Of course, I have done this ad nauseam in my life, always following the same procedure. But on this Tuesday morning, breaking the ebb and flow of a visit to the dentists’ office, the secretary unexpectedly chose to throw out the previously agreed upon handbook of patient-professional etiquette and ignore my looming presence.

“Is she asleep?” I mumbled to myself while standing there as noticeably impatiently as I possibly could. One minute, three minutes, then five minutes had passed before I finally spoke up and watched the secretary leap and yell like an axe murderer had just stuck his face in her view after some well-timed ominous music.

Personally, I found it about fifty-percent amusing that after a series of knuckle taps on the desk, accompanied by a few deep “excuse me” grunts, the preoccupied woman still hadn’t noticed that a patient entered the room.

What was it keeping her attentions so firmly engaged? Texas Hold’em poker, that’s what.

After my fed-up “Hello!?” the secretary jumped, turned and replied with four words that turned an irritating morning into a complete parade of agonizing incompetency.

“Can I help you?” she sharply asked back, as if to hint that my arrival had just thrown mud on her entire day.

“Yes, you can. But will you? That’s the question I want answered.”

I watched as the secretary pulled out her overly large clipboard used to keep log of patient names. The top of the paper said “Tuesday” and one name was written underneath – mine.

With my eyes still rolling and my fingers still tapping, I said, “Wow. You all are a bit busy today. Maybe I should come back.”

“Just go have a seat. The dentist will see you in a minute.”

Immediately after briskly giving me my walking orders, the secretary returned to her previous position, let out a world-record-breaking sigh of disenchantment, and began fervently clicking her mouse and drumming her keys. My guess: she missed out on a big Hold’em hand opportunity and blamed me for my gross offense. How dare I interrupt her packed day with something so frivolous! I should be shot.

Fifteen minutes later, I was in the chair having my teeth cleaned. The thought repeatedly crossed my mind to alert the dentist of his aloof secretary, but it’s a mighty task to speak coherently with wads of Styrofoam shoved into your orifice. Instead, I was perfectly content to get out of there and forget the incident altogether.

But it is still nagging away at my very soul. A secretary for a dentist makes decent money, I supposed; and even if she doesn’t clear that much, I’m positive her salary is quite sufficient for a home computer. What’s the deal with hunting for the best casino bonus online when she’s supposed to be seating people? That’s it: see that they’ve arrived, seat them, alert the dentist and go on about your day. It’s not rocket science by a long shot.

I understand the love of gambling. I certainly identify with wanting to find appealing ways to pass the time. But at some point enough has to be enough. There’s no good reason for ignoring a job to that extent, especially when so many unemployed people would leap at the chance to do something so simple for a paycheck.

(Or, Wherein the Author Learns Who Subscribes to the RSS Feed.)

The other day, against my better judgement, I took on some contract textbook writing work with a company based in India. The main reason, I confess, is so that I can tell my friends that India is outsourcing work to me, something that I’ll also be sure to mention on my résumé when I inevitably overstay my welcome at my current place of employment. The bad news is that the textbook company produces books for use in the United States, which means that I get paid in American dollars, not rupees. Alas. But here’s the general procedure: someone from an American school board sends specs to the Indian company, which hires an American to write an outline for a text, which then gets sent to a Canadian (me) to turn into multiple choice questions. India the goes over the questions, and sends them to someone else (an American?) to review and revise. This seems to me like an awful lot of trouble to go to to produce (what appears to me to be) a text that is essentially indistinguishable from every other text in use in the public school system, but I don’t make the rules: I just get paid to follow them.

Fortunately, the Indian textbook company is not in any way affiliated with the body that produces and markets fucking graphing calculators. However, no company that mass-produces textbooks for use American public schools can remain solvent without permitting the use of some sort of scientific calculator at the high school level, which makes questions such as

5. Which of the following is equivalent to sqrt(50)-sqrt(8)?
a. …
b. …
c. …
d. …

several orders of magnitude stupider than their non-multiple choice equivalents.

You see the problem.

Calculator use aside: in coming up with the incorrect multiple-choice options, I am finding myself borrowing liberally from some of my earlier work in the field. Needless to say, I’m milking the “everything is linear” fallacy, which features prominently in every single option set I’ve written so far, for all it’s worth. So far, India seems happy with my work, which can only mean that India is confident that, for example, hoardes of students will continue incorrectly expanding polynomials in exactly the same way that teachers have warned students against incorrectly expanding polynomials since time immemorial. Good instruction has minimal effect on the frequency of the most common types of algebra errors, I’ve found, so I don’t have to worry that there will be a classroom of students who overlook Option D en masse because duh, everyone knows that (x+y)^2 does not equal x^2+y^2.

