Interesting discussion, X and JC. When I first read the article, I was incined to agree with JC. But you make some good points, X.
But I wonder whether it isn't different in different classes and at different levels. For some subjects -- math, for example -- it's pretty easy to see what grade a student deservers, though becoming less so with the fetish for making kids explain their answers in writing -- that penalizes math skills and elevates literacy skills. If you view math as a language, it should be accepted on its own terms, not with the requirement that you be able to explain it an another language.
But when you get to English, or interpretive history, classes, say, it becomes harder. For example, do we really think a lay jury is qualified, no matter how good the experts who present the case are, to make a binding decision on whether Persuasion or Emma is a better novel? That's what it amounts to to say that this paper is an A paper and that one is a B paper
IMO, one of the funamental goals of law is that a case should on one set of facts and law, be decided the same by any jury. We know that doesn't happen, but I think it's a goal of law -- that if the same facts and law are pesented to several juries, the verdicts will be the same
But I don't see how that can happen with the grading process, especially as you move up in the educational process and creativity becomes, at least in theory, more sophisticated.
And the next step. of course, will be some PhD candidate suing his thesis examination team because he didn't pass the oral examination and didn't get his degree. So are we really going to ask a jury to decide whether this thesis titled "Baudelaire's translations of Poe -- poetry or pornography?" merits the award of a PhD?
Good arguments on both sides. I won't say you changed my mind, X, but you certainly shook my confidence in agreement with JC. |
