now. That email is anywhere from two to seven years old. I dug it up because all of my friends are currently grading and thought they could use some cheering up. But the title says it all: even though you run across an occasional student like this, teaching is such a rewarding profession that I miss it even when reminded of the lowest of its lows.
Kaufman described the student as “a native speaker of the upper-class, Wonder Bread variety.”
Because people were *specifically thinking that the student was ESL*. He didn’t describe the student that way out of the gate.
I asked my question first: Which annoys you — making fun of a genuinely funny student, or inventing a funny student to make fun of?
But to answer yours: But why is there any basis to believe that he received the e-mail “substantially as posted” given that Kaufman has admitted that he did not receive the e-mail “substantially as posted,” but, in fact, rewrote it?
“Substantially as posted” to me, means that the email he got was funny in the same manner and for the same reasons as what he posted — that a reasonable person, if they compared the original email and the redacted version, wouldn’t think the writer of the original had been done an injustice by being represented by the redacted version. If that’s the case, with no names attached, I think it’s good enough for a blog post.
Sorry, my last was to von’s at 4:43.
Is it really so hard to understand, Von? It’s funny when people mock upwards. It’s not funny when people mock downwards.
Jes: First, go to bed. It’s almost midnight GMT. Second, why isn’t Kaufman mocking downward? He’s the professor and mocker; the mockee is one of his students. Again, why does it matter that he thinks the student is upper-class & Wonder Bread?
Again, why does it matter that he thinks the student is upper-class & Wonder Bread?
Again, because commenters were assuming, incorrectly, that the student was an English as a Second Language speaker. He was correcting a misperception.
But why is there any basis to believe that he received the e-mail “substantially as posted” given that Kaufman has admitted that he did not receive the e-mail “substantially as posted,” but, in fact, rewrote it?
Von, either you believe me because I’m a blogger of long tenure with a reputation for integrity, or you don’t. I’ve had other other positively unbelievable things happen to me. You can choose not to believe them either. (Granted, there’s a fairly lengthy paper trail attached to that one.) Or I could forward you the letter, wait, that would be as unethical as slapping it up on a website. Maybe a redacted version would satisfy you?
Kaufman described the student as “a native speaker of the upper-class, Wonder Bread variety.”
Only after the fact, to clarify that I was not laughing at an ESL student. The fact that the students who write terribly are often of the privileged, domestic variety — because they speak English, so obviously they know how to write it — is commonplace. Hilzoy mentions it up there. I mentioned it in the comments on to that post (as did others). As I wrote, if you don’t work at writing, you won’t write well.
von- Kauffman did mention upper-class, but that does not mean that the sense of entitlement arises solely from class. Class is one of the descriptors and whitebread is another . Whitebread could be a general qualifier or it could specifically modify upper-class. The comma placement argues for the former.
Scott Eric Kaufman: ‘After the post garnered attention outside my regular circle of readers, I felt the need to explain to those unfamiliar with Acephalous what that “slightly” signified. (A White Bear nails why in this comment.)’
AWB’s comment sounds a lot like people defending Garrison Keillor’s column criticized by Dan Savage the other day.
LB: “Which annoys you — making fun of a genuinely funny student”
Have to say I found the letter pathetic not funny – I wondered if the writer was in good mental health.
Oh, come on, Professor Kaufman. Keep your story straight. First:
This is ridiculous. Assuming that I take you at your word that you emphasized “slightly” for ironic effect rather than, say, for emphasis. You now want me to believe that “slightly redacted” means “heavily rewritten”? Does redacted have some peculiar, Kaufman-only meaning? Because I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Second:
Aha. (1) you post the “slightly redacted” e-mail because “this particular student fits a type” and (2) “There’s no argument in that post, or the subsequent ones.” But stating that the e-mail is representative of a student “type” is, of course, an argument. (If you prefer “thesis,” that’s fine too.)
You need to settle on a story: Either (1) you’re posting this e-mail in a modified form to demonstrate a “type” of student that you find particularly grating — in which case you’re making an argument, whether you recognize it or not — or (2) you’re simply holding this e-mail up to ridicule, and all this “type” nonsense is beside the point.
To an adjunct who wants a job there the next quarter, that’s a threat, one which this student seems to have wielded before to great effect. The letter is written by a braying, bullying student whose demands have always been met, from that pony when he was seven to the BMW he currently drives. He expects people to give him what he wants. When they don’t, he threatens them. If they still refuse to back down, he talks to their superiors. If they won’t bend to his will, &c.
But you’re not an adjunct, correct? And this person is your student, correct? And the power in that relationship flows pretty heavily (if not solely) in your direction, correct? Despite the BMWs and ponies this student allegedly receives.
I should clarify that my use of the present tense in my e-mail at 5:08 p.m. is an error; Professor Kaufman states that the student e-mail he rewrote was received 2 to 7 years ago.
LizardBreach:
You’re missing the point of my dispute with Jes. Jes made the point, way upthread, that mocking the student was OK because the student was privileged. I asked why privilege had anything to do with it. She (just recently) replied that it was OK to “mock upward” but not “mock downward.” My point is that this response does not answer the question, because Professor Kaufman is surely mocking downward here.
So, again, why does it matter if this student was privileged? No matter how privileged s/he is/was as a student, Professor Kaufman is in the superior position of power.
“The student may find some of the phrasing familiar”
The prospect of the student doing so makes me acutely uncomfortable. I’ve had a winner or two in my time but blogging a recognizable version of their complaints with a simple google path seems out of bounds to me.
Sorry, friends, I don’t have enough time to read through all the comments, but the post inspires this : during my college years I couldn’t begin to count the hours that the profs spent with me discussing literature and the meaning of life. I couldn’t have pulled through without them. My favorite prof was one who gave me a D on my first literature paper : the one and only D in my career, but carefully explained exactly why my paper was total shit. He did me a great favor.
