Comment by npongratz
3 days ago
> From grade school on, you are graded on whether or not the grading authority likes the results you got.
I took an exam in a high school science class where I answered a question with the textbook's definition exactly as presented in the textbook, complete with the page number the definition was found on. I knew a bit about the topic, so I then cited outside scientific sources that explained why the definition was incomplete. There wasn't enough room to complete my answer in the space provided, so I spiraled it out into the margins of the exam paper.
My teacher marked my answer wrong. Then crossed that out and marked it correct. Then crossed that out, and finally marked it wrong again. During parent-teacher conferences, the science teacher admitted that even though I answered the question with the exactly correct definition, my further exposition made him "mad" (his word), and because he was angry, he marked it wrong.
Having been on the other side of the table... there's a tactic students will sometimes use, where they don't understand the question but will simply attempt to regurgitate everything written on their notecard that is related in hopes that they'll accidentally say the right words. Sounds like you did understand it, but the volume perhaps made it look like you were just dumping. It is indeed annoying to grade.
Grading is boring, tedious, and quickly wears down one's enthusiasm. The words of M Bison come to mind: "For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."
Sure, we could speculate about his true unstated reasons for marking wrong my answer.
I highly doubt the science teacher marked me wrong for "dumping", though. He had every opportunity to explain that to me after I got my exam graded and I asked him about it. Then he had the opportunity to explain that face-to-face with my parents. He did not do so. He said that while I got the answer right, he was "mad", thus the mark against.
Besides, notecards were not allowed for any part of the exam, and I wrote my answer from memory. I think it was clear that I knew my stuff pretty well and was not "dumping" a bunch of bullshit onto the science teacher.
There was no indication before taking the exam that I would be punished for hurting his apparently-sensitive feelings while giving the correct answer (as he agreed I did). If there were, I certainly would have chosen a different medium for proving my command of the material.
Good experience to prepare you for the rest of your academic and working life where your performance rating will often be strongly influenced the evaluator's current mood or biases. Or the police officer's mood when you get pulled over. Or most other authority figures' feelings when they're making decisions that affect you. It's unfairness all the way until we die.
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I distinctly remember a student arguing with a teacher for a mark.
"Look sir, here in the scrawl at the margins is the answer you just said was right"
"Yes Dylan, but this was a 1 mark question. Part of getting the mark involves putting the answer inside the space provided."
I used to write my undergrad history essays in rhymed couplets because I figured the grad assistant doing the grading would be grateful for a break in the monotony and it was faster and easier than writing an actual good essay. Probably wouldn't work in the LLM era, but it was very effective in the 90's.
> he was angry, he marked it wrong.
That’s grounds for termination to me. Seriously. I would put this man out of a job and endanger the livelihood of him and his family for this kind of shit.
And if you CAN'T terminate because of admitted emotional grading, the system is too tightly captured by outside interests to the detriment of the client: the student and society.
A teacher is a professional entrusted with the most important responsibility society can offer: training and educating the next generation. It must adhere to the highest of professional standards and expectations.
That we don't pay enough to require that without reserve is a statement on our societal priorities, and disconnected from the expectations that should hold.
EDIT: clarification/word choice
Good watch - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_%22Superman%22
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Agreed. Like this is fraud level bs that’s happening and people are voting me down.
I think it’s because this kind of stuff is common. People have done fraudulent stuff and they don’t agree it’s a fireable offense. Understandable. I still would endanger someone’s livelihood for this. Poor performance I would think twice and go through all measures possible to improve performance including putting them in a position where they can excel. Poor performance does not justify endangering the livelihood of a person or their family but this fraudulent bs of being angry and marking something wrong. That’s just malice.
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There's a certain irony in your outrage at his failure to control his emotions, even as your own rage leads you to dream of hurting his family.
Is it rage?
If he murdered someone I would put him in jail and that will harm his family too.
There is a fine line between justice and compassion and if you never cross the line to enforce justice then you have corruption because nothing can be enforced because inevitably all enforcement leads to harm.
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>There's a certain irony in your outrage at his failure to control his emotions, even as your own rage leads you to dream of hurting his family.
Wow, what bad take.
Are you willfully misinterpreting the parent commenter, or would you need some help understanding it?
Assuming it's the latter, here it is.
First, there's no outrage or rage. That's something you ascribe to the parent comment, and that's unwarranted.
Second, there's no dreaming of hurting [the teacher's] family.
The message was: it is important that this person should be relieved of teaching duties, with the full understanding of the gravity of such an action, as being fired from one's job in the US puts the livelihood of the person being fired at risk.
See, the person you're responding to is empathetic, because they consider the impact of what they wish — the teacher being fired — on the teacher as well as others (the teacher's family), and don't take wishing something like that lightly.
Most people would stop at "bad job, fire him", without contemplating what it means for that person.
The parent commentor did, and is saying that, as grave as the consequences are for the teacher (and, potentially, his family, if the teacher is the sole breadwinner), it is still necessary to remove them from teaching because harm to children and violating the trust we put in instructors is unacceptable, and the damage they do in their position is far greater than the damage that would be done by firing them.
This is a compassionate and composed consideration.
Oh, and there'd be no irony about the parent's response even if they were raging, as they were not talking about the teacher's failure to control their emotions.
The issue is hurting children, which isn't something the parent commentor is decidedly NOT doing.
Hope this helps.
>That’s grounds for termination to me. Seriously. I would put this man out of a job and endanger the livelihood of him and his family for this kind of shit.
Agreeing with you as a former instructor (who left academia for greener fields after completing the PhD).
I've had people cry on me in office hours because they come out with — quite literally — PTSD from instructors like the one we're discussing.
It's nothing short of psychological abuse of children, and it leaves lifelong damage.
It's worse than no instruction at all. I've had to have college kids unlearn things before I could teach them.
We've got to draw a line somewhere. I draw the line at actively traumatizing children.
That person should not be allowed to teach, period. We'd do both their students as well as themselves a huge favor by removing them from teaching.
By all indications, they'd be a happier person doing something else, where they wouldn't be driven "mad" by seeing that they've done a good job — which, for a teacher, means their students being proficient in the subject they teach.
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TL;DR: this teacher was driven "mad" by seeing that he's done a good job, and one of his students was really good in the subject.
Spare them from this pain.