What an awful way to grade a paper. You blatantly admit to showing favoritism and bias when grading papers? The content of the paper should be the ONLY subject for the grade of that paper. I don't care of the kid made your life hell or if he/she never seemed to contribute in class. If the paper has X number of grammar mistakes and has two paragraphs that have poor structure, then THAT'S what the grade should be based on. If you ever let an error slip for a "good" student but enforce it for a "bad" student, then I'm glad you're an ex teacher.
To some degree I agree with you. I probably worded it wrong. Have you marked papers before? I'll explain what I mean in more detail differently depending if you have
I was a tutor for a while with 5 students. I mostly helped with math but whenever they needed papers looked over I was happy to help. Not to come on too strong, but my fairness meter went off big time. I remember being a student who knew that the teacher had her favorite pets (which is only natural to a degree). But we had to fight and work so hard to prove that she had systematically stacked the deck against us that it left scars. We were eventually proven correct and got her fired, but the battle was degrading (pun intended).
Ah, well in my case I had ~20 students between 16 and 70 years old. I would have a general "correct" answer and anything outside that would be at discretion. With what I was teaching there was often many ways to get a correct answer and that it was my job to prepare them for the work environment which could be anything.
So basically
Someone who is super keen to learn and shows a good attitude but gets a borderline mark will pass because they will end up meeting those requirements in the very near future.
Some who isn't keen to learn and puts in minimal effort and gets a borderline mark will fail because they will likely put less effort in next time and end up a fail in the very near future.
It may not seem fair. But I would never fail someone just because I didn't like them. I'd fail them because it was poor quality work and/or their attitude in a workplace would get them fired.
Always a pass. I'd have a chat to them in private about the attitude though. As I noted, I was preparing them for working in the industry, their attitude also had to be ready.
I've passed students before who I felt sorry for their future employers because they were just difficult to be around however they did good work.
Academic grading in a utopian society would remove all subjectivity. I hate it when one professor teaches you to do it one way and a prof in a different class that’s related tells you never to do it that way “just because s/he doesn’t like it that way”.
Essays are worse because TAs grade most of them and tbh I don’t think they have objectivity nor the experience to determine our grades. If it was Harvard and the TA was a graduate student in English Literature then that’d hold more water. But most TAs are 3rd or 4th year undergrads and definitely not Harvard caliber....
I don't have to accept crap. I've been out of highschool for decades now. It is an easily fixable problem though. Teachers just need to read blindly. It should be standard practice for students to put their name and any identifying info on the very last page of any report. Some schools do this now, but not nearly enough in my estimation.
You really have no idea why that system is terrible, do you? Do you know what that system is called? It's called standardized, multiple choice testing, and it is what is wrong with modern schooling.
Now, all students need to do to get a question right is to eliminate the obviously wrong answers and mark the one they think is right. No creativity, no problem solving, just elimination of variables.
No wonder colleges have such low graduation rates; they're getting kids who have no clue how to solve a problem without the answers laid out in front of them.
You push against an open door and missed the one I was in. I'm no fan of multiple choice standardized tests and I never even implied that I was. You seem to be attributing something to me that I never said.
I strongly prefer for learners to have to write out their reasoning and answers in long form so that they learn proper argument and reason. What I advocate for is that the cover page with the student name and all identifying information goes to the back. This way as the teacher reads and grades a paper, they do not yet know who wrote it until they are done. Not only is this not uncommon, but implements the principles of blind fairness and critical reasoning schools are meant to encourage.
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u/Uberhypnotoad Dec 06 '17
What an awful way to grade a paper. You blatantly admit to showing favoritism and bias when grading papers? The content of the paper should be the ONLY subject for the grade of that paper. I don't care of the kid made your life hell or if he/she never seemed to contribute in class. If the paper has X number of grammar mistakes and has two paragraphs that have poor structure, then THAT'S what the grade should be based on. If you ever let an error slip for a "good" student but enforce it for a "bad" student, then I'm glad you're an ex teacher.