One of my professor friends over here told me recently that while he was teaching a course on the French occupation, and the Shoah in Germany, at least one American student came up to him after the class mentioning that he was very uncomfortable with all the documentation about the concentration camps, and that he was too sensitive to handle it. Probably a Wonderbread type ?
Sorry for the sentence fragments and typos above: I hope my sentiments are clear.
N.B. that, as one of the proprietors of this blog, making fun of me for my grammatical and other errors is surely “mocking upward.”
If you read the email, it makes threats, and implies that similar threats have been successful in the past. Someone who’s attempting to threaten your job at least believes that they’re in a superior position of power. (I don’t actually know what Scott’s employment status was at the time.)
Von: Jes made the point, way upthread, that mocking the student was OK because the student was privileged. I asked why privilege had anything to do with it. She (just recently) replied that it was OK to “mock upward” but not “mock downward.
Wow, did you miss my point. In fact, you missed my point with such complete obtuseness that you obviously never bothered to read my comment to OCSteve. OCSteve asked why it was okay to mock someone for being over-privileged. I said, because it’s always funnier to mock upwards, and pointed out that this was precisely why he (and I) were objecting to a lecturer mocking a student.
Jes’s excellent comment above.
Let me cut to the chase, since I really do have other things I still need to do today. My central beefs with Professor Kaufman’s posts on this student email are not the misrepresentation — although I don’t find that admirable — or whether or not his semi-made argument about student “type” is (or is not) supported. It’s the power reversal that has occurred.
Kaufman has decided that the powerful one in this relationship is the “bullying” student with the assumed life of privilege, against whom Kaufman must stand. In fact, the powerful party is not the student but Kaufman himself. He has near-absolute control over how he conducts class and what happens in his classroom; he also has a great deal of discretion in awarding grades. Kaufman can fail this student, if he so chooses, and there is very little the student can do about it.
Yet, in his mind, this student is the powerful one. Thus, Kaufman justifies mocking the student’s apparent ignorance and poor writing skills, and is even willing to magnify each by rewriting the original e-mail, for a laugh. That is not something that I think is particularly healthy for the humanity or the academy, and it’s something Kaufman should stop.
Wow, did you miss my point. In fact, you missed my point with such complete obtuseness that you obviously never bothered to read my comment to OCSteve. OCSteve asked why it was okay to mock someone for being over-privileged. I said, because it’s always funnier to mock upwards, and pointed out that this was precisely why he (and I) were objecting to a lecturer mocking a student.
Sorry, Jes, I did completely and utterly miss your point the first time around. We actually agree on certain points on this one. (I promise to tell no one.) My apologies.
I’ve thought all the way through, von, that you’re overreacting, but then who can argue with finding the thing in bad taste.
Your 5:34, though, misses the mark because of the chronology. The email isn’t standing up against anything. The student is long gone, as is any power that may have been had. (The student shows a different understanding of the power relationship, btw: he agrees with SEK, not with you).
I don’t know how big SEK’s readership is, but I can imagine that when he wrote his post, he thought the chances of it being seen by either the student himself, or people not acquainted with his writing style, were slim. Obviously wrong. The lesson here isn’t just for SEK, though, but for anyone who might be indiscrete or tasteless on the internet.
I do hope you clicked through to the post SEK linked “my morning.”
Not “the email” but ‘the SEK post’
Kaufman has decided that the powerful one in this relationship is the “bullying” student with the assumed life of privilege, against whom Kaufman must stand. In fact, the powerful party is not the student but Kaufman himself. He has near-absolute control over how he conducts class and what happens in his classroom; he also has a great deal of discretion in awarding grades. Kaufman can fail this student, if he so chooses, and there is very little the student can do about it.
Yet, in his mind, this student is the powerful one. Thus, Kaufman justifies mocking the student’s apparent ignorance and poor writing skills, and is even willing to magnify each by rewriting the original e-mail, for a laugh. That is not something that I think is particularly healthy for the humanity or the academy, and it’s something Kaufman should stop.
Von, even after all that, I think you completely miss the point of Prof. Kaufman’s post.
And I don’t think it’s healthy for humanity to have students who think they deserve better grades, despite their poor grammar and writing skills (which is, after all, part of the point of the post in the first place), just because of their effort.
either that, or I’m entirely missing yours, because I can’t follow the jump from Prof. Kaufman to what you’re saying.
And I don’t think it’s healthy for humanity to have students who think they deserve better grades, despite their poor grammar and writing skills (which is, after all, part of the point of the post in the first place), just because of their effort.
You know, I can (and do) agree with that sentiment without endorsing Kaufman’s approach.
Charlie, my 5:34 post is not writing solely about the wisdom of posting a rewritten version of this particular student e-mail, but rather the follow-up posts and comments that the original post has inspired, including Professor Kaufman’s various explanations for why he believes that it is legitimate to mock this student. And, certainly, I’m as capable of over (or under) reaction as anyone. YMMV.
rilkefan, it would be out of bounds were it not wholly unreasonable to think that a student would google phrases from an angry email he sent to a professor X years previously. In the unlikely event that he did, what you see on the site differs enough from the original that he would be unable to identify it as his. Details have been changed to protect the guilty, &c.
Assuming that I take you at your word that you emphasized “slightly” for ironic effect rather than, say, for emphasis. You now want me to believe that “slightly redacted” means “heavily rewritten”? Does redacted have some peculiar, Kaufman-only meaning? Because I don’t think it means what you think it means.
I think it does. According to the OED, it means “to put (matter) into proper literary form; to work up, arrange, or edit.” The sarcasm should be apparent enough by the very fact that it’s impossible to redact something “slightly.” Either something’s been redacted or not. I’m not even sure why this is an issue.
(1) you post the “slightly redacted” e-mail because “this particular student fits a type” and (2) “There’s no argument in that post, or the subsequent ones.”
