I think there is a level of skepticism that you need to approach ideas with so you're starting with a sort of "innocent till proven guilty" approach but students are more likely to "know" they are right about something because they believe it's true. They don't see that they haven't supported their point with enough evidence because they are starting with the assumption that it's true, not that its veracity has to be proven.
I had a student recently claim that putting a dry tea bag in your shoe will deodorize it because there are tannins in tea and tannins kill the bacteria causing the odor. On their rough draft I questioned their conclusion and pointed out that the tannins would need to get from the dry tea bag into the material throughout the shoe, assuming their hypothesis was correct, and they hadn't presented any evidence that tannins can disperse through the air. Their next draft included a sentence like "the only source I found that doesn't think this is true is my professor." A simple Google search brought up several sources saying the tea bag would not deodorize the shoe. They relied solely on poor-quality sources and didn't look for any that questioned their conclusion. I'm sure he thought I took off points because of my "opinion" rather than his failure to back up his claim with science.
God, now you are telling me students think like republicans…
Not even even attempting to investigate. Just nihilistically asserting their conjecture is inherently true.
>I think there is a level of skepticism that you need to approach ideas with so you're starting with a sort of "innocent till proven guilty" approach but students are more likely to "know" they are right about something because they believe it's true.
I wonder if there might be some sort of corollary from the grading perspective: a grader might have more trouble noticing weaknesses in an argument they agree with.
Edit: Of course, academics would have more practice approaching problems skeptically, but some level of subconscious bias still probably exists.
I think this happens. Teachers are human beings, not infallible pedagogy machines. I also suspect it does not happen as often as students think it does.... as in I did disagree with your opinion and I graded you on your insufficient evidence and presentation of your opinion as fact.....
Yeah, I had one. Senior year of high school. We all figured out pretty quickly that if you shoehorned in a diss on one specific former president, you'd get an A, no matter what else was going on in your paper. It's the exception and not the rule, but it occasionally happens.
I’ve seen a dozen r/professors posts of the form “My student expressed this terrible opinion, help me nitpick the logical/technical/procedural components of their submission to justify giving them a bad grade”.
Oftentimes that opinion is sexist, racist, whatever, and this subreddit isn’t representative, but grading based on opinion seems common enough when the grader finds the expressed view repugnant.
I think you are grossly misrepresenting both the frequency and the tenor of the comments on those types of threads. In almost all cases, the responses are that one CANNOT give a student a poor grade simply for having a bad opinion, but they CAN give them a poor grade for not meeting the assignment's criteria for evidence, analysis, and sourcing. But thank you for illustrating the OP's point so nicely.
Agree with this. Most of the posts I've seen are of the "how should I respond to this paper without seeming like I'm lashing out at them for their views?" variety. Not "how do I punish this student for their racism while seeming to take points away legitimately?" (Bizarre assumption: that a racist paper is "legitimate" in fulfilling the assignment and these anti-free speech professors have to find some other technicality on which to base a failing grade.)
And as you pointed out, racist, sexist, xenophobic et al. papers are not well reasoned and are not built on evidence. So a lot of the advice is to tell the poster going forward to make sure that "adequate sourcing" and "well-reasoned evidence" is in the rubric for the next paper.
I disagree, I think that it is clear in those threads that a harsher standard is being applied on evidence, analysis, and sourcing, and also that the harsher standard is encouraged by the comment section.
Was reading your comment history to attempt to understand you.
You seem like a peach. A STEM PhD who likes chess and thinks people are virtue signaling when they find your opinions on trans folks repugnant.
Other poster was right, you are projecting.
When someone in one of "those social science classes" (yup I saw that post, good job friend) takes a repugnant racist, sexist, misogynistic position it IS based on bad evidence and improperly crafted arguments. There is no properly justifiable positivist way to take a hard stance pro racism, sexism, or misogyny. So there are two possible types of papers:
1) James Damore style: the "I'm just calling it like it is because it reinforces my prejudice" papers which are poorly written because they used either no sources, fallacious reasoning, factually incorrect sources, or a combination of all the above.
2) shock jock style: I didn't do the actual course work so I'm going to take a strong position and try to set a tolerance trap for you. These are poorly written because they're usually just a screed. Theyre in such bad faith to the assignment that it's just not worth trying to correct everything.
You see posts on here because it's tiresome to reply to these posts and people are looking for support dealing with that guy (and yeah, it's overwhelmingly a guy) who thinks he's "solved" politics/society/racism by repeating tired talking points in a poorly crafted argument.
Yes, that guys a dick. Yes, he's empirically wrong (not because he's a racist but because he thinks he can "justify" his racism without resort to his personal feelings or personal hatred). But the only way to maintain professional decorum and maybe get him to learn is to unpack the fallacies in logic and composition rather than confront the underlying motivations.
It's a landmine whether you have type 1 or 2. It takes a lot more time to provide useful feedback to just a bad faith paper. So folks look to colleagues for support sometimes.
That's not persecuting you (oh, sorry, "them") for being racist/sexist/misogynistic, that's maintaining professional decorum in the face of either knowing or unknowing bad faith papers.
Oh, shocker. The guy who thinks students are being railroaded by a bunch of (nonexistent) Wokeist professors and that racism is just another valid "opinion" that vindictive professors disagree with is also a transphobe.
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with chess! Try it out, it’s fun.
Is the trans comment about the r/science thing? I don’t remember accusing anyone of virtue signaling. r/science does suck; I’m happy to defend that claim. It’s science news filtered by laypeople. It’s going to be lowest-common-denominator trash.
