Jacob Christensen

Harry Brighouse about grading and its problems.

I think there is a tendency to think that grades are there to reward, or signal, individual merit, and excellent achievement.

…

I now think that is just a wrongheaded view about what grades are for. For two reasons. First, in nearly 20 years of teaching in research universities I regularly—in just about every class—come across students who are smarter than I am and more promising than I was at their age, but there have only been 4 or 5 students whose work placed them unambiguously well above the rest of the top quarter, and only one whose work stunned me.

…

Second, it is not really true that high achievers are, by virtue of that, meritorious. To the extent that achievement is the product of natural talent, or fortuitious environment, which in most cases is considerable, it is not meritorious, but a matter of brute luck on the part of the achiever. I agree with political theorist Michael Sandel that one of the deep flaws of our social environment is that it sends lots of signals to high achievers that they are somehow meritorious in virtue of their achievement and need not feel humble or an obligation to turn their talents to the service of others less fortunate. Universities already participate in that culture, there is no need for the grading system to further mislead. Anyway, high achievement in a particular class is not always the result of effort in that class. The best predictor of achievement in a class is prior achievement in the subject that class teaches; some students routinely achieve at a lower level than other students because they are more intellectually ambitious, and thus (in my opinion) more academically meritorious.

Much more at Crooked Timber.

• nrc.nl – Opinie – Let op je woorden in de collegezaal
  De Universiteit van Amsterdam wil opnames van gastcolleges verbieden. Dat zou een uppercut zijn voor de vrije uitwisseling van ideeën.
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• Lines at the ER, a television boom, emptying suburbs. A catastrophic economic downturn would feel nothing like the last one. – The Boston Globe
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Who, for the love of god, dreamt up this one: Umeå City Airport? Umeå City Airport?!?

There is nothing quite like provincial pretentiousness. I’m sure some consultant is trying to convince the town council that the railway station should be renamed Grand Central Station Umeå.

Ah yes, and then there is one of the minor issues when you move from one country to another: Setting up a new ban account. Or in my case: Re-setting my Danish bank account.

Now, beside the practicalities (making sure that I dealt with the closest branch office, etc, etc), I also assumed that having a VISA card linked with my Swedish bank account would be a bit tricky as I no longer have any Swedish incomes. Denmark has a special debit card system, the Dankort, which in many ways has helped making us Danes a card-carrying people¹ but as the Dankort can’t be used outside of Denmark, you need some kind of international payment card. So I asked the bank if I could have a combined Visa/Dankort.

Well, yes. And no. The bank insisted on issuing me with a) a VISA/Dankort (debit card), b) a MasterCard (credit card) and c) an American Express card. Except, I never received the VISA, but now I hold a) a Swedish VISA card, b) a Danish Dankort, c) a Danish-issued MasterCard and d) a Danish issued AmEx card. The bank also insisted on giving me a credit (hmmm…. my Danish bank is Danske Bank, in case you wonder) but I will do my utmost not to move into the IT business.

1. Bonus information: I have never had a check-book [↩]