Actually, I posted it to lighten the mood of my compatriots currently dealing with final grades. If that student didn’t fit a type — that is, if the complaint/threat wasn’t familiar enough to be recognizable to my fellow teachers — then it wouldn’t have resonated with them. The ramblings of a singularly insane student would not be something worth writing about (except to Student Services, recommending they check in on him or her). To that extent, the post contains an argument.
And to that extent, that argument has been validated by the response to the post. I mean, do you really want to argue that sheltered, spoiled students who refuse to learn then complain about their grades, that is, that that type of student doesn’t exist? Because I could bury you under that mountain of evidence forthwith.
You need to settle on a story
No, I really don’t.
And the power in that relationship flows pretty heavily (if not solely) in your direction, correct?
And X years later, if that student googles my name and sees something sort of kind of like a complaint he once sent to me, I would hope he has learned enough in the intervening time to be embarrassed by his conduct.
Kaufman can fail this student, if he so chooses, and there is very little the student can do about it.
This is factually incorrect. First, I cannot fail a student who is not my student any more. Second, there are many, many things a student can do if they’re unhappy with their grades. Again, I quote:
I have made very high grades in all my other writing classes and even though I had many disputes with those instructors we always settled them to my happiness.
Seems to indicate that this student didn’t think he was out of options. Point of fact, he threatens to employ them here.
Thus, Kaufman justifies mocking the student’s apparent ignorance and poor writing skills, and is even willing to magnify each by rewriting the original e-mail, for a laugh.
Far be it for me to explain the joke, but what I’m mocking is the stubbornness of someone who mistakenly believes he can write because he’s successfully bullied enough people into telling him so. For him, grades exists to reaffirm his opinion of his talents. If they fail to, instead of working to improve his prose, he tries to game the system into validating his opinion — for those keeping score, this is the funny part — in an email which demonstrates how delusional it is. If you think rewarding such behavior is healthy for humanity, well then, have I got a President for you …
gwangung: And I don’t think it’s healthy for humanity to have students who think they deserve better grades, despite their poor grammar and writing skills (which is, after all, part of the point of the post in the first place), just because of their effort.
It is perfectly healthy for humanity to have students who think they deserve better grades just because of their effort, regardless of their actual writing skills: providing their teachers then point out to them in some appropriate and courteous manner that just because a student thinks they deserve better grades, doesn’t mean they actually deserve better grades.
The point (OCSteve, not Von) initially made on this thread is that posting a student’s e-mail to a public blog with the intent of mocking the student is neither appropriate nor courteous. I gather Kaufman has now admitted that it was not an actual e-mail, and that the situation described in the e-mail was so many years ago that the odds are the students described in the e-mail that they were supposed to have written are no longer students, and I have to say this makes a difference ethically: it’s just a former lecturer mocking some unidentifiable former students, rather than a lecturer very specifically mocking a specific student who would be able to identify themselves from the published e-mail.
I see no need to respond further, and it’s fitting that Professor Kaufman have the last word. So that’s it from me.
CC: “The student is long gone, as is any power that may have been had.”
That’s a point that lessens my unease – I wonder however about current or future students of his coming across the post in question and fearing a complaint might end up posted in recognizable form to be ridiculed. (Of course no good student would compare herself to the student portrayed above.)
And note again my impression the student wasn’t well.
SEK: “wholly unreasonable to think that a student would google phrases from an angry email he sent to a professor X years previously”
I imagine he’d just google “X” and maybe “grade”.
“what you see on the site differs enough from the original that he would be unable to identify it as his.”
Well, that’s fine then, though see above.
I can’t speak from a professor’s perspective, but from a lawyer’s perspective, of course you can have degrees of redaction. “That document was so heavily redacted I couldn’t even tell what it was about.” Maybe I would get a bad grade from Prof. Kaufman.
After all, if the student really feels he was treated poorly, he can always tell his story to David Horowitz. It’ll be better for him to name Scott specifically, of course.
Horowitz would probably call it “one of the most grotesque acts of modern [academic] history.”.
Speaking from the lofty position of a TA-ship:
1) “Wonder-bread”, in re a person, has always meant to me white, bland, generic, “vanilla”, possessed of as much cultural acumen as Wonder-bread has character, etc. If it’s an idiolect, it’s a pretty damn widespread one; I’ve never heard it apply to white trash in that context — as noted above, the classist version is almost always “cracker” — and I can’t even begin to imagine how it would apply to an immigrant or non-native speaker.
[I mean seriously, you really think immigrant Koreans are going to waste their time eating Wonder-bread when there’s kimchee to be had? Mmmmm, kimchee…]
2) Irrespective of whether the email was genuine or parodic, it precisely fits the type of many students I have known, both as a TA and as a student myself. So I can attest to the “accurate” part of “Fake but accurate” here.
3) Irrespective of whether the email is genuine or parodic, it contains a clear and unmistakable shot across the bows, if not an actual threat. This is precisely the power inversion that von, and possibly Jes and OCS, isn’t recognizing: low-ranking members of the teaching contingent (adjuncts, TAs, etc.) are often vulnerable to this kind of pressure, as are higher-ranking members of the faculty depending on the institution. By way of illustration: I’ve had faculty friends at other universities hauled before the appropriate Dean and told, point-blank, that they needed to the change the grade of a complaining student or find themselves another job.
[This goes tenfold if the student was a freshman, btw, as that kind of extracurricular power can be almost irresistible at the high school level.]
4) All of this is purely academic to me (ha!) because I really don’t give a crap about those kinds of suasion. In fact, speaking of such brutal abuses of powers, I’ve told my students to their faces that their work was fucking bullshit and if they continued to produce work of that caliber I’d simply fail them now and be done with it. Not what they teach you at TA Orientation, but it was a damn effective motivational speech if I do say so myself.