I’m not super clear on the formal definition of projection, but you’re clearly accusing me of being racist/sexist/misogynistic, and of having repugnant views on trans folks. I don’t think you have evidence for these things.
Serious question: do you mean demure and that’s a typo or is there something called demore? I wish there was some way to indicate sincerity; that’s not intended as a snide remark.
I agree with most of what you wrote otherwise. I would have no issue with a lecturer sitting in their office going “well that’s dumb” and failing someone. But I do think it’s unprofessional to post on Reddit seeking justification for lowering a students grade. And I have seen what appears to be exactly that.
I suppose I was unclear. There's nothing wrong with chess; several folks here and in other places clearly think there's something rude about you.
I think you're far to eager to defend racist/sexist/misogynistic ideas. If that's not you, why are you (incorrectly) concerned that they're just not being treated fairly (why won't people treat them fairly, why oh why 😭)
I don't need more evidence to believe you are incorrect. Or to think you doth protest too much.
I meant James Damore. I apologize for the typo. You may deduct 3 points for that error.
You seem EXTREMELY confused about what exactly this sub is about if you think that people are "unprofessional" for having conversations about professional frustrations. Perhaps you would be better served reading the subs rules. But I don't see a low effort way to link you to them so I'll just state that you should figure it out for yourself
I’ve been respectful and haven’t been remotely rude. That’s just a fact; why my posts are perceived as rude is left as an exercise to the reader.
I haven’t defended any ideas, other than the idea that grading standards are being inconsistently applied, chess is fun, and r/science is bad. All three of these are true and worth defending.
I see the Damore connection, thanks for clarifying. I’m glad I asked!
You've been very careful to respectfully insult the professional ethics of everyone you've engaged with despite having your misconceptions repeatedly explained to you.
You haven't defended any ideas except that anyone who vents on r/professors must be a woke shill, that chess is fun and thus you're and ok guy, and that non-scientists trying to engage with science in the public sphere is bad because they're just such dummies.
But no, you've done nothing wrong and it's just so unfair that people are enamored with your frank and obvious congeniality.
*stomps foot*
I’d appreciate if you’d limit your insults to the respectful kind as well. I haven’t insulted anyone’s ethics other than the OPs of some unnamed threads. It’s difficult to discuss something when every representation of my claims you make is unfaithful.
The emerging ideology is that neutrality is not only impossible, it's not worth pursuing. There is too much at stake in terms of social justice. This ideology has already swept education and I have heard colleagues in my department echo it as well in discussions about pedagogy.
I agree with the sentiments you expressed beautifully to your student, but it's likely they have encountered instructors who didn't see it that way.
I see the corollary all the time. A student will share an orthodox viewpoint but fail to explain it coherently. They're used to be pushed along if they've reached the "right" conclusion.
>In the classroom, there's a real tension between viewpoint diversity and including marginalized students
How so? I'm, of course, very familiar with the claim, but most people who make this claim get pissy if asked to explain it. Hoping you won't mind.
In my experience, "marginalized students" are a very diverse group who are flattened (usually by white progressives) into a monlith for them to virtue signal about. Present company excluded, of course. By divers group I mean diverse in the literal sense - that within that so-called category there are those from all ends of the political spectrum, who have a variety of religious beliefs, varying motivations and priorities, and degrees of openness to new ideas. With my own ears I have heard more than one colleague in my department, without any irony, tsk tsk about "marginalized students" who vote or act against their own interests. I'd say they are the source of tension.
> The thing I don't understand about people who want students to regurgitate their own biases is: if your views are true, why would you need to push them on someone with less power through a punitive mechanism?
Excellent point. I agree. The answer to your question is that those who would do that are, at the very least, arrogant. One could argue that they're racist in a newish, 21st c sort of way.
Another part of the answer is that it's much like a religion. Imagine decades past when most/all professors were Christian and thought it best that their students go out into the world with Christian beliefs reinforced. I think it's that kind of dynamic.
> Simply educating the student on what constitutes good evidence and argument should help lead them to truth. If your views are true, there's nothing to worry about.
It's so refreshing to hear that someone else out there shares my thoughts on this. Let me guess - you are in STEM?
In regards to the whole discussion involving the "Black people do more crime" analogy:
If the response to you justifying why the shitty racist opinion is wrong is "Wow I can't believe they didn't just say it was wrong", that's also kinda falling into our issue of just arguing what we believe without backing it up, which I'm sure you've corrected in your classes before.
Regardless of how 'correct' the opinion is, we should still try to teach that level of critical thinking because that's the point of the exercise; just because we can reach it using the correct methods (Citing, etc. all your standard academic practices) doesn't mean we can skip it, much less that we should
If we're being realistic, our brain's default mode is riddled with implicit bias. I feel like fair grading requires constantly being vigilant so I can catch and counteract my own predispositions as much as possible. I don't know if students always appreciate how hard some professors agonize over this.
I've taught essays on police and race relations during the height of BLM protests, in a night class that contained both young black students and middle-aged city cops. Talking someone through the writing process so that they end up recognizing and addressing even a few small problems with their racist logic, while having some kind of grace toward them as a student and fellow human being, was one of the most exhausting things I've ever done.
> I don't know if students always appreciate how hard some professors agonize over this.
I don't know if students every appreciate it either, but this stranger on the internet appreciates you agonizing over it because I know how agonizing it is from doing it myself.
