Calvin

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 01/28/2015 at 09:30 • Filed to: calvin & hobbes

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Once again, Bill Watterson nails the American zeitgeist. Nothing has changed in 20 years.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 09:31

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Arguably, in the sense that a zeitgeist of entitlement has gotten *worse*, he could be described as prescient as well.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 09:33

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And I'm just over here like:

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 01/28/2015 at 09:35

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Well said. The thing about Watterson's work with Calvin is that it was (and still is) such an amazing spotlight on the human condition, and not just that of 6-year-olds. He finds universal truths that are eternal and holds them up for examination. And to do so in a way that can be both funny and poignant at the same time shows him to be the genius that he is.

ttyymmnn > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner 01/28/2015 at 09:36

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Then you will appreciate this .

GhostZ > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 09:47

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The article attributes a lot of this to an entitlement complex and "stupid people who don't want to just learn properly", but it also has to do with an awareness of the limitations of education. At my college, it's well understood that if you get a bad grade in a class, it has nothing to do with your intelligence or habits, but purely on the results of the particular tests and assignments you made. In every other class where there is essays and participation, there is always teacher bias.

It's not so much that students think intelligence doesn't matter to get grades, but that grades aren't inherently a perfect measurement of intelligence. Teachers grumble and get angry because the rationale alone undermines their own job. It turns them into an aging old person bitching from their lawn chair about the young'uns trying to get good grades but not wanting to do what they certainly did and put their nose to the grindstone and study their ass off.

students treat grades as noncommittal because they know that the teacher and curriculum will never be perfect measurements of completion. When you don't hold grading to an absolute standard like that, then students are highly incentivized to act in any way that improves their situation, and that means trying to convince the teacher to raise the grade. This is extended even to the degree level, where university departments will overlook mandatory credits if you know the right people.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 09:47

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Good stuff. I'm guessing plenty of profs pass this on to their own "13th hour" students.

uofime > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 09:50

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that is a very true story

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 09:50

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It's a more generalized case of Scott Adams and worldwide workplaces, to be honest. Example:

thebigbossyboss > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 09:51

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This was a good article, Fairness in grading is actually beneficial for not only the grader but also the grade receiver.

In my first term in economics I got one Withdrawn, one C and one C-. Although there were some negative externalizations that contributed to the grade, getting these grades now in the long run was more beneficial even if they were very low. It allows the grade receiver to realize "this is not a viable option for you" with minimum expenditure. My situation would be in no way improved if I continued to get shunted through then failed out in semester #5

ttyymmnn > GhostZ 01/28/2015 at 09:58

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An interesting reply, and one that made me sit and think for a bit. I'm 48, and so I fit squarely into the "aging old person" model, and I've even taught some college courses in my time. I think I see where you're coming from. Arlo Guthrie talked about the need to "learn and grow and take a meaningful place in today's complex society." He was being ironic, but there's some truth to it. Part of becoming successful in any job—and let's face it, you're probably in college to get a job—is learning to do the required task as well as you can, dotting the i's, crossing the t's, and doing so in a proscribed manner. Basically, learning how to follow directions. If the requirements and expectations are clear, then there's really no reason why you should not be successful. The onus is now on you to live up to those expectations, no matter what you think of them. In Wiesenfeld's essay, these students had not even done the work, but they felt they deserved credit anyway. That's a pervasive problem. It's the subject of Watterson's comic. Whether or not the grades are a "perfect measurement of completion," they are the measurement. And you have to achieve those measures to graduate. Yes, standards are relaxed in some cases. I got a pass on a requirement in undergrad on a (rather silly) requirement. But most of the time, it's the people who have been assiduous in their work who get those breaks. Not the whiners who haven't shown any effort all along. So I'm all in favor of standards, even if they are imperfect.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner 01/28/2015 at 10:07

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I call your Carnegie, and raise you a Fields.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 10:09

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You would also do well to read the response from a student here.

GhostZ > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 10:10

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I think, to put both of our posts in congruence, there's two norms at work here, the first being the relatedness of a grade to the completion of work, and the relation between a grade and intellectual worthiness.

For teachers, there is a strong association between grades and the completion of work. For the most part, their job is built around that relationship, and there are clear punishments for giving out grades non-reflective of work done.

Then there is the relationship between a grade and intellectual worthiness, which for teachers, varies dramatically. Some professors are very keen on ranking students by their abilities and reactions, not necessarily by their participation in the work.

