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Incompetence rules...

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Kill:
Apply for Harvard  :laugh:

No really, that sounds pretty sad Elevz. I understand this was supposed to be an academic essay right? I mean, if it had been something like an exercise in journalistic writing or an article to be written with the idea of being accessible to the general public, ok. Simple and concise writing is a skill in its own right. But the way you're describing it, you were requested to dumb down an academic paper written for academic review because the fellow student supposed to have a look at it had trouble to live up to the intellectual task of understanding it....? That's really preposterous and if I got that right, I fully agree with you here. I wouldn't go as far as supporting any theories of how "they" (a word easily misused to establish an elusive idea of some conspirational elite) want to keep "us" (the other word to go with that blurry picture) dumb and so on, but what this does smell of is the same kind of kid-glove treatment for less capable students that I felt confronted with all high school. I've always had the optimism to think that on university level this mediocrity-is-best, it's-all-about-diligence, learn-by-heart-recite-and-you're-a-good-student-don't-matter-if-you-didn't-get-it-at-all pattern would finally be over with, but the way you're describing it that seems not to be the case where you are at. The thought behind this seems to be: "Oh, Elevz' paper happens to be too elaborate for this poor overchallenged fellow of his, but since dude did his best, we can't blame him. Let Elevz water down the essay then". At this educational level, this is just sad. Making intellectual progress often involves being confronted with texts, essays, books and whatnot that are too difficult to fully understand at first. Encouraging students to make their own work accessible to the less gifted is ridiculous.


--- Quote from: Eleven 2 Three on March 09, 2008, 04:22:35 PM ---
--- Quote from: KillaTay10 Supporter of the 'Kill Jimmy Iovine Movement' on March 08, 2008, 07:21:18 PM ---In the U.S., we have laws that kind of put that kind of thinking into effect. The standardized testings and the No Child Left Behind act prefer to have everybody slow down instead of expressing their knowledge.
--- End quote ---

Which is basically what already happened to me in primary school. I was always bored to death and started tinkering with random objects, a scissor and some glue. You can't imagine how devastating boredom is to ambition...

--- End quote ---
That's the old problem of the first few years of school being based on even the slowest child being able to cope. I don't even remember those years too well (in terms of how things were in the classroom), but I do remember that it quite seriously sapped my enthusiasm regarding any kind of public education. It's actually appalling how little of my personal education is related to my 12 fucking years of school.


--- Quote from: 7even on March 09, 2008, 04:29:34 PM ---Well, everybody will think "rebelling" is an euphemism for you not being capable. If you get a bad GPA people will just think you suck. Apart from making an idealistic point (that only few people, at best, will notice) I don't see a reason to do so.
--- End quote ---
...and that's exactly the type of cold pragmatism that got me through this whole dumb educational system :D


--- Quote from: King Sikotic on March 09, 2008, 06:38:03 PM ---I feel what you're saying. The thing is though, I didn't write bullshit just to get the grade, I demonstrated that I fully understood the topic. Some people wrote bullshit and didn't understand the topic at all, but just because they only wrote a little bit, they got full credit for the assignment. She never even specified the length of the paper.
--- End quote ---
I think that's the crucial point. I think in general it can be sensible to have certain restrictions to length in academic papers (not to intellectual quality/complexity as in Elevz case, that's simply retarded), but it has to be specified very clearly and if it wasn't, fuck her for bitching about it afterwards. That's pretty unprofessional.

Kill:
...and I don't mean to support bullying of less bright students by the way. Everyone deserves to get equal chances to make the best of his or her potential. But just for that reason the worst thing that you can do is limiting the possibilities for the more gifted ones by forcing the standards of the average kid upon them, and that's what's seems to be happening in a lot of places and a lot of ways

Elevz:

--- Quote from: Kill on March 11, 2008, 09:11:23 AM ---Apply for Harvard  :laugh:

No really, that sounds pretty sad Elevz. I understand this was supposed to be an academic essay right? I mean, if it had been something like an exercise in journalistic writing or an article to be written with the idea of being accessible to the general public, ok. Simple and concise writing is a skill in its own right. But the way you're describing it, you were requested to dumb down an academic paper written for academic review because the fellow student supposed to have a look at it had trouble to live up to the intellectual task of understanding it....? That's really preposterous and if I got that right, I fully agree with you here.
--- End quote ---

Well, yes, you did get that right. When I was in college, they used to give me shit for the way I put together texts for business plans and such. That's understandable though - they expect a communications student to keep things accessible, so ultimately I adjusted my writing to that. I expected things to be different at the university though...

I filed my complaints, and at the uni they were quick to dismiss them. It wasn't the student's fault - he only did what he was asked to do, which was judging the text by a set of rules. Nevermind how they did give the essay writers full artistic and intellectual freedom as for how to put together the text. They still expected things to perfectly go along the set guidelines they'd set.

Anyway, I e-mailed them my reworked essay on Sunday night, and I just now got word that they okayed it. A translation of the e-mail I received:
"Ruben, I read the third version of your essay and I okayed it - you passed. This time you managed way better to adjust your writing to our purposes (I was glad to see [the theoretical references] had been replaced by more describing aspects). I have a feeling the way things went in your case was necessary, and it seems you learned from it - which is ultimately the goal behind [getting] an education."