I think this is an interesting cultural gap, sorta like the feeling I get when von talks about trial lawyers. The problem of how to grade is something that keeps most teachers up, and we spend a lot of time exchanging stories of students who try to game the system in various ways. And, like any gaming, there is some underlying reason why they think the various reasons they present qualify them for a grade. Here in Japan, there is an underlying notion that complete attendance qualifies someone for a passing grade, even if that time is spent sleeping in class. Conversely, if you set up a class where effort dertermines grades, what do you do for the student who has already spent a year overseas and has to put forth no effort.
You put teachers together and the subject of grades usually comes up and this is what we talk about. I agree with CC that one has to be careful and it’s a teaching moment that happens again and again.
I should add that I thought von was using “professor” in the diminutive sense, but I’m not sure whether Steve was. I’m not a professor, just a lowly TA.
Anarch: By way of illustration: I’ve had faculty friends at other universities hauled before the appropriate Dean and told, point-blank, that they needed to the change the grade of a complaining student or find themselves another job.
Which strikes me as being an effective warning to the faculty that they do indeed need to find themselves another job – since the institution which will change a student’s grade because the student knew how to complain is not an institution that any honest academic should want to work for.
And yes, I’m aware such things happen – a well-connected overprivileged student. As I’m aware that faculty, having more power than students, tend to exaggerate the problems that students can cause them and downplay the problems that faculty can cause students, precisely because people complain louder at inconvenience caused them by people lower in the hierarchy than about discrimination imposed on them by people above them in the hierarchy.
I guess I didn’t realize that. It makes the claim of the teacher’s dominance over the student even weaker, in my opinion.
I’m not sure what it was about this thread that caused some people to rally so fervently to the defense of a student who was quite clearly trying to intimidate his teacher into giving him a better grade. This is not some poor, helpless waif y’all are sticking up for.
This is precisely the power inversion that von, and possibly Jes and OCS, isn’t recognizing
I’ll cop to that. It is just not something I identify with from my college experience (both the situation and the type of student). Teachers were an authority figure and no one I knew would dream of threatening one to try to get a better grade. But then everyone I knew arrived on campus in a bus or a “beater” rather than a beamer and tended to work very hard for their grades.
Still, I think that the point could have been made just as well via anecdote as posting what appeared to be a slightly edited email. I took “redacted” to mean identifying information deleted vs. what it turns out to have meant in this case.
“This is not some poor, helpless waif y’all are sticking up for.”
Don’t think anybody is sticking up for the Wonder Bread.
Jes, I’m not sure you appreciate how messed American education is.
Jes: since the institution which will change a student’s grade because the student knew how to complain is not an institution that any honest academic should want to work for.
If you really want an education, try putting yourself on the academic job market here. You’ll see why pretty damn quick.
Scott Eric Kaufman: I’m not a professor, just a lowly TA.
Really? I’d thought you were an adjunct/associate professor. In that case, yeah, assuming the core content holds, that was definitely… well, a firm suggestion that a change in their grades was in order. Nasty business that.
And btw: TA solidarity, yo. *bumps fist*
liberal japonicus: The problem of how to grade is something that keeps most teachers up, and we spend a lot of time exchanging stories of students who try to game the system in various ways.
Exactly. It’s pretty much the most important thing to talk about IME, since it’s the one place where the Golden Rule really breaks down.
OCSteve: But then everyone I knew arrived on campus in a bus or a “beater” rather than a beamer and tended to work very hard for their grades.
Perks of an Ivy League education: you get to see that kind of attitude up-close-and-personal.* You also get to see people who rise above it, too, which is an equally valuable lesson.
* Hence my immediate, visceral dislike of Bush back in 1999. I knew too many people like that. And my opinion of him has proven almost exactly right.
Still, I think that the point could have been made just as well via anecdote as posting what appeared to be a slightly edited email.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with you on that now that I think about it. I don’t mind the parody, but it should have been more clearly labelled as such.
My (liberal arts) college experience involved far more classes that were graded on attendance or ‘participation’ than on anything relating to actual knowledge.
Perhaps you should not have attended a liberal arts college. I went to an engineering school, and the only classes where grades relied significantly on participation where foreign language classes. Of course, just showing up to those and not studying like crazy was a recipe for failure.
I don’t think this was by accident nor do I think it was unique to my school. College in the 21st century has far, far more to do with socializing students into the rote work and routine schedules associated with collecting a low-level paycheck than it does with anything so mundane as knowledge or critical thinking. Most modern college graduates don’t know calculus. The ability to place a comma in a sentence, or even to identify what a comma denotes, is no longer a requisite to earn a degree.
Every single graduate at my university knows calculus, including those who majored in philosophy or biology or political science. Calculus was simply a graduation requirement; most graduates actually took about three semesters worth, and many took four.
I’ve been working on a theory that our political problems in this country are due to the prevalence of liberal arts educations. In a decent engineering school, you cannot bluff your way to graduation: you have to build the damn circuit and it has to work, and no amount of argument or persuasion will change that. There’s a lot to be said for having clear objective standards.
It seems like a lot of liberal arts or law school graduates have internalized the notion that reality can be argued away, if one argues strenuously enough. Scientists and engineers learn very very early on that reality is not nearly so malleable.
I could be wrong, but I have really been struggling to understand the Bush admin mindset; it really seems to be that perception creates reality, and perception can be modified by really loud screaming and/or lying.
Anarch: If you really want an education, try putting yourself on the academic job market here. You’ll see why pretty damn quick.
Well, if that’s the case, the academics who have to choose between working for a dishonest institution where students get graded based on their ability to campaign, and getting a job outside academia, should probably opt for getting a job outside academia, and pointing out that the reason they left was because they were officially told that they must give a student a different grade from the one he earned because he happens to be the son of a major donor. Someone who wants to be an academic so much they’re willing to falsify a student’s grade to keep their job really needs to consider what they’re in academia for.