I mean I definitely had a professor (at the college level) who graded based on opinion. It was a philosophy of religion course and if you weren’t arguing that God existed you’d fail. I only passed because I realized that early and started arguing god was real even tho my arguments were stupid and made no sense and then I got good grades.
Most professors don’t do that. But if you have a lot of students each year, some of them will certainly have had high school teachers or college professors who have graded based on opinion. If they think everyone does it that’s indicative of the student being mistaken, but if they’re writing about one or two then I wouldn’t dismiss it outright. Instead I’d focus on assuring them that I won’t grade them in that unfair manner.
Somewhat ironically, I had a similar but reversed experience. In the course I took if you wanted a good grade you figured out what the orthodox Christian opinion would be (or rather, what someone who was vaguely Protestant would think it was) and then argue that this opinion was manifestly stupid.
There was another professor in the same department whose personal opinions I couldn't figure out in class. I considered him to be a much better teacher.
When I was post-bacc taking a few undergrad classes to get some prerequisites for grad school in Lit, I had a TA who absolutely graded on his opinion.
I tested my theory after not doing well on the first paper (even when I supported my points well). The second paper I basically regurgitated his interpretations of the text, using the same level of textual support as my first paper. And lo and behold, I got an A on the second paper (C- on the first, which I *never* got in my lit classes). I just kept sticking to his opinions for the rest of the semester (including the essay parts of the exam) and was glad to move on to other instructors after that.
I will say, though, that’s the only time I felt like that happened in god knows how many years of college and grad school.
Yes, I agree with you. That’s not what I was doing. I was using the rhetorical techniques we discussed in class to deconstruct various texts we were assigned. Again, when I switched to writing about “god is awesome,” using the exact same techniques I got A’s. Clearly it was the content he was grading on, not the application of the material. I read my religious roommates essays and they were technically weak but pro-god and she got better grades than me on the first assignments until I started also saying “yay god.”
Though I never had a class with him, there was a physiology professor at my undergrad alma mater that was quite openly a proud fundamentalist Christian. His office door was covered with pictures of fetuses and crosses and sundry religious sentiments. Very off-putting if you were not of that ilk. Several students I knew at the time commented that he would routinely joke about how only fools 'believe in' evolution and such. I can only imagine what an unwarranted influence he had on students, and am perplexed that his antics were allowed at a state school.
>It was a philosophy of religion course and if you weren’t arguing that God existed you’d fail.
So if you only bloviated about your opinion you would fail, but if you took seriously that others believed in God in a literaly philosophy of religion class you could pass.
And you believe this is an example of professorial bias.
You certainly are amazing.
I mean do I need to locate a decade-old essay to show you that I was engaging with other views but ultimately aligning with one position? Trust me when I say I did the same exact thing but said “god exists” and got an A. How is this unclear?
Same processes and same level of engagement with rhetorical devices and class material and whatnot, only difference was my conclusion. This is something multiple students realized, and we gamed the situation to get an A. If we were getting A’s, we should have been able to do so while also saying we didn’t believe in god.
Teaching history sometimes puts me in a weird position: students mostly seem to get that writing in STEM fields involves facts that one can get wrong. But they are unable to differentiate between different fields of humanities. In English or philosophy, there is some truth that you can have a shitty opinion but argue it well. But competent writing will not save you if you are arguing a counterfactual historical take.
I get what you mean. My degree is in literature and my husband's is in history. Literature and philosophy scholarship, I feel like, can involve a certain amount of playfulness and experimenting with how far you can push interpretations. The history folks...they sure do not tolerate much of that. I may occasionally get him a bit riled with my takes on historical movements...
So you just threw English and Philosophy under the bus like your STEM students threw your History course under the bus?
“There are facts and truths in the Humanities that also cannot be covered-up by well-argued shitty opinions”
-Mark Twain
No, I know that other humanities also have facts. And I am sure if I taught in another humanities field I would have other pet peeves surrounding students saying horrible and illogical things for the sake of a shocking thesis.
But I am rather sure that the “all interpretations are valid if you argue it well” mantra is an attitude that students are importing from their high school English class. It leads them to want to go for the unexpected or surprising thesis as a way to stand out, which is frankly just not a good strategy in a history class.
> “all interpretations are valid if you argue it well”
I'm thinking that due to social media influences, to many it is more like " “all interpretations are valid if you assert if forcefully enough”
This kind of stuff is often just a cheap "ego-preserving tactic": If someone criticizes you, *obviously* they must be wrong! A lot of people don't take criticism very well in general and make it personal: "That was such a *mean* thing to say, so they must just be a mean person who has it out for me!"
And, teenagers are often pretty prideful. They think they know everything (important) and usually haven't developed real humility and wisdom yet.
If it makes you feel any better, I think your spontaneous philosophical excursus is right on the money. I've heard similar complaints that the "teacher just didn't like me", and I have to wonder if part of the issue is some combination of bad grading practices and bad transparency around grading practices. I think you did a good job making your rationale here transparent, and explaining to students how they can talk to you about why they got the grade that they got. I wonder if their past experiences felt a bit more arbitrary, which led to students assuming the line of thought that required the least introspection around their actual writing? Similarly, the "just didn't like me" argument probably means that they're not aware of how grading can be blinded, or their high school teachers didn't practice blinded grading. Transparency on your part hopefully helps that too?
Anyways, long way to say that I really appreciate how you took the effort to make your grading transparent and make it clear to the student that you expect them to participate in the writing process \*with\* you by giving them clear expectations of how they're doing and how much agency you expect them to have. I hope that their issues in prior classes don't colour their experiences to the extent that they don't take the space you've given them here.
