By Professor Doom
Yes, black lives
matter…strangely, it’s considered offensive to say “all lives matter,” though I
honestly believe they do. Singling out one group over all others really can
lead to a sense of entitlement, a sense that only seems to grow.
How bad can it
get? The gentle reader should consider:
No, that’s not a
link to an Onion article (I’ve been caught like that a few times). Black
students asking for extra credit for being black has already happened at Harvard and Columbia, but these
are schools already well known for giving bonuses to minorities just for being minorities...administration
at these schools caved.
This time around,
we’re at Oberlin College, not exactly Ivy League, where students made a bizarre
demand:
Now, this level of
completely irrational thinking is hardly restricted to minorities—I had a white
(cheating) student just last semester ask me to summarily pass him, not because
he deserved to pass, but so that he didn’t waste a few thousand dollars. There’s
plenty of irrationality to go around, I promise you.
The students
helpfully offer ways to justify a passing grade:
“rather than writing a paper students
instead meet with their professor to simply discuss in groups their paper
topics or if tests are taken collectively with professors there are ways to
make sure we are learning what we are supposed to be learning in ways that are
not so taxing…”
Seriously, rather
than the student actually working on his writing skills, just get together in a
group and talk about it? That’s just not the same thing, not even close. Take
the test collectively with the professor? It’s hard not to laugh, most
professors (outside of Education) are quite capable of passing their own tests
all by themselves, without student help.
Wacky suggestions
like this don’t happen in a vacuum. The gentle reader needs to understand that,
for many classes on campus, students indeed take the test collectively with the
professor, that instead of actually demonstrating personal knowledge for a
grade, students sit in a group and talk a bit…and that these endeavors really
do result in passing grades.
Yes, learning can
be “taxing.” These students really need to learn that human beings have studied
and learned in times of war, during famines, and quite a few other hardships
far worse than being involved in some protest marches.
“Students in this moment should have
complete access to alternative modes of learning…”
Ah, the old
“alternative modes of learning” cry of the educationist. Hey, I admit, some
ways are easier than others, for some people, sometimes, but ultimately, you
need to be able to demonstrate an ability to the satisfaction of someone
else…in a way the other person can accept.
There’s no such thing as “alternative methods” to winning Olympic events…you
need to actually perform by a strict set of rules, not blabber “I should get a
gold medal for javelin throwing because I went to a protest.” Even if we
accepted the protests are relevant, this has nothing to do with passing
students that have failed the course.
Just a little
more from the petition:
“Basically,
no student especially black students and students of color should be failing a
class this semester. A "C" should be the lowest grade students can
receive this semester.”
Talk about a silly
racial shakedown, eh? Now comes the amazing part. While the big league schools’
administration sold out, admin at the little school actually had a spine:
Let’s hear it for
Oberlin College, which
firmly believes that academic grades should be given for academic work, and not
based on skin color. Oberlin, incidentally, is a private college that, while
expensive, clearly hasn’t sold out for the “growth over all” student loan
scheme. They have less than 3,000 students (alas, over 1,000 administrators…once
again I complain we have too many admin in higher ed), and only accept around
30% of applicants. Kudos to President Kristov for shutting down at least some
of the entitlement madness gripping higher education.
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