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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I can’t wait for this era to end. A bunch of professors jacking themselves off about how intellectual they are and how they cannot possibly handle this generation. If you’re a tenured professor (as most of these professors are in op-Ed’s and making big decisions) talk to your chair and enact the standards you want to see. The chair should be able to work with admin so you can make your classes as demonically difficult as you desire.

On the other hand, if the goal is actual education, we should look towards more feedback and less reliance on grades. We’ve spent decades trying to quantify what an A or B or C is, and it has done almost nothing for us. Nonetheless, the qualitative nature of A as “Excellent” has stuck around, so people have some conception of why these qualitative descriptions are useful. Instead of spelling out every way to get an A in your course with insanely detailed rubrics, eschew from that model of cattle-like education. Actually connect with your students and the evaluations and scores will come naturally.[/quote]

Unless you have a kid at Harvard, I don't see how this is a problem. There will always be plenty of schools that still assign A's to the majority of students, as grade inflation has been a trend not just at Harvard, but at all colleges. I don't think this is going to be a policy everywhere, as many students will obviously choose to go to schools where A's are easier to come by.

Whether you assign letter grades on the transcript, or write down qualitative words like "excellent," "fair," "average" (that's what the letter grades are supposed to mean, aren't they?), I still think it's a good idea to have meaningful differentiation. The most common grade in colleges before the 1960's really was a C. Many people point out that college students are way more stressed out now under grade inflation than in the old days, because they feel they have have a ton of spectacular, often unrealistic extracurricular achievements or experiences in order to be competitive for the job market or grad school or professional school, since GPAs aren't meaningful anymore. [/quote]
Giving everyone Cs…won’t change this. Students will still want competitive jobs or go to great grad schools. Law schools effectively require top grades. Same with med schools. For graduate admissions, this will make the situation worse because it encourages over reliance on recommendation letters (on the back end, this is just accepting your peer’s (friend) advisee). Shutting down grade inflation won’t change that students want to make money.[/quote]

I recognize that it won't eliminate competition. Competition is not going away, it's just a given. However, I think that competition would be a lot less stressful if it shifted back more towards learning in the classroom, instead of beyond the classroom. It might be more fair too, because let's face it, factors outside the classroom are a lot more manipulable by nepotism, wealth, etc.

My views on grade inflation are based on my own experience going to a very difficult college. Exams were notoriously difficult, essays were torn apart, and A's were really special because they were rare. At the time, we complained bitterly, but I honestly believe this experience made me a better thinker and a harder worker in a way that going to a grade-inflated college never could. My fellow alumni feel the same way. I do not believe that fighting grade inflation is anti-student, which is the way many of you here seem to feel.[/quote]

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