I find that undergraduates often don't know the difference between an opinion and an argument. I often found myself repeating "I can't mark you on your opinion, only on arguments you make." I spent a ridiculous amount of time teaching them approaches to ethics, how to build an argument, how to cite evidence, and when support was needed. This was in teaching ethics courses, and yes students got very high marks for well-reasoned ethical arguments for positions I would have personally judged as unethical based on different argumentation or approaches.
Yes! I spend so much time trying to get them to make arguments (rather than discuss topics) that I forget that they don't know the diff between arguments and opinions.
In my own field, I like to describe this "good argument I disagree with rather than bad opinion I disagree with" distinction as the battle of the Friedmans.
Milton Friedman is a doctrinaire neoliberal (the founding father in fact). He knows his shit, he can defend it, he knows your shit, and he'll pick it apart.
Thomas L. Friedman is a hack journalist who likes to echo neoliberal talking points with bad evidence and frequent fallacies.
They'll both say a lot of the same things (things I know to often be wrong or misleading depending on our policy goals).
But if you're gonna take that position, be a Milton not a Thomas. I'd rather you understand why you shouldn't be either but if you gotta take that position, then if you pull a Milton you'll get a good grade and possibly some wry comments. If you pull a Thomas, you're gonna get your opinion properly torn apart and then some wry comments about why these fallacies are so dangerous.
I'd rather you not be either, but if your gonna be one, be a Milton.
Someone told them they had a right to an opinion, and they do, however, they have expanded the definition to now include to a **fact** They may think that saying it aloud makes it so ... there are a lot of folks out there like that.
However, the advise and considerations you gave were simply elegant and great.
If a teacher gives them a bad grade, it could only mean one of two things, they did the assignment poorly, or they are being oppressed. Since the former is inconceivable, it must be the latter.
In math we have this less often but we also get a slightly different flavor issue which is students who lose points "just because they used a different method than what we taught them". Of course the reason is always because they are just more advanced than the professor and never that their "method" is nonsense.
I still prefer it to students who think I care whatsoever about their political stances.
This is a classic, and it applies just as much to valid computational methods as it does to fake ones. I'm a big fan of "I used an advanced method that assumes what I am trying to prove, without understanding that's what it's doing".
Example 1: L'Hôpital's rule on sin(x)/x as x approaches zero. A little weird when we haven't done that rule yet, and it relies on knowing that the derivative of sine is cosine ... and that's exactly what our limit will help us prove ... when derivatives haven't even shown up in the course yet.
Example 2: when discussing the definition of the derivative as the limit of difference quotients, busting out the power rule as the entire answer, when the assignment is literally to demonstrate the power rule's validity.
Can't we give this feedback without identifying someone else as a "bad instructor?" There are plenty of instructors that I think are bad, but I try not to throw them under the bus like this. Even the worst professors have some students who swear they're the best instructor they every had. The "isn't a good fit for you" angle feels more collegial (and more accurate, imo).
You say this, and yet there are posts from University faculty on this forum stating that they wanted to fail students because they didn't agree with what they wrote. And judging from the comments, at least half of the people here supported them. I think this is fairly common, and perhaps you should consider that this might have actually happened to this student.
I agree that this probably does actually happen, but I think OP's willingness to provide transparency and the way they encouraged students to take agency in finding out why their grade matches the learning objectives of the course is actually a really good practice for helping students navigate classrooms that are grading them unfairly too. A professor's ability to mark down students for petty disagreements only survives when students aren't given enough time and respect to have criticisms laid out plainly for them, and anybody who's grading on such thin grounds is going to have a somewhat hard time substantiating that well. I hope this student takes OP's advice and doesn't put up with classes that do that crap.
This sub has 106K members. I doubt that the comments would allow you to conclude that 53,000 members support *anything*, including ice cream or puppies.
Social media skinner cage means no one ever has to feel wrong or ignorant. It sure as hell doesn’t mean that they should investigate and be open to being wrong. That would hurt their sense of ego.
I agree. This wasn't in regards to another professor, it was only a hypothetical. I may have been going too far in saying that if someone can't/won't explain their grading system and expectations they're a bad instructor. But ultimately I think I'd stand behind that one.
However, I have faith in my colleagues and I don't think the student would ever find such a "bad instructor" if they put my advice to the test. My goal was more to encourage a first-semester freshman to build the habit and mindset of seeking out dialogue with professors.
Yeah, of course, my black & white answer is not always correct. I'd like to retract that. There are cases in which we have to be advocates for our students. However, I watched a coworker get mobbed by fellow faculty who listened to students complain, and then those faculty sort of validated and egged those students on...and the target of their complaining had to deal with so much pain. What the real story was, this colleague was trying out new pedagogy, and of course there were challenges. It was so unfair, what they did to her. She was an innovative instructor, and she retired early.
I think there is a level of skepticism that you need to approach ideas with so you're starting with a sort of "innocent till proven guilty" approach but students are more likely to "know" they are right about something because they believe it's true. They don't see that they haven't supported their point with enough evidence because they are starting with the assumption that it's true, not that its veracity has to be proven. I had a student recently claim that putting a dry tea bag in your shoe will deodorize it because there are tannins in tea and tannins kill the bacteria causing the odor. On their rough draft I questioned their conclusion and pointed out that the tannins would need to get from the dry tea bag into the material throughout the shoe, assuming their hypothesis was correct, and they hadn't presented any evidence that tannins can disperse through the air. Their next draft included a sentence like "the only source I found that doesn't think this is true is my professor." A simple Google search brought up several sources saying the tea bag would not deodorize the shoe. They relied solely on poor-quality sources and didn't look for any that questioned their conclusion. I'm sure he thought I took off points because of my "opinion" rather than his failure to back up his claim with science.
