Re: More J on J

["Richard W. Tarara" <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

It seems to me that one of the legacies from the 60's early 70's is a
general 'Lake Wobegon' mentality--that is, all our students are above
average, THEREFORE we can't be giving Cs, Ds and Fs to this bunch.  We
can't trample on student's self esteem by assessing them negatively
(anything below a B).  We (in all fields) are more wont to admit that some
students simply 'can't get it', and while we complain that others 'just
won't work at it' we don't assess that lack of effort with appropriate
grades.   None of this is unique to the physics community, and in some
sense science departments in general have tended to hold the grade line a
bit better than the college at large, but that then only reinforces the
perception of students that science and especially physics is just too
difficult.  The whole area of grades is a classic 'Catch-22' scenario.

Rick

----------
> From: Rauber, Joel              Phys <RAUBERJ@mg.sdstate.edu>
> I wonder why (and would like some discussion) being more inclusive makes 
> things different in the way Leigh was implying.  I don't think that the
new 
> people we are now including are any less capable of self-motivation, hard

> work and the positive student factors that Leigh was alluding to in
talking 
> about the student population of the fifties.  Also I suspect, that the 
> categories that were included 3 decades ago are exhibiting the same
negative 
> factors now days that Leigh was mentioning.  I think some the other
thoughts 
> that were mentioned is the real reason things are different.  Perhaps
some 
> of those factors affect more negatively certain newly included groups
that 
> are now in our student population due to various socio-economic factors.