But do you step on the scale every day? Just to be sure?
It is easy for one to say that your weight, your beauty, your physical well being etc. has no bearing on your self-worth when those are all in the clear. But when they are in jeopardy, if for someone they have any reason to feel unattractive, then that number or that attractiveness designation’s importance begins to bear down.
The reason I am bringing this up is because the analogy you started with (somewhat non-chalantly, sorry :D) is actually quite good, because just like the things that make us feel attractive, I do feel like when our grades our good, we don’t think they are that important to our mental health and well being, but when they are in trouble, they start to take away from our feelings of self-worth.
In a lot of ways, stepping on that scale every day to make sure you’re in that target weight is like checking your grade constantly to make sure you’re still above the a B+, we keep telling ourselves it doesn’t affect out feeling of self-worth, but we wont know until we get there.

LikeLike

Sure, it did the same to me,. In fact, I went to the professor before the drop deadline and asked if I should drop the course because of my C- in the course. He was surprised because he checked his sliding scale at that moment I had a B+. Thanks for letting me know bucko…
I ended up staying and pulling off an A- in the course, despite have a literal 40% on the last exam.
But once I knew how it worked, I was at ease, sort of, but not really.

LikeLike

This is enlightening, but not aytpical unfortunately. In a lot of institutions, especially in ones “over-seas”, metrics are held over department head’s heads (sorry) in order to maintain a perception of rigor in the academic programs. It ends up being a sign of either appearing to be too strict, or more often than not, appearing to be too lenient (god forbid). The unfortunate nature is exactly what you said, the students end up chasing the grade and not the lessons. I once had a professor in a graduate course who taught mostly 1st years, withhold all grades. I went in knowing that this professor gives mostly A’s and A-‘s, but others coming fresh from over-seas or undergraduate programs where GRADES MATTER, were anxious the entire semester. He sought to remove that angst and have us focus solely on the material. By the next semester, the rest of our cohort had understood that our course grades matter very little in comparison to what material we would learn and how we could apply it to our research/lives.

I understand your frustration, I really do! There was one professor in undergrad that I had however, that did something kind of unique: a shifting scale. Unique for me at least, as I found out later on in other disciplines this was quite common. He would make the class challenging and let you ‘fail’, but at the end of the semester, your grading scale was dependent on how he felt the class did as a whole, shifting what he thought an A was, in some semesters it was a 90, in others it was a 75. It all depended on how difficult he made the course and how hard of a time the students had. This requires deep thought and analysis of the student body, but is yet another way to shake a little of the traditional boxed-in grading scheme that boils you down to a singular number.

LikeLike

What do you suggest we do in the meantime? There is a need for monumental change, do we sit and wait while those who have the power to make the changes sit idly by or do we start enacting policies in our own classrooms, knowing fully well that that experiment ends at the end of the semester?

LikeLike