Re: grade inflation, etc.

["Richard W. Tarara" <rtarara@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>


> At 10:39 PM 1/5/00 -0500, Rick Tarara wrote:
> > While knowledge for knowledge's sake is a lofty goal, I think you
> > will find few 'daddies' willing to pay for such.  For the few that are in
> > college 'just to learn' then grades are irrelevant anyway.
>
> I won't disagree with your assessment of your students and their parents.
> I'm sure you know them well.  All I will say is that your report makes me
sad.
>   * I'm sad to hear that your student's love of learning has been
> extinguished, with so few exceptions.
>
>   * I'm sad to hear that their parents, with few exceptions, will only pay
> for "safe" courses rather than for advanced courses where the student will
> learn more at the risk of a lower grade.  Ditto for extracurricular
> activities.
>
>   * I'm sad to hear that your students are applying to employers who are
so
> clueless that they can't tell the difference between a B in an advanced
> course and an A in a "safe" course.  Similarly I'm sad that the students
> and their advisors don't realize that some employers *can* tell the
> difference.
>
>  *** My only question is, what do you propose to do about it?

I think we delude ourselves if we think this is not the way it's been for
some time now.  How many of us, when we had a free elective (I had only two
in my undergraduate days), really took a 'challenging' course--for the sake
of knowledge. [OK, I did take Fortran, but also Music Appreciation.]  Career
preparation has been the primary goal of college for quite some time now,
and that is not likely to change any time soon (if ever).  At prices now
often exceeding $100,000 for a college education, the buyers are not often
'risk takers'.  All of this is not to say that there are _no_ students
really turned on by learning (I get a few--far too few) and that some will
take courses to really try and learn something they are interested in
(outside their major)--but that is VERY seldom physics.  Our best hope is to
present courses that are interesting and effective so as to trigger the
intellectual excitement of the students, but realistically we need to
understand that this will work for only a few.  However, in today's
atmosphere, running an elective course where the average grade is really a
'C', is a prescription for unemployment!  ;-(

Rick

*P.S.  I strongly suspect that the 'perceived' requirement of more and more
medical schools that students take Calculus level physics is a result of the
concerns about students getting 'easy As' in watered down courses.