Reply to Colleges in Canada - McGill, Toronto, Montreal

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Colleges in Canada - McGill, Toronto, Montreal"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I was trying to capture a dismissive attitude within elite institutions.  In some cases, it was dismissive of the work (marginally competent — student decides whether that’s lack of effort or background (and whether s/he wants to try again vs focus on something s/he is better at) or no aptitude.  In other cases, it was dismissive of grades — i.e. prof sees the utility of identifying work that is excellent or promising, but not the point of punishing students whose work is barely adequate but who seem to be doing the best they can.  And since B-s aren’t going to get their recipients into top grad programs, there’s no equity issue wrt better students. So it seems gratuitous to go lower unless you think the student is shockingly incompetent or irresponsible.

Neither attitude is dismissive of students.  Basically the assumption is these kids are good at something (just not the stuff I teach) otherwise they wouldn’t be here.  Also you’re talking about faculty who, in the course of their own (extensive) schoolwork, rarely if ever got anything but As or Bs.  So they have less of a feel for what C or Ds look like. 
And who know that if they give Cs or Ds, the odds of pushback go way up.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics