The course in the history of science has always posted the grades for homework and the final exam online. When I took it back then, I checked my grades on Professor Wu’s personal homepage, whereas now they are usually posted on the BBS.
Every time grades are posted, there is inevitably some questioning: by making classmates’ information public like this, what about their privacy and so on? Here I might as well explain the reasons for doing it.
First of all, the very notion of “privacy” is strange. Why are grades a student’s privacy? I have only heard that the exam scores of primary and secondary school students cannot be casually disclosed, and that is understandable, since it is meant to protect the tender minds of minors. But is it the same for university students’ grades? Of course, I do not entirely agree with the practice of keeping primary and secondary school grades private either. Children are not nearly as fragile as many parents imagine. If they really were so fragile that they could not accept the public disclosure of grades, or if the public disclosure of grades truly led to unhealthy consequences such as vicious comparison and competition, then one should guide children’s mental development through other means; the problem would not lie in the public disclosure of grades itself.
Why does the public disclosure of grades make some people uncomfortable? Probably because some students do not take the course seriously at all, but merely want to pick up a few credits. Since they are trying to “get by,” of course they would prefer to slip through quietly, without making their grades public. And precisely because the public disclosure of grades makes these people uncomfortable, that is all the more reason to disclose the grades. This is a serious course, and the teacher, the teaching assistants, and the students alike should all take the students’ grades seriously. The teaching assistants are not grading with a fan blade modified into a pen, but are taking each and every answer seriously and believe that their grading is reasonable; that is why I dare to post not only the scores but even the details of how they were arrived at. And if the students also take the course seriously, then they need not fear the publication of their grades either. Posting the grades first and foremost proclaims the seriousness of the course. If you do not dare face your own grades, then you had better not take the course in the first place.
Then again, I suspect there are still quite a number of students who are willing to see the grades posted. Of course, this mainly refers to those with excellent grades. For example, when I got a 92 back then, looking at the absolute score alone was not enough to make one satisfied; only when I saw the complete list of grades and discovered that I belonged to the top tier did I feel satisfied. Professor Wu often stressed that when assigning grades one should pay attention to “a sense of honor,” such as by giving as many scores above 90 as possible; this is for much the same reason. In other words, in absolute terms, one should give the best students handsome grades, while in relative terms, one should let excellent students see where they stand in the ranking. All this is for the sake of “a sense of honor.” University education is, by nature, a kind of elite education rather than mass education. What we should consider first are the few students who take the course seriously and achieve excellent results, rather than putting the majority first. Therefore, even if two-thirds of the students do not want their grades to be made public, it is still worthwhile to post them for the honor of the few outstanding students.
Honor belongs to the individual, whereas grades do not. Grades themselves reflect the result of a semester-long exchange between the students, the teacher, and the teaching assistants. The course itself should be an open platform, not a private one-on-one interaction between the teacher and each individual student that ultimately yields a private result. And yet some people regard grades as something personal, while not regarding their own honor as personal. For instance, if someone wants to oppose the public disclosure of grades, they will certainly do so in the name of “everyone,” rather than in their own name—by making “everyone’s” grades and “their” privacy public, isn’t that somehow improper? They would never say: you made my grades public, causing me to lose face, causing me psychological imbalance, causing me distress… Very few people would say such things. Honor is not merely something externally bestowed; first and foremost, it is something one must shoulder oneself. Only by daring to bear an unfavorable reputation can one truly obtain a glory that belongs to oneself.
June 22, 2010
Latest comments
- Yiwu
2010-06-22 21:36:30
Grading papers with a fan blade… so vivid…
“University education is, by nature, a kind of elite education rather than mass education. What we should consider first are the few students who take the course seriously and achieve excellent results, rather than putting the majority first.”—It is said that when Kant taught students back in the day, he thought teachers should look after the middle students; the excellent students are good on their own and need no worrying about, and there is nothing much to manage with the poorly performing students; only the middle-range students are the ones a teacher should pay attention to. What kind of training model is that? And how should elites be cultivated? - Guwu
2010-06-23 00:21:07
The normal model of education ought to be just like this. If you are talking about how a mentor should bring along students, then I would also support what you said about Kant. But in large lectures there is fundamentally no question of “bringing along” students: regardless of whether they are good, average, or poor, they are simply listening to the teacher’s lecture together, and there is no specialized tutoring after class. So there is no question of which group of students one is specifically managing.
Of course, even when it comes to excellent students, the teacher may not need to manage their studying, but one still has to provide them with a good environment, an atmosphere and a stage that suit them. One important part of this is praise and honor. Even the best actor needs appropriate lighting and applause from the audience; in a better atmosphere, good students will be able to display their talents more fully. Therefore, a teacher does not need to manage good students’ studies, but still has to manage the stage setting for good students.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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