Thanks for sharing your academic journey at LeTourneau. I couldn't agree more about how you felt in EPM and at the start of each semester. I was so thankful when I got a B+ in Physics 1 because it not only humbled me at the very beginning of EE and solidified my pursuit of non-physical design, but it also freed me from trying to maintain a 4.0 ... despite it still being my only B haha. This freed me up to prioritize learning. I was very thankful that my professors in junior and senior year as well as in grad school used more fluid grading techniques and let me learn more of what I needed to know through projects and research. It helped make me a much more effective engineer.
Back in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, there was a wildly popular humanities prof by the name of Richard Olson (Literature?). I never had him, but I remember him coming into one of my humanities classes one day and remarking that his FAVORITE STUDENT at Mudd was the C student, because that student was really not all that worried about grades anyways and could be free to put it all on the line in his class, exploring and sharing freely any ideas without fear of reprisal or losing his precious grade point average. I don't remember many specific things that professors said at Mudd, but this one from Professor Olson I have never forgotten. And, I have sought throughout my life to become free from my own obsession with grade-point-itis.
With the topic of grades in mind, you remind me of an opportunity I had about 12 years ago to become a tutor in a startup high school tutoring center in Orange County that was run by and catered largely to Koreans. It appeared to me that the primary purpose of this cram school was to help (Korean) students ace the SAT and produce immaculate college applications, i.e. entrance essays, in order to get into the best schools. My tenure there was extremely short, one 2-hour session in which I spent the time with only one student. During that brief time, I was pretty vocal about my one student NOT focusing on his grades, NOT stressing over his SAT performance, and NOT trying to concoct a trumped-up image of himself in his application essay. I wanted him instead to put his laptop away and try writing his essay with a pencil and paper, and to think of honest and actual life experiences that he had had rather than an idealized fabrication that he thought might compel schools to be aghast at his incredible worth. I just wanted him to be honest about his self-assessment and put it simply in writing. I never got called back to the school. Watching other tutors that day vigorously championing the very tenets that I was fighting against burned my ideals about education even more deeply into me. I still wonder what that student thought about the weird Chinese guy and his crazy ideas.
Thanks for this story, Jim. Something tells me that even had your tenure lasted longer at that cram school you would have felt a constant tension with the ethos of the place. Wonder what influence your two-hour session had on that student.
The prof bumped me up to an A even though I didn’t quite make the cut off. Part of my reflection on this experience is that it’s pretty hard to define what it means to “deserve an A” and this idea of us approaching grades as a hurdle to clear in order to prove ourselves is often not well aligned with our desire to encourage students to focus on learning. I really feel this now that I’m on the other side of the desk and giving grades rather than receiving them. My post from last week may add some more color to my thoughts too if you’re interested. https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/i-grew-up-oblivious-about-grades
Josh- Thanks for this breakdown. I enjoyed the thinking and the chance to review the position on perfection. To me, the pursuit of perfection has an odd exponential quality. Especially if we're talking how much more difficult it is to achieve perfection once you're beyond 'good enough.' The difficulty of going from A to A+, for me anyway, has always been much more confronting than going from, say, B to A--even though the increment jump is about the same. And that jump in difficulty doesn't always translate into the type of satisfaction and meaning it promises. Maybe this is an analogy for certain things in life? Your writing is a great reminder of this.
Thanks for sharing your academic journey at LeTourneau. I couldn't agree more about how you felt in EPM and at the start of each semester. I was so thankful when I got a B+ in Physics 1 because it not only humbled me at the very beginning of EE and solidified my pursuit of non-physical design, but it also freed me from trying to maintain a 4.0 ... despite it still being my only B haha. This freed me up to prioritize learning. I was very thankful that my professors in junior and senior year as well as in grad school used more fluid grading techniques and let me learn more of what I needed to know through projects and research. It helped make me a much more effective engineer.
Thanks for the comment, Allen. Appreciate you sharing your experience as well.
Back in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, there was a wildly popular humanities prof by the name of Richard Olson (Literature?). I never had him, but I remember him coming into one of my humanities classes one day and remarking that his FAVORITE STUDENT at Mudd was the C student, because that student was really not all that worried about grades anyways and could be free to put it all on the line in his class, exploring and sharing freely any ideas without fear of reprisal or losing his precious grade point average. I don't remember many specific things that professors said at Mudd, but this one from Professor Olson I have never forgotten. And, I have sought throughout my life to become free from my own obsession with grade-point-itis.
I never had the chance to meet Dick before he passed away, but have been shaped by a speech he delivered in 2015 that the HSA department posted on the department blog (https://www.hmc.edu/hsa/2020/03/20/what-is-a-liberal-arts-education-anyway-by-richard-olson/). A beautiful vision of the value of a liberal arts education.
I love the framing of helping students get in a place where they can "put it all on the line."
With the topic of grades in mind, you remind me of an opportunity I had about 12 years ago to become a tutor in a startup high school tutoring center in Orange County that was run by and catered largely to Koreans. It appeared to me that the primary purpose of this cram school was to help (Korean) students ace the SAT and produce immaculate college applications, i.e. entrance essays, in order to get into the best schools. My tenure there was extremely short, one 2-hour session in which I spent the time with only one student. During that brief time, I was pretty vocal about my one student NOT focusing on his grades, NOT stressing over his SAT performance, and NOT trying to concoct a trumped-up image of himself in his application essay. I wanted him instead to put his laptop away and try writing his essay with a pencil and paper, and to think of honest and actual life experiences that he had had rather than an idealized fabrication that he thought might compel schools to be aghast at his incredible worth. I just wanted him to be honest about his self-assessment and put it simply in writing. I never got called back to the school. Watching other tutors that day vigorously championing the very tenets that I was fighting against burned my ideals about education even more deeply into me. I still wonder what that student thought about the weird Chinese guy and his crazy ideas.
Thanks for this story, Jim. Something tells me that even had your tenure lasted longer at that cram school you would have felt a constant tension with the ethos of the place. Wonder what influence your two-hour session had on that student.
I liked this article, but I must be missing something here--how did you get an A if you didn't deserve it?
Thanks for reading, Naomi.
The prof bumped me up to an A even though I didn’t quite make the cut off. Part of my reflection on this experience is that it’s pretty hard to define what it means to “deserve an A” and this idea of us approaching grades as a hurdle to clear in order to prove ourselves is often not well aligned with our desire to encourage students to focus on learning. I really feel this now that I’m on the other side of the desk and giving grades rather than receiving them. My post from last week may add some more color to my thoughts too if you’re interested. https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/i-grew-up-oblivious-about-grades
Josh- Thanks for this breakdown. I enjoyed the thinking and the chance to review the position on perfection. To me, the pursuit of perfection has an odd exponential quality. Especially if we're talking how much more difficult it is to achieve perfection once you're beyond 'good enough.' The difficulty of going from A to A+, for me anyway, has always been much more confronting than going from, say, B to A--even though the increment jump is about the same. And that jump in difficulty doesn't always translate into the type of satisfaction and meaning it promises. Maybe this is an analogy for certain things in life? Your writing is a great reminder of this.