I would normally consider that e-mail a shocker, were it not for the fact that this professor gets on my nerves with every lecture he gives, simply for pushing political ideals instead of being a neutral scientist.


--- Quote from: Kill on March 11, 2008, 09:11:23 AM ---I wouldn't go as far as supporting any theories of how "they" (a word easily misused to establish an elusive idea of some conspirational elite) want to keep "us" (the other word to go with that blurry picture) dumb and so on, but what this does smell of is the same kind of kid-glove treatment for less capable students that I felt confronted with all high school. I've always had the optimism to think that on university level this mediocrity-is-best, it's-all-about-diligence, learn-by-heart-recite-and-you're-a-good-student-don't-matter-if-you-didn't-get-it-at-all pattern would finally be over with, but the way you're describing it that seems not to be the case where you are at. The thought behind this seems to be: "Oh, Elevz' paper happens to be too elaborate for this poor overchallenged fellow of his, but since dude did his best, we can't blame him. Let Elevz water down the essay then". At this educational level, this is just sad. Making intellectual progress often involves being confronted with texts, essays, books and whatnot that are too difficult to fully understand at first. Encouraging students to make their own work accessible to the less gifted is ridiculous.
--- End quote ---

I have nothing to add there, except that universities are overrated. The majority of the students still don't have a clue. University College could be a nice exception, but they, more than any place else, are all about high grades and denouncing failure according to their expectations.


--- Quote from: Kill on March 11, 2008, 09:11:23 AM ---
--- Quote from: Eleven 2 Three on March 09, 2008, 04:22:35 PM ---
--- Quote from: KillaTay10 Supporter of the 'Kill Jimmy Iovine Movement' on March 08, 2008, 07:21:18 PM ---In the U.S., we have laws that kind of put that kind of thinking into effect. The standardized testings and the No Child Left Behind act prefer to have everybody slow down instead of expressing their knowledge.
--- End quote ---

Which is basically what already happened to me in primary school. I was always bored to death and started tinkering with random objects, a scissor and some glue. You can't imagine how devastating boredom is to ambition...

--- End quote ---
That's the old problem of the first few years of school being based on even the slowest child being able to cope. I don't even remember those years too well (in terms of how things were in the classroom), but I do remember that it quite seriously sapped my enthusiasm regarding any kind of public education. It's actually appalling how little of my personal education is related to my 12 fucking years of school.
--- End quote ---

Only in recent years I've started to recover from that depraved morality and its consequences...


--- Quote from: Kill on March 11, 2008, 09:11:23 AM ---
--- Quote from: 7even on March 09, 2008, 04:29:34 PM ---Well, everybody will think "rebelling" is an euphemism for you not being capable. If you get a bad GPA people will just think you suck. Apart from making an idealistic point (that only few people, at best, will notice) I don't see a reason to do so.
--- End quote ---
...and that's exactly the type of cold pragmatism that got me through this whole dumb educational system :D


--- Quote from: King Sikotic on March 09, 2008, 06:38:03 PM ---I feel what you're saying. The thing is though, I didn't write bullshit just to get the grade, I demonstrated that I fully understood the topic. Some people wrote bullshit and didn't understand the topic at all, but just because they only wrote a little bit, they got full credit for the assignment. She never even specified the length of the paper.
--- End quote ---
I think that's the crucial point. I think in general it can be sensible to have certain restrictions to length in academic papers (not to intellectual quality/complexity as in Elevz case, that's simply retarded), but it has to be specified very clearly and if it wasn't, fuck her for bitching about it afterwards. That's pretty unprofessional.
--- End quote ---

I guess that's what it all comes down to... Figuring out what exactly is being expected from you. There's no one looking for your full potential. They want to fit you into their tight schemes. It might not be a conspiracy, but no matter which way you put it, it sure as hell doesn't pave the way to progression.

Kill:

--- Quote from: Eleven 2 Three on March 11, 2008, 10:22:25 AM ---Well, yes, you did get that right. When I was in college, they used to give me shit for the way I put together texts for business plans and such. That's understandable though - they expect a communications student to keep things accessible, so ultimately I adjusted my writing to that. I expected things to be different at the university though...

I filed my complaints, and at the uni they were quick to dismiss them. It wasn't the student's fault - he only did what he was asked to do, which was judging the text by a set of rules. Nevermind how they did give the essay writers full artistic and intellectual freedom as for how to put together the text. They still expected things to perfectly go along the set guidelines they'd set.

Anyway, I e-mailed them my reworked essay on Sunday night, and I just now got word that they okayed it. A translation of the e-mail I received:
"Ruben, I read the third version of your essay and I okayed it - you passed. This time you managed way better to adjust your writing to our purposes (I was glad to see [the theoretical references] had been replaced by more describing aspects). I have a feeling the way things went in your case was necessary, and it seems you learned from it - which is ultimately the goal behind [getting] an education."

