Nor do I see what’s so bad about curving grades, assuming the class doesn’t conspire before the test. It’s my understanding that to curve the grades means to base them off of what the highest student scored. If no one is scoring well, then there is reason to suspect the teacher isn’t doing her job.
The “real” grade and the curved grade measure different things.
The underlying grade measures one’s achievement against the curriculum. It does not look to circumstances. One might have had an extremely good teacher; or, perhaps a severe winter kept one inside studying; or, one’s parents might have afforded extras tutors. This grade tries to answer: “what does this person know about this subject, regardless of how and why”.
The curved grade measures one against one’s classmates. However, it too does not explain the why and how of such relative differences. One could adjust grades in various other ways. For instance, one could say: Asian parents push their kids academically, so let’s subtract an Asian-adjustment factor. After all, why compensate for teachers alone, how about compensating for parenting. One could say, when measuring a History grade let’s adjust it upward for those who scored poorly on English, because part of their poor showing in History may actually be the result of their lesser knowledge of English. And so on, ad infinitum…
As such, one cannot say: this or that type of grading is better. One must first know: better for what?
Only if you have to learn the material, but in this case, you don’t need to.
You may as well, since you have to take the class ANYWAY. You don’t have to learn all of it, just the bits that you find useful/interesting. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to pick up useful tidbits of information, especially if you can tie it in with things that you already know. I have the hardest time remembering info that comes to me as floating abstractions, not tied to anything else. If I have an integrating principle, I don’t forget them. Easy.
“But grades should not be absolute. That is to say, one should not be graded strictly on performance but rather on performance in relation to other students in the class.”
In making this assertion, Ostrovsky ignores one key function of grades, that is, to measure a student’s mastery of the material. When grades are assigned merely as a measure of comparison among students, then how does one measure mastery of the material?
So Olex I’m assuming you believe grades cannot measure the mastery of the material when they are graded by a curve.
The article makes me wonder how we do judge “mastery” of anything. Am I a master at something because I am better than everyone else, or am I am master at something because whatever that something is, I perform it with near perfection? I guess the answer to those questions is, “It depends what you want to abstract and for what purpose.”
I still think curving grades has its merits. Isn’t our market (the professor), generally speaking, that which rewards (grades) based on performance in relation to other businesses (students) within the same market?
Thoughts?
Hehe, I took that one for a while because it’s my nickname, the one my mom gave me when I was little. It’s some sort of comic-book figure back in the netherlands, he’s a mascotte for one of the fruit jelly brands over here and they made a few books for the little guy as well.
I might put it back when I get back home, it’s pretty cute 
Felix: I found a very interesting post made by Betsy Speicher on another thread. I believe it explains well the possible damage of doing something on daily basis which one does not enjoy doing:
Repression is emotional suppression (the setting aside of emotional content and the cognitive content that gave rise to it) that becomes automatized. The problem with repression is that a represser loses contact with his values and it is hard to access them because the practice is automatized.
In the case of studying despite one’s emotion of dislike, and lack of enjoyment can lead to the destruction of one’s ability to connect values with pleasure. (Booha! I’m scared!).
So constantly setting aside negative emotions to engage in an activity that is suppose to be good for one’s future may come at a higher price than what one would actually be willing to pay.
Just an important point I wanted to stress.