That is to say: as we have been discussing just recently, if you go along with the demands of a corrupt system silently and without protest, as Anarch is suggesting many nontenured faculty staff do because they want to keep their jobs, at some point you have to accept that you are in fact maintaining the corrupt system yourself, and have lost the moral ground to complain that it is corrupt.
Jesurgislac:
Um, are you aware of the fact that there are a number of fields in which university teaching is the only job you can actually get paid for?
Seriously, what work options does someone who loves philosophy have besides teaching at a university? Do you think IBM is going to be hiring lots of philosophy PhDs anytime soon? So they can theorize on the philosophical implications of a new 65 nm semiconductor process? Heck, what work options does someone with a degree in experimental physics have, assuming they want to do experimental physics? They might get a position at CERN, but there are not many of those.
Your statement just seems so divorced from reality . . . should people really quit their jobs if only one student gets a pass even though they love teaching and are making a huge difference in their students’ lives? Shouldn’t one at least attempt to perform a cost benefit analysis?
Yow — I go off to, cough, teach my, um, er, students, and the comments go berserk!
I assumed that Wonder Bread just meant bland, and in the context of an answer to a (repeated) question about whether the student spoke English as a second language, probably meant white. I didn’t read any class anything into it at all, and on rereading it, I still don’t.
To those of you who don’t teach: yes, there are students who try to get better grades through protests, and there are also, alas, administrations who let this happen. There are various mechanisms for this. (Note: in everything that follows I take it as an absolute given that complaints with merit have to be taken seriously; here I’m talking about complaints used as threats.)
One is that there are administrators who worry very much about student complaints, whether legitimate or not, either because of general overprotectiveness or because of Fear of Parents. Parents, to some administrators, are like their customers or clients, and are to be treated with the same level of ‘customer is always right’ deference. Having an angry parent storming into their office about a grade is a Very Bad Thing; and if you are the faculty member who put them in this position, that’s Very Bad for you.
Another is that in many schools, student evaluations have a lot of importance in assessments of faculty performance. This tends to be less true the better the school, but it can occur anywhere. Moreover, it’s a clearly acknowledged fact among younger professors, so even if in a given school it’s not true, an untenured or adjunct professor, or a TA, might think it was. One of the drivers of grade inflation is that professors suppose that giving good grades gets you better course evaluations. I have never found this to be true, myself, but you can see how people might think it would be.
When you are an untenured, or worse an adjunct, professor, you are in fact in a pretty vulnerable position. The job market sucks. Tons of very smart, very qualified people end up working a course here, a course there, for a few thousand dollars a pop, ending up with a horrific courseload, near-poverty wages, and delightful drives from one campus to another. Getting a job is a Big Deal. Losing that job is also a Big Deal. And one of the things that can determine whether you keep or lose your job is how your students evaluate your teaching.
Some students don’t know this, but I have certainly run into those who do. The vast majority of students, in my experience, are much too decent to try to use it against their professors, but ‘the vast majority’ does not equal ‘all’. I’ve been very lucky about this: the one time a student tried to zip me with a complaint, I had thought something was odd from the outset, and had therefore kept copies of all that student’s papers, with my comments, so it was easy to deal with. (The Dean called me in with a very grim and sober face; when she saw the actual evidence of what had happened, she burst out laughing, so completely ludicrous was the student’s actual case.) Also, I’ve worked at very good schools, and as I said, my sense is that the degree to which this is a problem in roughly in inverse proportion to the quality of the school in question.
As for making fun of things students say: I have a real problem with posting identifiable stuff on the internet, which (I assumed) was why SEK redacted the email. However, I now post here, for your delectation, my collection of amusing sentences from my students’ papers, not redacted, all over 5 years old. (I don’t think this is a breach of something since these are short snippets without names.)
I have kept these sentences because they make me smile. On a really bad day, all I have to do is think to myself: “true, false, and on slim grounds”, and I start to grin. Was I wrong to post them? If so, why?
“Aside from being terribly pretentious, self-righteous, and a trifle smug, Plato has obviously reflected a great deal on the subject.”
What’s wrong with that? Would you prefer “Socrates was a jerk who argued by browbeating strawmen?”
Someone who wants to be an academic so much they’re willing to falsify a student’s grade to keep their job really needs to consider what they’re in academia for.
For the 90-odd percent of students who are not White Bread and his/her ilk. And because a frelled-up administration is not a good reason to quit the work itself. Not that I’ve had to falsify a grade, or had students whine about the ones they got (yet). But I don’t expect I’d let one rotten kid and a spineless administration end my career out of a sense of wounded dignity, either.
This doesn’t make sense. If most of the letter was made up, why would one attribute it to a specific person or type of person? I mean if the “wonder bread” target is so worthy of ridicule, shouldn’t his (or her) words standing alone be enough?
Second, people who slight others by referring to them as “wonder bread” seem to labor under the misconception that sophistication can be demonstrated by eating by eating a whole grain artisan-baked bread.
Last who is more of a whiny twit a) a person who writes a letter like the one above to a professor or b) a professor who makes up most of the parts of a letter like the one above?
lowly_adjunct: But I don’t expect I’d let one rotten kid and a spineless administration end my career out of a sense of wounded dignity, either.
If you are willing to falsify the grade of one student because you were ordered to do so or lose your job, you would be willing to do it again. This isn’t “wounded dignity”: this is a basic principle of academic integrity. The fact that so many people were unwilling to lose their jobs and therefore agreed to falsify grades is, my guess, exactly why it is taken for granted that an administration can tell a TA to falsify a grade, and the TA will.
Again: what exactly do you want to be an academic for, if becoming an academic requires you to abandon the principle that students get the grades they earn?
This argument is essentially the same one in defense of the US Attorneys who went along with the demands the Bush administration were making: it wasn’t worth giving up a career just because of one frelling administration demanding they do just one corrupt thing.
If your career requires you to become corrupt, is that the kind of career you want to have?
“If your career requires you to become corrupt, is that the kind of career you want to have?”
