> But some are an assault on reason, with every word of the assignment creatively misinterpreted. It was never stated which temperature circuit to build or how to prove it works or what level of explanation was necessary. And who’s to say what “build” means?
OK? So your students tried to do something and failed creatively. Sounds good. Reward them for their efforts, ask them to try again if you feel that they still need to get something out of the assignment.
> But some don’t, and they keep complaining and asking for regrades, and if those aren’t accepted they (or their parents) contact the principal/chair/dean/ombudsperson, who are required to have an investigation.
OK.
> hat gets misinterpreted too, so more details are added, and by the time the teacher retires you have a monstrosity that’s universally despised but almost impossible to complain about.
So your bad solution is good because it started off bad and ended worse. OK.
> Well, enjoy re-grading every single assignment from every student near a boundary,
Round up by default? If someone has an 89, just give them the 90. Honestly, who cares if a few students come up to you and want regrades, I imagine it takes all of 30 seconds to cross out the old grade and add the new one. How onerous...
> As far as I can tell, most follow the incentives and make little effort to stop cheating.
Cool. Most of the time cheating entails something like access to notes on a test that is artificially made more difficult by requiring memorization. That's why open note tests are far better.
> But some teachers are principled
Bummer. They don't sound principled so much as they sound unimaginative.
> Say you suspect students are copying from each other on an exam. You can silently prepare multiple versions of the exam with “micro differences” in questions.
Sounds dumb, I don't like the idea of trying to "trap" kids. I cheated exactly once on a test and got away with it - why? Because I was unhappy in school and I went home and spent my time distracting myself rather than preparing for it. Me cheating one time had literally no negative impact on my life, you trapping me and once again teaching me that education goes hand in hand with punishment would have done years of damage.
> They realized that they could skip learning the material, and instead complete the project by running an evolutionary algorithm with my father’s grading as a reward function.
Creative. Without knowing more about the assignment it's hard to judge, but I'm wary of any assignment that you can just brute force like that.
> your students will be lazy and fallible.
I had to undo years of being told I was "smart but lazy". Teachers need to erase that word from their vocabulary.
> So they won’t learn anything.
That's OK, most people don't learn much from school.
> And then they will blame you for not forcing them to do the homework.
a) OK
b) I mean, maybe the parents would? I frankly don't believe that any student will blame a teacher for not forcing them to do homework.
> Surely what matters is if a student understands things, not if they ask questions in class?
Good question. What exactly is the point? To me, education serves a few functions.
1. Babysitting kids so that parents can work
2. Providing young people with a safe place for them to explore their emerging identities, interests, and view of the world
3. Stoking an interest in learning and providing the tools and resources to build a baseline knowledge for future education
So, is understanding really the goal? I don't see understanding as being particularly critical to the education system.
> Participation credit helps to internalize positive externalities.
100% agreed.
My transcript is an odd mix of grades - even within a single class, within a single semester I could go from an A or B to a D or F, or coast by on a C. What I value most is that during that time I dated, made lifelong friends, read books on physics and philosophy, discovered New York City while I skipped classes, played video games, learned to bike, etc. All of the stuff you're talking about, it's the stuff that got in the way of everything that has produced value in my life.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I think school is pretty stupid, as is, but I find that I pretty much exclusively disagree with teachers about why. I sometimes read /r/teachers and the self indulgent pity party, and the "I wanted to be good but I just hate kids now!" theme, is sickening.
I also find it sad that so many people become what they hate. I think people seem to have an incredibly hard time empathizing with their former selves, which I find so weird. But I've had adults trivialize teenagers' problems, as if just because now they have "adult problems" that somehow means that when they were a kid they were just dramatic.
Maybe try to regain some insight into why your younger self would be disappointed, and what they might suggest.