For students, that relationship between grades and work completed is considerably weaker. This is because the relationship between grades and intellectual worthiness is much, much stronger. Students are under constant peer pressure and comparison with eachother on their grades, to the point where "not caring" about your grades is synonymous with being independent. This is important regardless of why students don't do their work.

These different norms wouldn't matter if it wasn't for some situation that caused one or both of them to be unhappy with the use of resources (time, energy, and grades all being resources here).

The central adverse selection issue here caused by the different treatment of those two norms is that teachers only see students within the classroom, whereas students see eachother constantly. "laziness" is a general idea applied to results, not the origin of the results themselves, which are caused by actions and reactions. A teacher often never sees the actions and reactions outside of the class (and in some cases is encouraged not to) that cause students to not do their work.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of standards too. Standardized education is impossible without them, but there are some adverse selection problems in the teacher-student relationship that cause issues just like what that essay addresses, and I do think at least in the US the college system needs considerable reform.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 10:12

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That was great. I actually just wrote up a big comment back to someone from yesterday that's pretty close to this topic. He said a girl in college didn't realize the Nazi's were real. Thought it was fiction from a movie, I said I was glad she didn't graduate and he said he wasn't. She grew up in an impoverished area that had crap schools, ended up flunking out and "continuing the cycle" by going home and getting pregnant. My response:

That's a shame. I stand by the fact that I'm glad she didn't graduate though. Not because I don't want her to "break the cycle" I'd love for that to happen - and I know people who did. I just don't agree with people graduating just because they came from a bad school system. If you don't know the material you can't graduate.

It's actually one of my biggest issues with affirmative action. People getting into schools they normally wouldn't be qualified for because of either the color of their skin or the area they came from. Unfortunately it sets them up for failure. Frankly, I had arguments with my sister while I was in college because she didn't understand the academic difference between her school and mine. I'm not saying her school was terrible or bad, but there's a big difference from a 2000 student liberal arts school that no one's heard of and a Big Ten - Michigan State University education. I could have passed her school without studying (like high school). But it was a challenge at times for her. All that being said I'm sure an Ivy League school would have kicked my ass, I'm no genius haha.

Sometimes it's about preparation in lower primary/secondary school, sometimes it's about not putting in the work, and sometimes it's just about finding the appropriate level for the student.

I do wish the girl luck though.

I had times at Michigan State where I struggled, I dropped a class so I could re-take it. Sometimes I couldn't learn from that professor, sometimes that material was over my head, sometimes the party on Friday night was more important than the books. Only 1 of those circumstances I could even think to blame on the professor. (And I've had some terrible ones in the past. I could go on and on. Don't worry I had awesome ones too). I worked my ass off to get into MSU, and then I worked my ass off once I was there. I didn't settle for the amount of course work they said I needed to graduate and did more than 3x the course work for my field.

Gotta put in the work!

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs 01/28/2015 at 10:17

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That was a damn fine retort

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs 01/28/2015 at 10:17

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lol

GhostZ > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 10:25

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Also, just in the interest of the conversation, I have an anecdotal Example. I have a friend who comes from a very wealthy family, but his father refuses to support him unless he gets exceptional (straight A) grades. The rationale is very similar to what you said, regardless of any inherent intelligence, if they did the studying and work and followed the curriculum (the onus of which is on them to do so) then there would be no problem meeting that requirement. If he meets it, his father will pay for everything and set him up with a job after school. For reference, he's getting a computer science degree.

However, the student is involved in two startup companies, taking professional programming classes on the side, working in a primarily self-taught field, and working as a freelance developer on his own. The university itself is a highly theoretical university with a lackluster computer science department that is primarily based around complex mathematics rather than practical application. He has no desire to enter graduate school or publish research papers, and he wants to do professional web development. He has received multiple offers to quit college and work for many professional companies, and they'll even cover the cost of his tuition. He works part-time to be able to continue to take classes and make payments on student loans (otherwise being unable to afford room and board expenses at the college, even if his family lets him go into debt on tuition) He has an active social life and a healthy relationship with a girlfriend he maintains.

He gets Cs and occasional Bs. The university is also one of the top universities in the country, and one of the most aggresively grade-deflating universities in the US with an average GPA well under 3.5 and curves toward the B- range. Straight As are exceptionally rare.