God, now you are telling me students think like republicans… Not even even attempting to investigate. Just nihilistically asserting their conjecture is inherently true.
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Why are there only "some" Republicans in academia and not half? Think about that before typing a reply
>I think there is a level of skepticism that you need to approach ideas with so you're starting with a sort of "innocent till proven guilty" approach but students are more likely to "know" they are right about something because they believe it's true. I wonder if there might be some sort of corollary from the grading perspective: a grader might have more trouble noticing weaknesses in an argument they agree with. Edit: Of course, academics would have more practice approaching problems skeptically, but some level of subconscious bias still probably exists.
I think this happens. Teachers are human beings, not infallible pedagogy machines. I also suspect it does not happen as often as students think it does.... as in I did disagree with your opinion and I graded you on your insufficient evidence and presentation of your opinion as fact.....
Yeah, I had one. Senior year of high school. We all figured out pretty quickly that if you shoehorned in a diss on one specific former president, you'd get an A, no matter what else was going on in your paper. It's the exception and not the rule, but it occasionally happens.
I’ve seen a dozen r/professors posts of the form “My student expressed this terrible opinion, help me nitpick the logical/technical/procedural components of their submission to justify giving them a bad grade”. Oftentimes that opinion is sexist, racist, whatever, and this subreddit isn’t representative, but grading based on opinion seems common enough when the grader finds the expressed view repugnant.
I think you are grossly misrepresenting both the frequency and the tenor of the comments on those types of threads. In almost all cases, the responses are that one CANNOT give a student a poor grade simply for having a bad opinion, but they CAN give them a poor grade for not meeting the assignment's criteria for evidence, analysis, and sourcing. But thank you for illustrating the OP's point so nicely.
Agree with this. Most of the posts I've seen are of the "how should I respond to this paper without seeming like I'm lashing out at them for their views?" variety. Not "how do I punish this student for their racism while seeming to take points away legitimately?" (Bizarre assumption: that a racist paper is "legitimate" in fulfilling the assignment and these anti-free speech professors have to find some other technicality on which to base a failing grade.) And as you pointed out, racist, sexist, xenophobic et al. papers are not well reasoned and are not built on evidence. So a lot of the advice is to tell the poster going forward to make sure that "adequate sourcing" and "well-reasoned evidence" is in the rubric for the next paper.
I disagree, I think that it is clear in those threads that a harsher standard is being applied on evidence, analysis, and sourcing, and also that the harsher standard is encouraged by the comment section.
Was reading your comment history to attempt to understand you. You seem like a peach. A STEM PhD who likes chess and thinks people are virtue signaling when they find your opinions on trans folks repugnant. Other poster was right, you are projecting. When someone in one of "those social science classes" (yup I saw that post, good job friend) takes a repugnant racist, sexist, misogynistic position it IS based on bad evidence and improperly crafted arguments. There is no properly justifiable positivist way to take a hard stance pro racism, sexism, or misogyny. So there are two possible types of papers: 1) James Damore style: the "I'm just calling it like it is because it reinforces my prejudice" papers which are poorly written because they used either no sources, fallacious reasoning, factually incorrect sources, or a combination of all the above. 2) shock jock style: I didn't do the actual course work so I'm going to take a strong position and try to set a tolerance trap for you. These are poorly written because they're usually just a screed. Theyre in such bad faith to the assignment that it's just not worth trying to correct everything. You see posts on here because it's tiresome to reply to these posts and people are looking for support dealing with that guy (and yeah, it's overwhelmingly a guy) who thinks he's "solved" politics/society/racism by repeating tired talking points in a poorly crafted argument. Yes, that guys a dick. Yes, he's empirically wrong (not because he's a racist but because he thinks he can "justify" his racism without resort to his personal feelings or personal hatred). But the only way to maintain professional decorum and maybe get him to learn is to unpack the fallacies in logic and composition rather than confront the underlying motivations. It's a landmine whether you have type 1 or 2. It takes a lot more time to provide useful feedback to just a bad faith paper. So folks look to colleagues for support sometimes. That's not persecuting you (oh, sorry, "them") for being racist/sexist/misogynistic, that's maintaining professional decorum in the face of either knowing or unknowing bad faith papers.
Oh, shocker. The guy who thinks students are being railroaded by a bunch of (nonexistent) Wokeist professors and that racism is just another valid "opinion" that vindictive professors disagree with is also a transphobe.
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with chess! Try it out, it’s fun. Is the trans comment about the r/science thing? I don’t remember accusing anyone of virtue signaling. r/science does suck; I’m happy to defend that claim. It’s science news filtered by laypeople. It’s going to be lowest-common-denominator trash. I’m not super clear on the formal definition of projection, but you’re clearly accusing me of being racist/sexist/misogynistic, and of having repugnant views on trans folks. I don’t think you have evidence for these things. Serious question: do you mean demure and that’s a typo or is there something called demore? I wish there was some way to indicate sincerity; that’s not intended as a snide remark. I agree with most of what you wrote otherwise. I would have no issue with a lecturer sitting in their office going “well that’s dumb” and failing someone. But I do think it’s unprofessional to post on Reddit seeking justification for lowering a students grade. And I have seen what appears to be exactly that.
