My earlier post on those who can’t teach (they teach teachers) got some hilarious responses. Yes, the “teacher test” question is real (there are more here), and the others will cause even more hilarity, including this one from Bill, from Oklahoma, who passes along an important and daunting insight:
I have met many female math teachers in social settings and not a one has been able to define a logarithm, derive the quadratic equation, or explain Newtonian iteration. I asked a good friend of mine, Ph.D. EE Department of OU about the caliber of the student coming into the university. He said they are in no way qualified to be there and further they grade him, not the other way around. If he doesn’t get a good grade then he doesn’t get tenure.
Grade inflation is everywhere — including law schools, where employers are now demanding to know more about all those “A” students. The result? In the past ten years, law schools across the county have adopted grading “curves” — hence, if somebody gets an A, someone has to get a C. The response from the students, all of whom were brilliant enough (ahem) to get into law school in the first place, has been predictable.
But the bottom line on the undergraduate level is simple: all those students who are paying the exorbitant tuition can march into the professor’s office demanding that he raise their grade — or else! And, as Bill suggests, the professor who sticks to his guns (uh oh) will soon be back on the street. Result? The average grade at Harvard is an A-.
1:26 pm on January 3, 2013