His teachers and father consider him to be a consistent failure, because all they see are bad grades, despite having plenty of time to do the work. In fact, his biggest source of stress is his attempts to be successful being ignored or overlooked because of this, to the point where he has considered on multiple occasions giving up on what he wants to do, turned down many job offers, and hired tutors (the cost of which he weighs against his ability to feed himself) just to try and appease them. His parents suggest he comes and lives at home instead and commute an hour to school, and they wonder why he doesn't want to.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > GhostZ 01/28/2015 at 10:29

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The standard that is applied is "Is the University willing to place its own name on a Diploma can call you an alumnus/alumna?"

In fact, after going through 5 years of Georgia Tech, I found the grades were utterly meaningless. What was more important is learning to influence people who had control over me (i.e. Professors). I chose which work that I was going to do, and when I got poor grades, it wasn't for lack of learning (or even lack of ability to perform on the exams), it was because the professor didn't think I was taking their course seriously enough (for whatever the term "seriously enough" means).

I had one grade changed to a C, as my performance on the exams was high enough to indicate mastery of the material, but I hadn't done the busy work. Clearly, the presence or absence thereof was not material to my mastery of the course topics. I pointed out to the professor that if they wanted to give the student with the highest exam average in the course a failing grade for not doing busywork, that it really reflects that the work being given isn't enough of an assist in learning the material, and also likely reflects on the ability to convey the topics to the students.

In other words: "You're a professor, not a proctor!"

However, this is easily conflated with not wanting to place any effort forth to learn the material. They are the ones generally proffered in defense of some arbitrary standard.

But no one talks about what the standard is.

The last course I took for a BSCS at Georgia Tech was Statistics for Engineers (CEE 3770). I was the only non Civil Engineering student in the course. However, after the first exam, the professor announced that the results were less than optimal. They were dismal. On a 90-80-70-60 scale, the mean score of the exam was 57, and if the distribution was modeled by a Gaussian distribution (which he mentioned would be massively stretching reality), that there wouldn't be any curve, as there was at least one score above 2.

If he let the non-curve 90-80-70-60 scale stand, then only one person would have received an A and everyone else in the course would have received an F. Fortunately, this professor wasn't a moron about the whole situation, and curved appropriately for everyone else, but still only one A was given on that exam. He had to let something stand there...

GhostZ > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs 01/28/2015 at 10:32

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Really badly written response, but the ideas were there.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > GhostZ 01/28/2015 at 10:34

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1) The adverb is "poorly"

2) I'm not an English major, and I tend towards stream of consciousness. So unless you like Faulkner...

GhostZ > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs 01/28/2015 at 10:36

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Oh, hey, I meant the response you linked to. Kinja didn't specify which of your posts I was responding to. Yours was fine. The Georgia Tech website's response to the teacher was worded like a bad high school student president speech for the upcoming PTA vote on grades.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs 01/28/2015 at 10:44

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I love Dilbert. Then I started working as an engineer, and it is almost painful to read how true it is.

ttyymmnn > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs 01/28/2015 at 11:29

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The author had me pretty much in his corner until this:

Also consider that you aren't graded, and the last time you were, competition wasn't nearly what it is today.

[citation needed]

Unless he's talking about a tenured professor, professors are very much graded. My wife works for a dean of an engineering school at a major university. Every year, she has to read the promotions materials for engineering professors hoping for promotion or tenure. More than a few of them are not promoted, and are let go after one more year of teaching. And I would add that I think there are more than a few tenured professors who should continue being reviewed.

College is very much about making grades and getting a diploma. It is also very much about making professional connections and learning not to burn bridges. The author makes some very solid observations about what is going on at GT. My degrees are in the arts, so the same sort of assessment did not take place there. However, I have known music students who, when taking their final juries to complete their doctorate, were told that they simply weren't up to snuff according to one professor and all their work was for naught. It happens everywhere. But getting back to this essay and the state of affairs at GT, I just keep hearing the scene from Airplane : "Shana, they bought their tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say, 'Let 'em crash.'" This guy knew exactly what was going on at GT, and he even said that those who can't lump it are free to go elsewhere. If nobody ever graduated from GT with an engineering degree, then I think we could say there's a problem with their system. But apparently, people do.

Wiesenfeld's article does point to the few whiners in the bunch. Doubtless, he was fed up with it, saw it as a problem, and was moved to write about it. Of course there are many who manage to deal with the situation and get by, others who thrive in that setting and excel. I would argue that such a competitive system rewards those who thrive in it, and give us engineers of the quality of Gene Kranz.

ttyymmnn > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner 01/28/2015 at 11:31

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Well said. College isn't for everybody.

