Furthermore ...

I got some interesting feedback on yesterday's post from Ang and Mel. I sort of responded in the comments, but my last comment was getting long enough that I figured I could get a full post out of it. Here goes.

First, I'll touch on Angie's comment. I didn't realize it at the time, but yesterday's post actually went off in two directions. I started with Virginia Postrel's claim that the decline in reading the KJV version of the Bible bears some of the blame for today's lack of reading, writing, and verbal skills. I guess she could have blamed it for poor math skills too, but the only numbers I really recall in the Bible are 3, 7, 10, 12, and 40 and I figure it's pretty hard to construct a math tutorial from just 5 numbers. No, in all seriousness, I simply thought it was an interesting hypothesis. As I thought on it a little more, though, I don't think I buy the explanation. I think another claim of hers (that I didn't address) -- that the movement away from reading the KJV has dampened the "oratorical oomph" of our political speech -- probably has some support, but I really don't buy, "The kids would be more literate if they only read the Bible more." No, I think it would be more accurate if you just left "the Bible" out of that statement. As I mentioned in my first comment yesterday, though, while I do think it is important to get kids to read, I also think it's important to challenge them as readers.

The rest of yesterday's post sort of veered off into today's churches. Upon rereading the post, I realized I should have made a cleaner break between topics, but the whole stream of consciousness thing got away from me. Anyway, that's the point Angie and I have discussed before and though I perfectly understand (and agree with many of) her arguments, I also found myself "nodding along" with Virginia as well. I'm sorry, but at heart I think I'm still an Old Testament Baptist. I could no longer be happy in that setting, but it made a deeper impression than I like to admit.

As for Mel, ... Her comment about "not know[ing] how they give the grades they do," got me to thinking. Of course I'd love to be the guy in "Stand and Deliver", but it just doesn't happen that often. In reality, we have to work with what we're given. I will say that I've been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the average student since moving over here. I won't say the students are better than they were at UAH (there are fewer "superstars" and more of the "clueless" who don't even know if they want to go to college), but the average student is about the same. When evaluating the students, I try to maintain a high (in my opinion) external standard that is the same as it was at Tuscaloosa and Huntsville. I'd like to think A students in my classes now would have made A's at either of those other schools. Sometimes, though, I cave.

There are times when a student makes an A not for truly "mastering" the material, but simply because he or she far outperforms the rest of the class. In other words, in some classes no one really earns an A (in my objective opinion), but even in those classes the top couple of students probably get an A. It's not a good feeling when that happens, but fortunately that's not the norm in my classes.

Now I felt really down after admitting that, but now that I've thought about it, I have to reconsider whether that practice is so bad. I remember some of the real "head hurting" classes (Knobloch and Kim's classes come to mind) from grad school. Their exams were so impossible I doubt anyone ever honestly exceeded 90%, yet they didn't flunk us all. In fact, I made a 62 (I think) on the first test I ever took in grad school, yet it was a C+. For a long time that practice -- give an impossible test and then grade on a curve -- infuriated me. I was used to getting 95's, 98's, etc. on my tests and I did not like what the grad school grades seemed to say about me. Once I started teaching, though, I reconsidered.

I'm sure it can be done, but with a standard (non-curve) type test I have a really hard time distinguishing the "smart", naturally bright, good memorizing student from the REALLY smart, REALLY bright, REALLY gets it student. See, if I design a test that a naturally bright, shows up to class and pays attention, and does the minimum amount of outside work can get a 90% on (something the "smart" kids have grown used to), then both he and the "superstar" will get an A and I can't tell the difference in the two. If, on the other hand, I give an "impossible" test -- one that only the truly sharp, hardest working students will even get an 80% or 85% on -- then I can separate the superstars from the rest. Hence, while I do not have an explicit curve, I do build extra points into my tests that work as separators. After giving one of these tests, I usually end up bemoaning the poor performance, but then I have to remind myself that the test was not an easy (definitions, matching, bold terms from the book) test. I don't know if it's true, but it's the rationalization that gets me through the day come test time.

Okay, that's it.