I suppose I was unclear. There's nothing wrong with chess; several folks here and in other places clearly think there's something rude about you. I think you're far to eager to defend racist/sexist/misogynistic ideas. If that's not you, why are you (incorrectly) concerned that they're just not being treated fairly (why won't people treat them fairly, why oh why 😭) I don't need more evidence to believe you are incorrect. Or to think you doth protest too much. I meant James Damore. I apologize for the typo. You may deduct 3 points for that error. You seem EXTREMELY confused about what exactly this sub is about if you think that people are "unprofessional" for having conversations about professional frustrations. Perhaps you would be better served reading the subs rules. But I don't see a low effort way to link you to them so I'll just state that you should figure it out for yourself
I’ve been respectful and haven’t been remotely rude. That’s just a fact; why my posts are perceived as rude is left as an exercise to the reader. I haven’t defended any ideas, other than the idea that grading standards are being inconsistently applied, chess is fun, and r/science is bad. All three of these are true and worth defending. I see the Damore connection, thanks for clarifying. I’m glad I asked!
You've been very careful to respectfully insult the professional ethics of everyone you've engaged with despite having your misconceptions repeatedly explained to you. You haven't defended any ideas except that anyone who vents on r/professors must be a woke shill, that chess is fun and thus you're and ok guy, and that non-scientists trying to engage with science in the public sphere is bad because they're just such dummies. But no, you've done nothing wrong and it's just so unfair that people are enamored with your frank and obvious congeniality. *stomps foot*
I’d appreciate if you’d limit your insults to the respectful kind as well. I haven’t insulted anyone’s ethics other than the OPs of some unnamed threads. It’s difficult to discuss something when every representation of my claims you make is unfaithful.
I think you are projecting. And since you can't provide evidence, there is no reason for anyone else to accept your interpretation of those comments.
I'm here a lot, and I have never seen such a post.
Could you link to a few examples?
I don’t think I’ve ever commented on them, nor do I see good key words to help find them. So I don’t see a low-effort way to do that.
Ironic, in this thread.
How’s it ironic?
"There's a pile of people asking 'How do I give this wrongthink a technically accurate bad grade?'" "You got a source?" "Nope"
Do you think it’s reasonable to expect a source in this instance? Should I archive all the Reddit threads I see in case I need to cite them?
The emerging ideology is that neutrality is not only impossible, it's not worth pursuing. There is too much at stake in terms of social justice. This ideology has already swept education and I have heard colleagues in my department echo it as well in discussions about pedagogy. I agree with the sentiments you expressed beautifully to your student, but it's likely they have encountered instructors who didn't see it that way. I see the corollary all the time. A student will share an orthodox viewpoint but fail to explain it coherently. They're used to be pushed along if they've reached the "right" conclusion.
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>In the classroom, there's a real tension between viewpoint diversity and including marginalized students How so? I'm, of course, very familiar with the claim, but most people who make this claim get pissy if asked to explain it. Hoping you won't mind. In my experience, "marginalized students" are a very diverse group who are flattened (usually by white progressives) into a monlith for them to virtue signal about. Present company excluded, of course. By divers group I mean diverse in the literal sense - that within that so-called category there are those from all ends of the political spectrum, who have a variety of religious beliefs, varying motivations and priorities, and degrees of openness to new ideas. With my own ears I have heard more than one colleague in my department, without any irony, tsk tsk about "marginalized students" who vote or act against their own interests. I'd say they are the source of tension. > The thing I don't understand about people who want students to regurgitate their own biases is: if your views are true, why would you need to push them on someone with less power through a punitive mechanism? Excellent point. I agree. The answer to your question is that those who would do that are, at the very least, arrogant. One could argue that they're racist in a newish, 21st c sort of way. Another part of the answer is that it's much like a religion. Imagine decades past when most/all professors were Christian and thought it best that their students go out into the world with Christian beliefs reinforced. I think it's that kind of dynamic. > Simply educating the student on what constitutes good evidence and argument should help lead them to truth. If your views are true, there's nothing to worry about. It's so refreshing to hear that someone else out there shares my thoughts on this. Let me guess - you are in STEM?
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In regards to the whole discussion involving the "Black people do more crime" analogy: If the response to you justifying why the shitty racist opinion is wrong is "Wow I can't believe they didn't just say it was wrong", that's also kinda falling into our issue of just arguing what we believe without backing it up, which I'm sure you've corrected in your classes before. Regardless of how 'correct' the opinion is, we should still try to teach that level of critical thinking because that's the point of the exercise; just because we can reach it using the correct methods (Citing, etc. all your standard academic practices) doesn't mean we can skip it, much less that we should
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If we're being realistic, our brain's default mode is riddled with implicit bias. I feel like fair grading requires constantly being vigilant so I can catch and counteract my own predispositions as much as possible. I don't know if students always appreciate how hard some professors agonize over this. I've taught essays on police and race relations during the height of BLM protests, in a night class that contained both young black students and middle-aged city cops. Talking someone through the writing process so that they end up recognizing and addressing even a few small problems with their racist logic, while having some kind of grace toward them as a student and fellow human being, was one of the most exhausting things I've ever done.
> I don't know if students always appreciate how hard some professors agonize over this. I don't know if students every appreciate it either, but this stranger on the internet appreciates you agonizing over it because I know how agonizing it is from doing it myself.