No, I’ve done good work with this text, so far. My employers assure me that my questions will be sufficiently confounding to high school students, of whom negligibly few are even adept enough at plugging expressions into their calculators to compare multiple choice options to an unsimplified expression that it’s well worth asking several questions that can be solved that way; and of whom hardly any understand enough algebra to avoid half of the wrong choices I’ve provided. I recommend reading the following sections of  “entrenamiento mental“, “rapidez mental” and “juegos de calculo mental” of Alberto Coto, the mental calculation world champion.

A skilled teacher is one who acts as a positive influence on her students, and manages to inspire them. Lofty goals, those, and ones that are seldom attained. It’s far easier – and potentially more lucrative – to be a skilled multiple-choice math question writer, whose success is commensurate with the ability to correctly predict her subjects’ deficiencies, which are never in short supply.

Today I met with a client, who arrived late and frazzled. I didn’t ask him for an explanation, but he offered one anyway, the same explanation he offered me the last time he arrived late and frazzled: “I have a newborn…kid isn’t sleeping through the night.”

This is the same newborn he had when I met him last Christmas.

“Lots of people in the office have new babies,” I remarked idly. “Annie’s little girl must be five months old by now, and Roger just got back from parental leave in March, and Frank’s son was born on Valentine’s Day. And it’s not a large office, either.”

“Well,” said my client, who’d obviously given the matter a fair bit of thought already, “there was no hockey last year.”

The Employment Insurance office! I know – you’re shocked!

Fortunately, I caught the competent, frizzy blond-haired woman’s name, and I remember that she usually worked at the call centre; with any luck (mine, not hers), she’s still employed by EI, and can send the forms out of casino online.

Advice for Canadians eligible for EI: just give up, and get a damned job. It’s a lot less time-consuming.

I’m alive. I’m just running around acquiring a property, that’s all.

The deal closes tomorrow morning. Based on the assurances of my agent and other relevant parties – it WILL close tomorrow. I know things are really rushed right now, and it’s taken a bit longer to get all the papers in order, but it WILL close, I assure you – this means that there are only twelve hours left for everything to go horribly awry, thank God. Meaning, in twelve hours, I will no longer have to deal with the extensive cast of characters with whom I have interacted, to varying degrees, for the past six weeks:

My agent. She found me the property! She negotiated with the realtor until eleven o’clock at night to save me $5K! She comes to my office to bring me papers to sign! She works stupid hours so I don’t have to! She hooked me up with a mortgages broker, a lawyer, and a guy who does flooring! She comforts the newly heartbroken (see below)! I love my agent, and would bear her children if such a thing were
biologically possible.

The home inspector. I never met this guy face to face. My agent hooked me up with him, let him into the house, and delivered his extensive report to me. All I had to do was pay him a lot of money. This made my dealings with the home inspector far less time-consuming and stressful than my dealings with various other people, for instance,

Every bank manager in the Lower Mainland. Some free advice from your friendly neighbourhood curmudgeon: by all means, diversify your assets, but for the love of God, diversify them within the same goddamned bank. Trust me on this one.

The mortgage broker. I’ve never met this guy either, but I’ve talked to him a lot – around fifteen times in the last three business days. He’s the one who sends the relevant papers to the lawyer, except that they didn’t get in on time, which is why I’ve talked to him around fifteen times in the last three business days. Most of my calls went something like this:

Me: The lawyer just called! She doesn’t have the papers yet! Closing is on Wednesday April 26 and it’s almost then and this is going to fall through she needs the papers now!!!

The broker: Hmm…the papers should have gotten there already. I’ll go check with the people who are supposed to send her the papers. I don’t know what the delay is. But I assure you that everything will be completely taken care of by Wednesday April 26.

I later found out what the delay was: my agent explained that it had to do with

The appraiser. “The only thing you have left to do is pay the appraiser,” my broker told me last week.

“Do I have to go to the other side of the city to sign stuff?” I asked, worried about taking yet more time away from work. “Do I have to go meet him?”

“No,” the broker assured me. “You can pay by credit card. I can have him call you now.”

Five minutes later, I got a call from the appraiser, which went something like this:

The appraiser: Hi, this is the appraiser.

Me: Oh, yeah, the broker told me you’d call.

The appraiser: I need your credit card number.

Me: Here you go.

It occurred to me later that I had no idea who the appraiser was, or what I’d just paid for. I could very well have just given my credit card number to some disenfranchised Nigerian prince, or peddler of penis-enlargement elixir. Spammers, take note: if you want to get rich dishonestly, you could do worse than to tap into the market of frazzled homeowners-to-be.

