Re: grades/authority/community, etc.

["B. Silk" <bsilk@titan.iwu.edu>]

I think Lynne is quite right when she says that "education needs to change
at the beginning rather than at the end."  I also think she's onto
something (in another message) when she says that students (including
herself when she was in school) need both discipline and to be required to
do things they wouldn't otherwise do.  (Way to go, cousin!) After all,
what's the point of higher education (or any other form of education) if
there isn't something to be learned beyond what a student might be able to
figure out for herself. 

I do believe that education needs to change, that we need to educate our
children to value their own minds and their own humanity rather than
grades or other material rewards.  To me, grading a student's writing is
like paying a child to help with household chores--it substitutes false
motivation for internal motivation, it corrupts the student's intentions
(what he expects to get out of education), and it increases his dependence
on external approval/disapproval in developing and valuing his own
identity. 

In my first-year writing course, I give students a great deal of guidance
on their writing assignments (structural techniques, critical thinking
processes, and evaluation criteria).  These assignments are sequenced in
terms of the sophistication required in each area.  I see their abilities
improve over the course of the semester.  But I'm never sure they can do
it on their own.  A friend convinced me that I wasn't letting them try to
do it on their own;  so, as an experiment, I turned them lose on the last
paper and made minimal suggestions for structure and development.  I also
let them determine the criteria by which I would grade the paper.  Their 
criteria were good, although not detailed.  However, the papers were a 
disappointment.

Should I have given them one more thoroughly-guided assignment for
experience?  Or should I have turned them lose earlier in the semester to
develop self-reliance sooner?  To me, turning them lose earlier would have
felt a lot like I was abandoning them in the same way I felt abandoned in
writing classes 20 years ago. 
  
Perhaps it would have worked if they had learned self-reliance from the
beginning of their educations.  This was an educational experience--but
mostly for me, I'm afraid. 

  --Bobbie


On Wed, 10 Jan 1996, Lynne Belcher wrote:

> Eric,
> 
> I understand your analogy, and I think we probably agree more than we 
> disagree.  It is difficult in one semester to turn students into 
> colleagues when for twelve years they've been students.  The 
> institution of education needs to change at the beginning rather than 
> at the end.
> 
> Lynne
> 
> P.S.  You're no grump.  Maybe a little strong-willed. . .!
> 
>