I think John's recognition that the negative reaction of students getting a worse grade than they felt deserving of as a universal experience is a valuable one. I can remember having that one, myself, as a young man in college for the first time. I missed the cutoff for an A in a class by 2 points (out of 400 total) and even had what I felt was a good rationale for why I deserved credit on a question on the final and when my teacher considered it and said no, I blamed him and thought back to all the events that took place over the semester for any reason to think of him as unfair. I eventually moved past it and accepted that an almost-A wasn't going to taint my academic record and now that I'm much older, I recognize my urge to blame the teacher as a character flaw common in adolescence/early adulthood. When I complained about it to friends and family, I was fortunate that those people encouraged me to move past it. Had they instead encouraged me to get angrier about it and given validity to my outrage, I might have had a much more difficult time. I'm back in school now as a 39 year old (at the same school as Glenn's granddaughter, apparently, Go Illini!), making all As and recognizing the difference between the 4.0 I have now at a better university and the 3.3 I earned in my early 20s is how much effort I put into my schoolwork and how little I go out partying and doing other non-academic activities. I think if one of my classmates now expressed feelings of being treated unfairly because of their race or other immutable characteristics, I wouldn't encourage them to feel that outrage more strongly, thinking of myself as an ally in the process. (Admittedly, this is likely what I'd have done when I was younger.) Instead, I'd probably try to share some of my process for preparing for exams and writing papers (assuming I'm doing well in the class, myself). In the event that one of my teachers doesn't give me a grade that I feel I deserve, I am confident in my abilities to articulate an argument for why I do deserve better and if the teacher won't accept it or offer a sufficient refutation of my arguments, I'll present my case to his or her boss with the same confidence. This seems to me like the result of having enough of my unreasoned arguments rejected and my good ones accepted on their merits. I never enjoyed having holes poked in my bad arguments, but it was this displeasure that forced me to make better ones. I think denying someone the same requirement denies them the same opportunity to grow and ergo can't be viewed as moral or ethical behavior. I really enjoy the show, Glenn and John!
I think John's recognition that the negative reaction of students getting a worse grade than they felt deserving of as a universal experience is a valuable one. I can remember having that one, myself, as a young man in college for the first time. I missed the cutoff for an A in a class by 2 points (out of 400 total) and even had what I felt was a good rationale for why I deserved credit on a question on the final and when my teacher considered it and said no, I blamed him and thought back to all the events that took place over the semester for any reason to think of him as unfair. I eventually moved past it and accepted that an almost-A wasn't going to taint my academic record and now that I'm much older, I recognize my urge to blame the teacher as a character flaw common in adolescence/early adulthood. When I complained about it to friends and family, I was fortunate that those people encouraged me to move past it. Had they instead encouraged me to get angrier about it and given validity to my outrage, I might have had a much more difficult time. I'm back in school now as a 39 year old (at the same school as Glenn's granddaughter, apparently, Go Illini!), making all As and recognizing the difference between the 4.0 I have now at a better university and the 3.3 I earned in my early 20s is how much effort I put into my schoolwork and how little I go out partying and doing other non-academic activities. I think if one of my classmates now expressed feelings of being treated unfairly because of their race or other immutable characteristics, I wouldn't encourage them to feel that outrage more strongly, thinking of myself as an ally in the process. (Admittedly, this is likely what I'd have done when I was younger.) Instead, I'd probably try to share some of my process for preparing for exams and writing papers (assuming I'm doing well in the class, myself). In the event that one of my teachers doesn't give me a grade that I feel I deserve, I am confident in my abilities to articulate an argument for why I do deserve better and if the teacher won't accept it or offer a sufficient refutation of my arguments, I'll present my case to his or her boss with the same confidence. This seems to me like the result of having enough of my unreasoned arguments rejected and my good ones accepted on their merits. I never enjoyed having holes poked in my bad arguments, but it was this displeasure that forced me to make better ones. I think denying someone the same requirement denies them the same opportunity to grow and ergo can't be viewed as moral or ethical behavior. I really enjoy the show, Glenn and John!