And what had I just paid for? Not much! Two days after the relevant papers were supposed to have arrived at the the lawyer’s, but one day before they actually did, I received a cryptic email from my agent:

Dear Moebius Stripper,

I hear you’re back in town. There have been some complications, but don’t worry. The deal will close on Wednesday, April 26. Call me.

I called her.

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

“Oh, there was a problem with the appraiser,” she informed me.

“A problem? What sort of a problem?”

“Well, he was supposed to show up the other day, but he forgot.”

“He FORGOT?”

“Yeah. And then we tried to reschedule, but it was kind of difficult, because -”

It was kind of difficult, I’m told, because the seller – showing wanton disregard for my feelings in this matter – chose the very day the appraiser was supposed to show up to be unceremoniously dumped by her greasy-ass biker boyfriend (whom I met) and go into hysterics. The appraiser didn’t show up, and that was the last straw. Fuck rescheduling, she shouted to my agent. She didn’t want to reschedule! She couldn’t take this! She couldn’t take the stress of rescheduling, let alone moving! She wasn’t sure she even wanted to sell!

My agent whose children I would bear if such a thing were biologically possible high-tailed it to my soon-to-be residence, let herself in, and spent the next hour comforting the seller. You do want to sell, my agent said as the seller sobbed. You do! You have a beautiful new property downtown! You can’t let this stop you from pursuing your dream! You have a bright future ahead of you! You’re smart and funny and have a great job! He wasn’t worth it anyway!

The seller sniffled a little, and seemed to be agreeing somewhat, but she wasn’t entirely convinced.

“And if you don’t sell,” my agent continued, “You’ll be sued for breach of contract by my client, and probably by the seller of your new property as well, and I can tell you from experience that you’ll be out a hell of a lot of money.”

The seller agreed to reschedule the appointment with the appraiser.

My agent is a total hard-ass, and I mean that as a compliment.

Nevertheless, the appointment was’t rescheduled quite in time to get the papers sent this morning to

The notary public. I met with her anyway, and the dozen-odd documents I needed to sign were still spilling out of the fax machine when I arrived. She was scrutinizing one of them closely when I settled into the seat across from her.

“Hmm,” she said. “When do you close?”

“Tomorrow, I said. Wednesday, April 26.”

“This says the funds will be ready Friday, April 28.”

I sat there gawking. NOT FOR LACK OF ME TELLING THEM FIFTY TIMES THAT COMPLETION WAS TOMORROW, I said.

“That’s ok,” she said. “I can call them.”

Which would have been less of a problem if the folks preparing the documents weren’t three time zones away, and probably tucking their kids into bed instead of poring over boring legal documents in the office.

Except for one of them, who the notary managed to track down. He was very sorry! He’d get that fixed right now! He’d send over the new papers and talk to the bank first thing tomorrow morning! Everything would be taken care of, and I could sign the papers now!

I signed a bunch of papers. I signed everything except the cheque, which no one bothered to tell me had to be certified.

“Oh, you’ll have to go to the bank for that,” said the notary. “You can’t just write a personal cheque for [mid-five figures].”

“I need to go to a bank? What do they do, just put a seal on the cheque, right?”

“Yes, it should take less than ten minutes.”

“Don’t you have a seal, like right here?” I said. “Don’t all seals pretty much all look the same to anyone who isn’t looking terribly closely?”

She gave me a look that told me that lawyers think it’s really funny when you joke about having them help you commit fraud.

Fine, then; off to the bank tomorrow. To certify the bloody cheque. And then give it to the notary (in trust, always in trust), who will turn liquid assets into solid ones, by tomorrow morning, because that’s when the deal closes.

They promised me it would.

The rain was coming down hard when I waited for a break in traffic to cross the street.

I paused at the intersection, waiting for the Volvo, and the Honda that trailed perilously close behind, to pass. I saw the Volvo decelerate, and I tried to catch the driver’s eye. Speed up, I willed her, don’t stop. I can wait five seconds to cross.

But the Volvo stopped, and within an instant the Honda collided with it. It was a gentle hit, and I stood transfixed at the corner, wondering if the two drivers needed a witness. The Honda was technically in the wrong, but the Volvo shouldn’t have stopped.

The two drivers’ doors clicked open simultaneously, and the women approached the touching bumpers.

“No damage,” said the Volvo. “Sorry about that; I shouldn’t have stopped.”

“No, I’m sorry,” said the Honda. “I was following you too closely. And in this weather especially -”

“No, I shouldn’t have stopped,” repeated the Volvo. “It’s my fault. But no harm done.”

“Is everything okay?” I called out.

“Everything’s fine,” they assured me, and I forget which one apologized for making me stand out there in the rain watching a minor car accident.