While some people may think I went in the wrong direction, this is exactly why I left law firms for the corporate world.
tde: Second, people who slight others by referring to them as “wonder bread” seem to labor under the misconception that sophistication can be demonstrated by eating by eating a whole grain artisan-baked bread.
As anyone who has ever tasted wholegrain homebaked bread knows, this doesn’t prove you “sophisticated”, when you prefer it to Wonder Bread: it only proves you have functional tastebuds.
Sebastian, in my first job post college, one I had struggled very hard to get and very much needed, my employer told me – five months into the job – to do something dubiously legal and definitely inethical. (No one was directly harmed by my doing it: but I knew it was only dubiously legal, and I knew my employer, who was a lawyer, also knew it was dubiously legal.)
I did it, because I couldn’t afford, at that point, to lose the job. I have no business looking down on other people who do the same thing.
But from that moment on, that company had lost me as a long-term employee – I started job-hunting again when I hit the 12-month mark, and moved on after three months.
Since then I moved from corporate sector to public sector, precisely because I’ve found that working in the public sector means that when I say something is possibly illegal and definitely inethical, I get thanked for pointing this out, rather than glowered at and suggested I shut up.
tde: I mean if the “wonder bread” target is so worthy of ridicule, shouldn’t his (or her) words standing alone be enough?
Among other things, it would be a grievous breach of confidentiality to relay them verbatim and, depending on the circumstances, potentially an actionable offense.
Second, people who slight others by referring to them as “wonder bread” seem to labor under the misconception that sophistication can be demonstrated by eating by eating a whole grain artisan-baked bread.
Sadly? No.
[If you’re interested in understanding this further, btw, you’ve got something like eight posts above you explaining, in minute detail, the exact content of the “Wonder-bread” comparison. Based on your post, however, I’m not going to hold my breath.]
Jes: If you are willing to falsify the grade of one student because you were ordered to do so or lose your job, you would be willing to do it again.
You realize that’s simply false, right?
The fact that so many people were unwilling to lose their jobs and therefore agreed to falsify grades is, my guess, exactly why it is taken for granted that an administration can tell a TA to falsify a grade, and the TA will.
No, it’s because a) there are a lot of people who love to learn and teach who b) are willing to put up with a lot of crap because c) this is what they love to do… and d) have essentially no political or economic power to counterbalance the power of the administration at their university.
What you’re arguing here is essentially the same argument that’s made when artists are accused of selling out. Sometimes the artist really has violated the core of their artistic integrity; sometimes they should simply throw up their brushes/bows/whatevers and bid farewell to their true profession and become a mindless office drone like everyone else; and sometimes you have to make compromises in order to pay the rent and continue doing the thing you love.
I mean, I know you love a Manichean world, Jes, but really, it isn’t that simple.
[As it happens, I’ve never done that before and I’d probably laugh in the face of anyone who tried to make me… but I also have a union backing me and enough experience and education to waltz into the private sector at will. I can’t blame others for knuckling under, though.]
Added in proof: so wait… you once knuckled under and now you’re bitching at other people for doing likewise? Sheesh. It’s not like TAs give shonky grades recreationally, you know.
I think Harold’s Chicken Shack in Chicago used Wonder Bread, which was just perfect for soaking up the grease and hot sauce. Sophistication isn’t everything.
Incidentally, “Wonder Bread” in the context above doesn’t work in my version of English.
Jes- The fact that so many people were unwilling to lose their jobs and therefore agreed to falsify grades is, my guess, exactly why it is taken for granted that an administration can tell a TA to falsify a grade, and the TA will.
Oh good, next you will be telling us all that it is the low wage worker’s fault that s/he is paid so poorly because s/he did not demand higher wages.
“Falsification” is a mischaracterization of what is at work here. When a course director, administrator or ombudsman decides that grades need to be changed (for whatever reason), the grades change. Not sure if a professor has more say in the matter, but for those of us in the demimonde of TA/Adjunct, our grades are subject to approval.
That and most of us make subsistence wages for the privilege of teaching and only some of us get health benefits. Not much safety net there.
If you are willing to falsify the grade of one student because you were ordered to do so or lose your job, you would be willing to do it again.
This is just not true.
One difference between academics and USAs is that USAs take an oath; most academics do not.
You keep using this phrase “academic integrity” as if it were a real thing . . . what exactly is it? Do you have a single definition that all, or even most academics would agree on? Or is “academic integrity” just shorthand for “things that Jesurgislac considers wrong?”
Again: what exactly do you want to be an academic for, if becoming an academic requires you to abandon the principle that students get the grades they earn?
Maybe you become an academic because you want to do experimental physics work, or be a philosopher or a theoretical mathematician? In those cases, teaching might just be the cost of doing business.
Look, falsifying grades is obviously wrong, but it seems not to matter much in the real world. Most companies I work at don’t actually look at transcripts for people that have been working for over a year; many of my brightest collegues have no degree.
Frankly, I’m a little disturbed by your implication that corruption is a binary concept where one either is or is not corrupt.
I don’t buy this idea that integrity is like virginity, a binary concept that, once lost, is gone forever. Life just isn’t that simple.
Oh dear, I’ve been preempted on the “binary” point. Oh well, I stand by it.
Anarch: you once knuckled under and now you’re bitching at other people for doing likewise?
Bitching? Well, I guess. I still feel like crap about myself because I didn’t tell my employer “What you are asking me to do is probably illegal” and went through a considerable amount of worry because there was a possibility it would escalate to something that was definitely illegal, and I didn’t want to do that. (It didn’t, for which I am grateful.)
It is not in fact the “once knuckling under” that I’m condemning. It’s the acceptance of it, that both you and lowly_adjunct advocate.
Look, falsifying grades is obviously wrong, but it seems not to matter much in the real world.
*cough* George W. Bush *cough*
Oh, never mind. Clearly, a whole lot of TAs who are determined that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the system that requires them to acquiesce to corruption are going to out-argue me. I’m right, you’re wrong, we’re never going to agree, and it’s past time I went to bed.