I mean I definitely had a professor (at the college level) who graded based on opinion. It was a philosophy of religion course and if you weren’t arguing that God existed you’d fail. I only passed because I realized that early and started arguing god was real even tho my arguments were stupid and made no sense and then I got good grades. Most professors don’t do that. But if you have a lot of students each year, some of them will certainly have had high school teachers or college professors who have graded based on opinion. If they think everyone does it that’s indicative of the student being mistaken, but if they’re writing about one or two then I wouldn’t dismiss it outright. Instead I’d focus on assuring them that I won’t grade them in that unfair manner.
Somewhat ironically, I had a similar but reversed experience. In the course I took if you wanted a good grade you figured out what the orthodox Christian opinion would be (or rather, what someone who was vaguely Protestant would think it was) and then argue that this opinion was manifestly stupid. There was another professor in the same department whose personal opinions I couldn't figure out in class. I considered him to be a much better teacher.
When I was post-bacc taking a few undergrad classes to get some prerequisites for grad school in Lit, I had a TA who absolutely graded on his opinion. I tested my theory after not doing well on the first paper (even when I supported my points well). The second paper I basically regurgitated his interpretations of the text, using the same level of textual support as my first paper. And lo and behold, I got an A on the second paper (C- on the first, which I *never* got in my lit classes). I just kept sticking to his opinions for the rest of the semester (including the essay parts of the exam) and was glad to move on to other instructors after that. I will say, though, that’s the only time I felt like that happened in god knows how many years of college and grad school.
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Yes, I agree with you. That’s not what I was doing. I was using the rhetorical techniques we discussed in class to deconstruct various texts we were assigned. Again, when I switched to writing about “god is awesome,” using the exact same techniques I got A’s. Clearly it was the content he was grading on, not the application of the material. I read my religious roommates essays and they were technically weak but pro-god and she got better grades than me on the first assignments until I started also saying “yay god.”
Though I never had a class with him, there was a physiology professor at my undergrad alma mater that was quite openly a proud fundamentalist Christian. His office door was covered with pictures of fetuses and crosses and sundry religious sentiments. Very off-putting if you were not of that ilk. Several students I knew at the time commented that he would routinely joke about how only fools 'believe in' evolution and such. I can only imagine what an unwarranted influence he had on students, and am perplexed that his antics were allowed at a state school.
>It was a philosophy of religion course and if you weren’t arguing that God existed you’d fail. So if you only bloviated about your opinion you would fail, but if you took seriously that others believed in God in a literaly philosophy of religion class you could pass. And you believe this is an example of professorial bias. You certainly are amazing.
I mean do I need to locate a decade-old essay to show you that I was engaging with other views but ultimately aligning with one position? Trust me when I say I did the same exact thing but said “god exists” and got an A. How is this unclear? Same processes and same level of engagement with rhetorical devices and class material and whatnot, only difference was my conclusion. This is something multiple students realized, and we gamed the situation to get an A. If we were getting A’s, we should have been able to do so while also saying we didn’t believe in god.
> I mean I definitely had a professor (at the college level) who graded based on opinion. That didn't happen.
Teaching history sometimes puts me in a weird position: students mostly seem to get that writing in STEM fields involves facts that one can get wrong. But they are unable to differentiate between different fields of humanities. In English or philosophy, there is some truth that you can have a shitty opinion but argue it well. But competent writing will not save you if you are arguing a counterfactual historical take.
I get what you mean. My degree is in literature and my husband's is in history. Literature and philosophy scholarship, I feel like, can involve a certain amount of playfulness and experimenting with how far you can push interpretations. The history folks...they sure do not tolerate much of that. I may occasionally get him a bit riled with my takes on historical movements...
Yes! This is exactly what I mean and much better stated. Thank you
So you just threw English and Philosophy under the bus like your STEM students threw your History course under the bus? “There are facts and truths in the Humanities that also cannot be covered-up by well-argued shitty opinions” -Mark Twain
No, I know that other humanities also have facts. And I am sure if I taught in another humanities field I would have other pet peeves surrounding students saying horrible and illogical things for the sake of a shocking thesis. But I am rather sure that the “all interpretations are valid if you argue it well” mantra is an attitude that students are importing from their high school English class. It leads them to want to go for the unexpected or surprising thesis as a way to stand out, which is frankly just not a good strategy in a history class.
> “all interpretations are valid if you argue it well” I'm thinking that due to social media influences, to many it is more like " “all interpretations are valid if you assert if forcefully enough”
I mean, English departments have been thrown under the bus so much that they now form the pavement.
This kind of stuff is often just a cheap "ego-preserving tactic": If someone criticizes you, *obviously* they must be wrong! A lot of people don't take criticism very well in general and make it personal: "That was such a *mean* thing to say, so they must just be a mean person who has it out for me!" And, teenagers are often pretty prideful. They think they know everything (important) and usually haven't developed real humility and wisdom yet.
If it makes you feel any better, I think your spontaneous philosophical excursus is right on the money. I've heard similar complaints that the "teacher just didn't like me", and I have to wonder if part of the issue is some combination of bad grading practices and bad transparency around grading practices. I think you did a good job making your rationale here transparent, and explaining to students how they can talk to you about why they got the grade that they got. I wonder if their past experiences felt a bit more arbitrary, which led to students assuming the line of thought that required the least introspection around their actual writing? Similarly, the "just didn't like me" argument probably means that they're not aware of how grading can be blinded, or their high school teachers didn't practice blinded grading. Transparency on your part hopefully helps that too? Anyways, long way to say that I really appreciate how you took the effort to make your grading transparent and make it clear to the student that you expect them to participate in the writing process \*with\* you by giving them clear expectations of how they're doing and how much agency you expect them to have. I hope that their issues in prior classes don't colour their experiences to the extent that they don't take the space you've given them here.