I would normally consider that e-mail a shocker, were it not for the fact that this professor gets on my nerves with every lecture he gives, simply for pushing political ideals instead of being a neutral scientist.
--- End quote ---
I'd actually find it quite interesting to see just so much as a little excerpt from that paper, but as you might have figured I don't speak Dutch. Personally, from what I can tell about the situation, I'd probably be overwhelmed by a strong urge to punch the guy in the face for that email and, most particularly, that patronizing tone and the wise-ass comment at the end. The shock value this holds is due to the fact that we're speaking about university here. I'll comment on you saying universities are overrated below, but what this professor does, implicitly, is to raise his finger and preach down on you about respecting the alleged core values of the educational system and how you're not to tangle with anyone who "outranks" you in that system. Written like this, this is degrading and it suggests a teacher-student relationship applicable about as far as 5th grade in whatever form. Of course as a professor it's his job to evaluate whether your work as a student is, simply put, good enough, but at university you should be on an eye-to-eye basis with him as persons which this email quite clearly suggests he doesn't think you are.

Secondly, intellectual work that includes the term "artistic freedom" or anything similar (and I'll just keep working on the assumption that you're not making this stuff up) is of little value when judged by a set of fixed guidelines compiled on a neat list. Fucking duh. If this has really been described accurately by you (which I keep wondering about because I find it astounding, not because I think you're likely to talk crap here), it's a pretty absurd way of dealing with the issue and reminds me of the weak attempts at "progressive" methods/lessons/exercises I spent some time being subjected to, i.e. doing pseudo-creative crap resulting in working within the same restrictions and the same system having to meet the same expectations, just doing it in a way that seems kinda different at very first glance. I am starting to wonder what kind of university you're attending lol. It just reminds me too much of high school and all the phony bullshit there which had you doing nothing new and coming out with nothing but a slap on the back from stuck-up teachers and decent grades, too large parts of my school career consisted of.

But maybe you can answer some questions I got, out of mere interest:
- What university is this? (just curious)
- What exactly are your studies?
- You mentioned "college", "university college" and "university"...since I have no idea of the Dutch system how's that work then?
- What, precisely, was your essay on and what, precisely, were the grounds on which they said they rejected it?


--- Quote ---I have nothing to add there, except that universities are overrated. The majority of the students still don't have a clue. University College could be a nice exception, but they, more than any place else, are all about high grades and denouncing failure according to their expectations.
--- End quote ---
Like I just said, I'm not familiar with the term "university college" (what I figure is that you mean uni as opposed to college which then would have to be some kind of pre-stage for uni in the Netherlands...?), but the grade problem is not a negligeable one here. I don't think grades as such are "the wrong way", but the criteria the evaluation of how things are rated is based upon are, in many many places, too simple, too strict and often outdated. That's the problem of simple patterns being applied to complex issues such as "how good a 'rating' does a particular student deserve?", and the problem becomes most blatant and its consequences most shocking when creativity becomes part of the student's work. You can judge an algebra exam by those standards but as soon as you leave the territory of simple "correct" and "not correct", you will need to have more elaborate ways of looking at things. If that doesn't happen the result is what this very topic is about. If universities stick to those patterns, they are overrated, yes. But maybe you said so for other reasons, too...?


--- Quote ---Only in recent years I've started to recover from that depraved morality and its consequences...
--- End quote ---
Would you mind outlining what you mean by that? I mean, I do think we have/had similar experiences there...


--- Quote ---I guess that's what it all comes down to... Figuring out what exactly is being expected from you. There's no one looking for your full potential. They want to fit you into their tight schemes. It might not be a conspiracy, but no matter which way you put it, it sure as hell doesn't pave the way to progression.

--- End quote ---
The way you described it, no. I still refuse to believe it's illusionary to believe in the possibilty of finding a university/field of study where things are not exactly this bad, or where this problem exists to a much less dramatic extent, but basically, this is the education I've had myself too and all I can do is hope that I can find a place where it's way better.

Tay:

--- Quote from: Eleven 2 Three on March 09, 2008, 04:22:35 PM ---
--- Quote from: KillaTay10 Supporter of the 'Kill Jimmy Iovine Movement' on March 08, 2008, 07:21:18 PM ---In the U.S., we have laws that kind of put that kind of thinking into effect. The standardized testings and the No Child Left Behind act prefer to have everybody slow down instead of expressing their knowledge.
--- End quote ---

Which is basically what already happened to me in primary school. I was always bored to death and started tinkering with random objects, a scissor and some glue. You can't imagine how devastating boredom is to ambition...

--- End quote ---

Yeah, I remember that feeling, just drawing pointless pictures, cutting class, doing things just because I was bored. Since I've got to college, it has not gotten better, except for maybe 2 classes. I'm even taking a class on "Digital Recording & Sampling" for music, and even this goes at such a slow pace because it takes people time to learn it, but at least he doesn't limit us, I just start messing with stuff on my own. I understand that many people are limited and struggle to keep up, but the education system needs to move away from the "cookie-cutter" mentality, because people learn at different paces.

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