Damn, the last sentence should have had a /sarcastic tag. Consider it inserted at whatever point you feel appropriate.
Jes:
It’s the acceptance of it, that both you and lowly_adjunct advocate.
Before you sprain something climbing up the moral high ground any further… You asked why a hypothetical someone would continue to teach if admin asked that a grade be changed. I offered an answer. It does not therefore follow that I “advocate” a pattern of behavior.
The fact that so many people were unwilling to lose their jobs and therefore agreed to falsify grades is, my guess, exactly why it is taken for granted that an administration can tell a TA to falsify a grade, and the TA will.
See, that’s the problem here. “Your guess.” You don’t seem to get much actual power a TA or adjunct has over grades. If someone wants the grade changed, gosh, it’ll be changed no matter if I refuse and quit or not.
what exactly do you want to be an academic for, if becoming an academic requires you to abandon the principle that students get the grades they earn?
You do realize that all institutions are not the same, right? Becoming an academic does not, nor does it ever, require one to become corrupt. That’s just silly. Working in a particular institution, however, might entail bad administration or dodgy practices. Were I in financial straits when I discovered that, I’d suck it up. Were I solvent and able, I’d seek another institution. At the moment, I am grateful for my union and my course directors, who are decent people.
I would, at no point, consider quitting teaching altogether because of a bad university experience.
Jes,
Everyone who’s ever done serious time at a big university knows that the system is corrupt. So what? Do you really believe that there is some magical world where large organizations are not corrupt to some degree, in general? The question is not whether the system is corrupt, but what an individual should do about it.
Do you think the UK government is significantly less corrupt? Do you think the non profit sector is significantly less corrupt?
For that matter, if someone who donated a very large amount of money to a non profit insisted that the nonprofit hire their kid for an internship, do you think most nonprofits would say no?
Do you think any of the many nonprofits who set up refugee camps to help people who had literally committed genocide in rwanda are corrupt?
So, just to stick up for academics: I have known very few people who have changed grades under student pressure. The more common thing — which is still nothing like universal — is just to shift the grading scale up generally, on the assumption that this will somehow make you more popular with students, which will in turn somehow help you. Alternately, some people do this because everyone else does, and they don’t want to harm their students’ grad/med/law school applications by being the only person left on earth who still uses ‘C’ to mean ‘average’.
As I said, I have never found it to be true that giving good grades make you more popular — I think it’s sort of insulting to undergrads, in fact. In my experience they tend to be quite concerned with knowing that they were graded fairly, for better or for worse, than with getting good grades per se.
Nor have I found university administrators (leaving any in my own family entirely out of the conversation) to be particularly bad, or for that matter particularly anything. Offhand, I suspect that academia is less corrupt (using that term in its ‘intellectual corruption’ sense, not meaning e.g. taking bribes) than a lot of other places. Possibly if I had more experience with big sports schools, I might modify that, but I don’t.
The problems, such as they are, come (I think) more from people’s preconceptions than from reality. There’s the assumption that students will like you more if you give good grades, that administrators will flip out if anyone complains, etc. I think these assumptions are on a par with some students’ assumption that what professors really want in a paper is to hear their own views regurgitated: sometimes true, but not nearly as often as people think. (To me, the idea of grading a large number of attempts to parrot my views is horrible — sort of like that scene in Being John Malkovich where everyone seems to be conversing normally, but is in fact just saying “Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich…”)
But as long as people hold these assumptions, some students will try to parrot their profs’ views, and some professors will try to ingratiate themselves with their students. Human nature.
Jes: It’s the acceptance of it, that both you and lowly_adjunct advocate….Clearly, a whole lot of TAs who are determined that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the system that requires them to acquiesce to corruption are going to out-argue me.
Wow, did you miss the entirety of the point there.
hilzoy: I have known very few people who have changed grades under student pressure.
Likewise. My friend who was pressured refused, had the grade changed anyway, then sought a job elsewhere at the next available opportunity.
Alternately, some people do this because everyone else does, and they don’t want to harm their students’ grad/med/law school applications by being the only person left on earth who still uses ‘C’ to mean ‘average’.
Which is what happened to me my first year as a TA, actually. And it’s the one legitimate argument in favor of localized grade inflation, much though it galls me to say it. An individual TA or professor simply cannot fight grade inflation by themselves without seriously screwing over their students, which is the last thing any of us want; so as long as there are institutional forces driving an increase in GPA — I’m looking at you, Business School — the grades will continue to creep up.
[Of course, the upshot will likely be to add an additional grade level, as the British secondary system did a few years back — A*? pfeh! — or to require jobs to put ever-increasing, and ever-more-ridiculous, weight on non-academic qualifications and saccharine letters of recommendation.]
that administrators will flip out if anyone complains…
In my one brush with this, the administrators kind of did flip out. [Not the dean, but the department.] It wasn’t my fault — the median grade on the final was 100% which made it rather hard to meet the Officially Approved Curve, except that the department doesn’t exactly recognize the Officially Approved Curve and nobody had told me — but yeah, those kinds of things really can happen. It was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, though, so all’s well that ends well, I guess.
Adding to Hilzoy’s and Anarch’s note about allowing a degree of grade inflation out of fairness to one’s students…the departments I teach for do a lot of work with grade norming in order to try to cut down on fluctuation from one instructor to the next because it is unfair to the students. And the problem is complicated not just by differences between departments and schools and universities, but also between different classes at the same institution. If the classes of 6 years ago were held to lower academic standards, then the students of today have to both fight against the institution’s reputation as a lax school and compete on the job market against older alumni with higher GPAs. And if the institution’s rep goes up, the older graduate gets a greater rebound effect than the newer one. Corrections have to be done incrementally in order to be fair to the students.