Also, Go Blue.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 11:36

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Haha. thanks.

As for go blue, I retort with GO GREEN.

But I also say - it's a great school and offers fantastic academics. It just wasn't for me. I am an out of state guy originally from NJ so I didn't grow up with a bias about them. MSU felt like a better fit from the moment I got to campus. I looked at both schools and had the grades to get into either. If I wanted a campus built into a city instead of closed off like MSU's was I would have just stayed home and went to Rutgers which has great academics and I would've had a legacy scholarship because of my grandfather.

All that being said about their fantastic academics - it's a shame their football team can't keep up LOL

ttyymmnn > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner 01/28/2015 at 11:40

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I say that because I was born in Ann Arbor. My dad was working on his doctorate in music at the time (1966). I applied to, and was accepted, to UM to get my masters, but ended up going to Rice because they offered me a full scholarship. Gotta follow the money. Ultimately, I'm glad I came to TX because things worked out for me here. But you are absolutely right about college being a fit. The brightest kid in the wrong place will flounder.

And in spite of my pseudo-allegiance to UM, I always like watching State play sports. Any sport. They never seem to make it to the top of the heap, but their teams are always talented and they always fight. Maybe more of a blue collar approach to challenges. But watch out for the Wolverines. I think Harbaugh is going to shake things up.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 11:57

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I probably should have followed the money lol. I was offered a half ride to Penn State for swimming (and a great percentage off at UMass Amherst), but i blew out my knee in senior year and knew it would happen again. No one pulled scholarships on me because I was even faster when I got back from 6 weeks out (knee's damaged upper body wasn't hit that weight room HARD). I just figured when it tore again, I'd lose the scholarship and be at a school with lower academics. I tore my knee 2 more times in college, 1 swimming and 1 doing Judo which I started/learned/then taught at MSU.

In 2-3 years Harbaugh will matter. He's gotta get new guys on the field. And frankly, we take the blue collar approach comment as a massive compliment. Nothing is handed to our guys, we fight for it. Last year I think we would have beat Florida State in the championship, but I'm happy with a Rose Bowl win. This year I'm glad we weren't in the playoff - we blew it - that was on us. We were beating Oregon at half time in the beginning of the year, we ran with OSU than we flopped in both games.

The 3 coaches in Michigan and Ohio are going to make the Big Ten East in to an SEC power level I think. Dantonio, Meyer, and Harbaugh - shit's about to go down.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > GhostZ 01/28/2015 at 14:22

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Obligatory.

thebigbossyboss > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 15:53

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Related? They got partial credit for this bridge right? http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/28/cal…

ttyymmnn > thebigbossyboss 01/28/2015 at 15:58

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I guess so. Maybe somebody using metric and somebody else using Imperial?

thebigbossyboss > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 16:02

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No idea but if you mixed up inches and cm (metric) the variance would be a lot a greater over that span.

ttyymmnn > thebigbossyboss 01/28/2015 at 16:13

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Or as my grandfather used to say, "Measure twice, cut once."

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 16:21

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The idiom of the squeaky wheel getting the attention is apt with this. I will say that at least the student response gets one thing correct, in admitting that the ability to influence is just as important (if not more important) in the world beyond academia.

So is accepting consequences for your actions, and realizing that the consequences don't necessarily reflect your own actions (i.e. it's quite possible to get a bad consequence for something that someone else clearly did [e.g. the teacher didn't teach that well]).

Grades are irrelevant after you get your first job. No one will care what your GPA was 20 years from your graduation date.

However, the professor has a salient point with regards to a college degree in any field. It means you are able to teach yourself new things, and that far exceeds any actual hard facts that you may be officially taught in university.

So yes, the whiners shouldn't be able to undo their own actions, but on the flip side, I've watched professors and TAs at GT be completely ineffective at actually teaching the material to their students. There is a balance between immediately saying "Oh, it's the lazy student's fault" and immediately saying "That egghead professor can't teach".

The problem comes in when you are expecting something for nothing, and that is what professors despise.

ttyymmnn > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs 01/28/2015 at 16:23

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I think, after all those words, we agree entirely!

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > ttyymmnn 01/28/2015 at 16:27

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That $375,000 spent over 5 years on out of state tuition at GT had to produce *something*, didn't it?

ttyymmnn > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs 01/28/2015 at 16:29

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I certainly hope so.