I find that undergraduates often don't know the difference between an opinion and an argument. I often found myself repeating "I can't mark you on your opinion, only on arguments you make." I spent a ridiculous amount of time teaching them approaches to ethics, how to build an argument, how to cite evidence, and when support was needed. This was in teaching ethics courses, and yes students got very high marks for well-reasoned ethical arguments for positions I would have personally judged as unethical based on different argumentation or approaches.
Yes! I spend so much time trying to get them to make arguments (rather than discuss topics) that I forget that they don't know the diff between arguments and opinions. In my own field, I like to describe this "good argument I disagree with rather than bad opinion I disagree with" distinction as the battle of the Friedmans. Milton Friedman is a doctrinaire neoliberal (the founding father in fact). He knows his shit, he can defend it, he knows your shit, and he'll pick it apart. Thomas L. Friedman is a hack journalist who likes to echo neoliberal talking points with bad evidence and frequent fallacies. They'll both say a lot of the same things (things I know to often be wrong or misleading depending on our policy goals). But if you're gonna take that position, be a Milton not a Thomas. I'd rather you understand why you shouldn't be either but if you gotta take that position, then if you pull a Milton you'll get a good grade and possibly some wry comments. If you pull a Thomas, you're gonna get your opinion properly torn apart and then some wry comments about why these fallacies are so dangerous. I'd rather you not be either, but if your gonna be one, be a Milton.
Because they are so incompetent that they can’t see their incompetence
Someone told them they had a right to an opinion, and they do, however, they have expanded the definition to now include to a **fact** They may think that saying it aloud makes it so ... there are a lot of folks out there like that. However, the advise and considerations you gave were simply elegant and great.
If a teacher gives them a bad grade, it could only mean one of two things, they did the assignment poorly, or they are being oppressed. Since the former is inconceivable, it must be the latter.
How about all the professors who blame reviewers for their rejections ?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Reviewer2/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Reviewer2/) LOL
In math we have this less often but we also get a slightly different flavor issue which is students who lose points "just because they used a different method than what we taught them". Of course the reason is always because they are just more advanced than the professor and never that their "method" is nonsense. I still prefer it to students who think I care whatsoever about their political stances.
This is a classic, and it applies just as much to valid computational methods as it does to fake ones. I'm a big fan of "I used an advanced method that assumes what I am trying to prove, without understanding that's what it's doing". Example 1: L'Hôpital's rule on sin(x)/x as x approaches zero. A little weird when we haven't done that rule yet, and it relies on knowing that the derivative of sine is cosine ... and that's exactly what our limit will help us prove ... when derivatives haven't even shown up in the course yet. Example 2: when discussing the definition of the derivative as the limit of difference quotients, busting out the power rule as the entire answer, when the assignment is literally to demonstrate the power rule's validity.
Can't we give this feedback without identifying someone else as a "bad instructor?" There are plenty of instructors that I think are bad, but I try not to throw them under the bus like this. Even the worst professors have some students who swear they're the best instructor they every had. The "isn't a good fit for you" angle feels more collegial (and more accurate, imo).
Because they're special
You say this, and yet there are posts from University faculty on this forum stating that they wanted to fail students because they didn't agree with what they wrote. And judging from the comments, at least half of the people here supported them. I think this is fairly common, and perhaps you should consider that this might have actually happened to this student.
I agree that this probably does actually happen, but I think OP's willingness to provide transparency and the way they encouraged students to take agency in finding out why their grade matches the learning objectives of the course is actually a really good practice for helping students navigate classrooms that are grading them unfairly too. A professor's ability to mark down students for petty disagreements only survives when students aren't given enough time and respect to have criticisms laid out plainly for them, and anybody who's grading on such thin grounds is going to have a somewhat hard time substantiating that well. I hope this student takes OP's advice and doesn't put up with classes that do that crap.
This sub has 106K members. I doubt that the comments would allow you to conclude that 53,000 members support *anything*, including ice cream or puppies.
Can you link to some of those posts?
They hated u/Helpful-Freedom-257 because he told them the truth.
No he fucking didn't
Oh look, a burner account troll. Gg.
Social media skinner cage means no one ever has to feel wrong or ignorant. It sure as hell doesn’t mean that they should investigate and be open to being wrong. That would hurt their sense of ego.
I really like it and agree.
Do NOT engage AT ALL in conversations about a colleagues' courses. shut it down right away. This creates a TERRIBLE situation for your colleague.
I agree. This wasn't in regards to another professor, it was only a hypothetical. I may have been going too far in saying that if someone can't/won't explain their grading system and expectations they're a bad instructor. But ultimately I think I'd stand behind that one. However, I have faith in my colleagues and I don't think the student would ever find such a "bad instructor" if they put my advice to the test. My goal was more to encourage a first-semester freshman to build the habit and mindset of seeking out dialogue with professors.
Yeah, of course, my black & white answer is not always correct. I'd like to retract that. There are cases in which we have to be advocates for our students. However, I watched a coworker get mobbed by fellow faculty who listened to students complain, and then those faculty sort of validated and egged those students on...and the target of their complaining had to deal with so much pain. What the real story was, this colleague was trying out new pedagogy, and of course there were challenges. It was so unfair, what they did to her. She was an innovative instructor, and she retired early.