I usually try to mitigate this unavoidable distortion by making a clear distinction between grades and feedback and placing more emphasis on the latter. It’s more important that a student know what things they need to work on in order to improve than that they know whether or not their work is “competent” “good” or “superior” according to whatever historical or institutional standard.
Are there a lot of people who rely on grades for hiring decisions? I can see how they might be important for those going on to pursue graduate degrees, but they really do seem useless for hiring decisions.
At least when I’m evaluating candidates, grades don’t enter into the equation. Of course, we have the benefit of insisting on code samples from our candidates, but surely analyzing a candidate’s work product is more valuable than looking at their grades, right?
Personally, I wish transcripts would include not just a student’s grade in a course, but what percentile that grade put them in. I always include that information in letters of recommendation, unless it’s downright unhelpful (in which case I usually don’t end up writing the rec. But if I were ever in a position to write: “X took my course in Y, in which he received a D, which placed him in the top 90% of the class …” — well, I’d just skip the last bit.)
This is one of the more bizarre and overly-outraged threads I’ve experienced here at OW.
And I realize that’s saying a lot.
Really. Lots of you just need to get over yourselves. Von? Is that really you?
Common Sense– I should probably be clear in saying that I teach a course in the humanities that is requred for majors in my department but not for anyone outside of it and that most of the undergrads who are stressing over the grade I give them are going into education or grad school. I doubt that it matters as much to those who are just looking to get through as long as the final grade does not land them in academic probation.
Are there a lot of people who rely on grades for hiring decisions?
Google supposedly requires college transcripts for potential hires, even when they’re interviewing for senior positions.
Then again, lots of things about Google’s hiring process are screwy.
Outrage, you say? TIO to the rescue!!
To second hilzoy, I spent the better part of a decade teaching at an institution where the mantra of student as customer was pervasive. And I could imagine some of the administrators there, particularly the less experienced ones, pressuring faculty about grades. But I also know that such an act would be very dimly viewed by the administration as a whole–not least because a documented instance or two of administrative interference in grading could be an issue when renewing accreditation.
Grading pressure tended there, as elsewhere, I think, to be indirect–the central role of student evaluations, annual review discussion of one’s grading curve vs. the department’s as a whole, an internalized ethos of avoiding conflict with students even when necessary. As usual, the corruption of ideals tends not to come in dramatic scenes of crossing bright lines.
Slarti: How dare you!
Being Dutch (is there an English as a Foreign Language abbreviation too?) and not in academia I must admit that I still recognized the type of student that was mocked. I did not recognize the threat in the email though. I am rather taken aback by how plutocratic the general culture in the US seems to become.
I understood how OCSteve initially reacted to publishing the email (I used to see teachers as authority figures – my single mum only had primary school) but I seem to be in total agreement with Slartibartfest about this thread.
Slartibartfast: This is one of the more bizarre and overly-outraged threads I’ve experienced here at OW.
Re-reading in the cold light of day: Yeah, you’re completely right, and I don’t think even TIO can save this now.
Apologies to all.
1. I look at transcripts when hiring. Not for undergrad, but then you gotta have the right GPA to get into a good law school. (If you didn’t go to a good law school, don’t send me a resume. It’s as simple as that.)
2. Jes & MarBel, one thing I wanted to point out to you guys is that the entitlement mentality discussed above (and elswhere) is not at all limited to children of big donors, or people who otherwise have what an outsider would consider genuine clout. Obviously it’s individual to a student, but I’d say that it’s prevalent well into the middle middle class. Because the stakes are so high, and because administrators can be such weenies.
Reviewing it all in the cold light of day, I stand by the substance of my prior comments. I acknowledge that my tone could have been improved, however.
This is one of the more bizarre and overly-outraged threads I’ve experienced here at OW.
I was going to say something similar earlier.
lawyers
one thing I wanted to point out to you guys is that the entitlement mentality discussed above (and elswhere) is not at all limited to children of big donors, or people who otherwise have what an outsider would consider genuine clout.
I assumed it would go for all obnoxious elements in ‘upper middle class’. We have those too 😉 and some even try. You’re better off with good arguments though, Dutch don’t like preferential treatment.
A short while ago I saw a poll about preferential treatment for medical waiting lists. 90% Felt there should be no preferential treatment for our Royals, Prime minister or top-sporters. 75% felt there should not be preferential treatment for employed people, nor should non-smokers be advantaged. The first feeling that some groups *can* have preferential treatment is when 46% felt that mothers with young children should be helped faster than single old people.
Of course it is still benefitial to come from a white middle-class (or upper middle-class) environment, but the advantage lies more in things like domestic support and opportunities offered.
“Among other things, it would be a grievous breach of confidentiality to relay them verbatim”
What piffle. If you altered the content of the letter such that it could not be recognized by its sender – then you are just making fun of an imaginary strawman and you have fabricated the letter.
If you only made slight changes so that it was not exactly the same letter, then you have utterly failed to protect this confidentiality you now assert.
I hope part of your job is not to teach reasoning skills, because you haven’t thought this through at all.
If you’d bother to observe whom you’re addressing, tde, you might notice that I didn’t post the letter in the first place. I was merely answering the question that you had posed, namely “shouldn’t his (or her) words standing alone be enough?” You might also notice that I explicitly said that I felt that the letter should have been more clearly marked as a parody — which isn’t to say that it’s a strawman, mind, a distinction I realize may be overly subtle for this conversation — but, reasoning apparently being your forte, I’m sure you’ll get around to it eventually.
Anarch
I don’t think I ever said you posted the letter in the first place. Wait – let me check my post . . . . nope never said that.
And the gaping holes in your logic certainly didn’t depend on you being the original poster.
But, I guess it’s easier for you quibble about the petty rather than addressing the real issues.
Or maybe there is some other reason that you spilled all those words with addressing my post.
Do carry on.
Perhaps you were confused by the fact that I used “you” in the generic sense.
Never seen that before?