Saturday, May 31, 2008

Sweeping Generalizations

This caught my eye today while I was on the Chronicle website. The article defends the notion that lecturers shouldn't be evaluated on students opinions alone -- and with good reason! I'm sure I've had students complain about me to department heads using all the standard gripes: grades ("I don't understand why this essay got a C"), fairness ("I think she hates George Bush and therefore hates all Republicans, which is what I am), and rigor ("She expects us to read this ten page Alice Munro short story!").

Besides the fact that my number one way to deal with students when they come to me with their excuses is to say: figure it out.

So yeah, I'm definitely on it.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/05/2008052001c/careers.html

1 comment:

rebecca said...

I still feel guilty for not sticking to my guns and giving more students Cs and Ds. They're so good at guilt-tripping you with their "effort." Effort doesn't make an A (or a B). I still find myself coming up with lame analogies I could have used, like, "you think if you worked out every day for two months you would be a supreme athlete." See, lame, but the point is that they refuse to get that perhaps becoming even a half-way decent writer might elude them for a very, very long time, certainly more than a semester. grrrr.