Kids Today

Here's a couple of articles I have been hanging onto like some kind of virtual pack rat for a while now:

Princeton cracks down on grade inflation

Yep, life'll burst that self-esteem bubble

The first one talks about grading at Princeton. They have so much trouble with grade inflation and an unrepresentative curve that they may take drastic measures:

"In a move students protested last year, Princeton became the first elite college to cap the number of A's that can be awarded.

Previously, there was no official limit to the number of A's handed out, and nearly half the grades in an average Princeton class have been A-pluses, A's or A-minuses. Now, each department can give A's to no more than 35% of its students each semester."

So no matter how well you do in a course, if you don't make the top 35% you don't get an A.

We have had a similar issue here at CMU, with some ridiculous percentage of Drama students (in the neighborhood of 80%) turning up on the Dean's list semester after semester. Recently, we've been instructed to try to reclaim the "D." In our culture of late a C is the same as a D is the same as an R for all practical purposes. This jams us up in several ways, and I have thought that since it compresses everyone's evaluation to the top of the scale that not only do we lose the D, but we've actually made an A less special.

We're not doing anything as drastic as Princeton, but I must say I see the appeal.

The second article talks about how the last 15-20 years of parenting theory may have been off base. It says that the era of soccer games with no score being kept and trophies for everyone regardless of performance may be detrimental to these kids functioning in an adult world:

To be clear, self-esteem is important to healthy development. Kids who hold themselves in poor stead are thought to be most vulnerable to trouble — from low academic achievement to drug abuse or crime. For those from disadvantaged backgrounds, the stakes may be higher and the needs even greater. But empty praise — the kind showered on many kids years ago in the name of self-esteem — did more harm than good.

The article talks about how people who have never really been criticized prior to college fold up under relatively weak feedback because they don't know how to deal with it. Apparently the effects are not limited to school either, as they cite employers who have new hires wondering why they are not promoted in short order even though they have done nothing to distinguish themselves.

I really do see this every day.

A 1991 teacher training session in the Houston area taught the evils of red ink and told teachers to pick another color, says Pat Green, a teacher since 1982.

"They said it had a very negative impact, because red is so symbolic of wrong answers," she says.

Some also said grammar and spelling errors should be overlooked so students wouldn't be discouraged from writing, Green says. "It was so 'don't damage their self-esteem' to the point where you would praise things that weren't very good."

The result of that type of practice has turned out to be college students who don't really write at a high school level, and an entire population who improperly personalize feedback. Students who become defensive in the face of criticism, and believe that in not accepting work as is that instructors are in some way not accepting the student, that teachers don't have the student's best interest at heart. Makes things sorta difficult in the classroom.

At least there's some consciousness of the thing. Interestingly the article does make room for shifting of opinion, that 20 years from now maybe we'll realize that the whole self esteem thing will have been a good idea after all. Just goes to show that the more we think we know, the less we really know about anything.