The Link Evidently, there are a lot of students who feel that merely working hard entitles someone to a good grade in a class. I find this to be plainly wrong, but maybe I am missing something. I always thought hard work was the process by which a person sets himself up to perform well.
I realize we have entered a new age of fairness, equality, etc., but the fact remains that some people are just smarter and are more competitive than others. I was talking about this today with a guy from my office, he has one kid that is avg. smart but works his *** off, makes avg. grades and is super competitive and another kid that is a genius, that hardly works, makes straight a's but doesnt have a competitive bone in his body and could care less about anything. People are different, some people are meant to dig ditches and some are meant to be rocket scientists. Just because someone works hard doesnt mean they will always succeed. Some people are just better than others at certain things. It's why there are people that are geniuses and captain of industry, people that get out of their small town to do big things and others that decide to stay behind and do the daily grind. There is nothing wrong with that, maybe they prefer that life.
By this logic, me and my 30 handicap should be on the PGA tour, considering how much work I've put into my golf game. I mean, effort is all that counts, right?
One of my best friends is a college professor and he has told me several similar stories... it happens every semester. His students are used to getting good grades by just "showing up," that is, by putting in minimal effort. He has to explain to them, no, you have to achieve to get a good grade.
As a teacher, it does sometimes break my heart when there's a student that pays attention well, asks questions in class, comes in for help after school frequently, and still can't pass. This is a bigger deal in high school I think because unlike college, there are plenty of students that cause problems in class every day. You're thankful for all the well-behaved ones and you sorta wanna repay them for their effort and the fact that they're not a jackass. But you have to think about how it's unfair to the students that performed better if different results get the same grade.
I agree with everything that has been said. However, there is the other side of the coin where it seems that at least 50% of medical and dental school students are taking adderall to achieve putting drug free students at a disadvantage.
As a middle school teacher at a school with a large percentage of lower economic class students, I'd be excited to see the hard work. I think a large part of it is the TAKS test, but that's another thread.
As a TA, having to grade subjective assignments, I can say that you do notice hard work and award something for the effort, but if a student can produce something that just knocks you over by talent without great effort, you would certainly reward that with a good grade. I suppose it depends on the area, this was photo-journalism. A lot of work was done by some students on getting a real journalism story, but their photography might have been lacking. We had to weigh all this, which wasn't easy to do. I think students should get some reward for working hard, but if it is a math exam, either you get the questions right or not. If you make a 50, you fail. Maybe if you work hard, but produce a mediocre result you should get a C. This isn't a cut and dried question. If you work hard and want to be a nuclear physicist, but can't grasp the material, then you shouldn't be granted a license to run a nuclear plant, but in high school, working hard should be rewarded, because that will lead to success in life in many endeavors.
Math/Sceince should have as little of this as is possible. The humanities may successfully incorporate a degree of 'hard work = good grade.' There still must be some production, as well. But, as a person who has TA's humanities classes at UT, I can tell you that there is no way to avoid factoring in how hard someone has worked. This is to say that, in many instances, the difference between an A and a B is organization and facility with the written word as opposed to command of the arguments and subject matter.
Hard work makes you more disciplined. That's the thing. In high school, i didn't do a thing when it came to working, but I always got the good grades. I get to college and it was oh, i can skip this, i can do that later. Then i joined the military and if i didn't study, they take away money, so i learned how to work and it paid off huge, but i still have those days where i'm like f**k this ****. I'm gonna put it on cruise control and go home early. I rather have a hard worker who is average than someone, who is smart but doesn't do a damn thing.
I have always been lucky in that school was usually easy. The only hard part for me at UT was actually making it to the classes, which of course makes it a LOT more difficult. I always hated classes where homework was a big part of the grade. I always thought is simply a way to reward the people that couldn't cut it when they took the tests. On the flip side a good work ethic can overcome a lot in life. But academics are about surpassing a certain standard, and if you can surpass the standard by whatever means, you should get the higher grade. It's the only fair way to grade IMHO. I will say that if you work hard, and go talk to the professor often you can produce lesser level work and get a higher grade than someone that does not visit the prof in a subjective class. I still vividly recall my soph year writing a very good English lit paper, but I disagreed that every word Shakespere wrote was symbolic, got a C+. I wrote the next paper in about an hour and everything was symbolic, A+. Good to know the audience I guess...
If they put as much effort into their work as they do into complaining about their grades, they could EARN their B.
When I took P. Chem the professor didn't care if he failed the whole class. There was no homework, no roll call, just tests and the final. I think we had about 20-30% pass the class. (C or above) The vast majority got Ds. At least 2 people from the class (class size of 30) dropped out of school after this class and many many people changed majors to something totally unrelated to Chemistry or switched to a BA from BS.
As a teacher, I've noticed the trend for about 10 years now. Students used to accept why they didn't score what they wanted on assignments based on objective rubrics and point systems. Now, it seems like from a VERY early age, students are kind of force-fed what they're supposed to know, and subsequently rewarded for showing mastery of the bare minimums (i.e. TAKS). So when they show up to middle/high school, they argue their asses off to show that they worked for "hours" on something that resembles nothing better than a polished turd. My generic response to a student saying that they worked for a long time on a bad project is to come help me grade them. I've actually had a few takers, and once they realize that each portion of the project requires planning, following instructions, and completing everything that was asked of them, they recant. A lot of it has to do with the SE's (student expectations) that the TEA comes up with. They don't reward effort, they only reward the knowledge you can spew out. Unfortunately, there isn't a better way to get dumb kids to pass the state test.