Some exciting developments on the home-buying front: I have a banker and a mortgage broker fighting for my business! It’s not often that I have people fighting over me, so I am milking this opportunity for all it’s worth, shamelessly playing the two parties off of one another, and deliberately holding off on making any commitments until that magical deadline, ten days before closing. And, oh, the desperation is a thing to behold. “I can understand that you’d want to talk to your bank about getting a better deal,” wheedled the broker, “but do you really want to go with someone who doesn’t give you their best offer up front, and makes you go back and forth negotiating for something better?”

I replied that 1) actually, yes I did, because the only reason that I was getting better offers to begin with was because of the competition – ain’t the market economy grand; and 2) the broker himself hadn’t offered me his best deal up front, and I’d only told him I’d sign with him if he could negotiate with the bank to get me an interest rate that was 0.05% lower, which he was able to secure without difficulty, so what’s with the sudden “best offer first” ethic? Fair enough, said the broker.

Anyway, I’ll probably go with the broker anyway, assuming I can get some kinks in the contract worked out, where by “kinks” I mean “the part that has me making a huge down payment and taking out a huge loan for the mortgage, thereby having me pay an extra $15,000 (!) that is not accounted for, and could you please issue me a contract where that is not the case?” Assuming that gets fixed, I’m in better shape than I would be if I went with the bank, who offered me (this part was uttered in quiet tones by the banker) “a slightly higher interest rate”, but (more loudly) WITH ONE PERCENT CASH BACK!!1!1!!! on the amount of the mortgage. And that’s a lot of money! Think about that! Over a thousand dollars in my pocket!

I thought about it, but my thought process involved a calculator, which revealed that the over a thousand dollars in my pocket would be more than absorbed by the close to two thousand dollars in extra interest. Well, that’s true, said the banker, but…. I guess could use this as a springboard to another rant about innumeracy, but it’s not even that: even someone who can’t compute these things by hand could make use of any number of online mortgage calculators, which make the comparison process quite easy indeed.

Maybe I’ll try to find a third mortgage specialist, but time is running out.

[Credit where it’s due.] ]]> http://talldarkandmysterious.ca/2006/04/08/im-not-signing-anything-until-i-read-it-or-someone-gives-me-the-gist-of-it/feed/ 0 http://talldarkandmysterious.ca/2006/04/01/drinking-tea-with-mathematicians/ http://talldarkandmysterious.ca/2006/04/01/drinking-tea-with-mathematicians/#comments Sat, 01 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0000 Moebius Strippe http://talldarkandmysterious.ca/?p=1044

Some exciting developments on the home-buying front: I have a banker and a mortgage broker fighting for my business! It’s not often that I have people fighting over me, so I am milking this opportunity for all it’s worth, shamelessly playing the two parties off of one another, and deliberately holding off on making any commitments until that magical deadline, ten days before closing. And, oh, the desperation is a thing to behold. “I can understand that you’d want to talk to your bank about getting a better deal,” wheedled the broker, “but do you really want to go with someone who doesn’t give you their best offer up front, and makes you go back and forth negotiating for something better?”

I replied that 1) actually, yes I did, because the only reason that I was getting better offers to begin with was because of the competition – ain’t the market economy grand; and 2) the broker himself hadn’t offered me his best deal up front, and I’d only told him I’d sign with him if he could negotiate with the bank to get me an interest rate that was 0.05% lower, which he was able to secure without difficulty, so what’s with the sudden “best offer first” ethic? Fair enough, said the broker.

Anyway, I’ll probably go with the broker anyway, assuming I can get some kinks in the contract worked out, where by “kinks” I mean “the part that has me making a huge down payment and taking out a huge loan for the mortgage, thereby having me pay an extra $15,000 (!) that is not accounted for, and could you please issue me a contract where that is not the case?” Assuming that gets fixed, I’m in better shape than I would be if I went with the bank, who offered me (this part was uttered in quiet tones by the banker) “a slightly higher interest rate”, but (more loudly) WITH ONE PERCENT CASH BACK!!1!1!!! on the amount of the mortgage. And that’s a lot of money for ragazze all asta ! Think about that! Over a thousand dollars in my pocket!

I thought about it, but my thought process involved a calculator, which revealed that the over a thousand dollars in my pocket would be more than absorbed by the close to two thousand dollars in extra interest. Well, that’s true, said the banker, but…. I guess could use this as a springboard to another rant about innumeracy, but it’s not even that: even someone who can’t compute these things by hand could make use of any number of online mortgage calculators, which make the comparison process quite easy indeed.

Maybe I’ll try to find a third mortgage specialist, but time is running out.

[Credit where it’s due.] ]]> http://talldarkandmysterious.ca/2006/04/01/drinking-tea-with-mathematicians/feed/ 2 http://talldarkandmysterious.ca/2006/03/22/your-stupid-misconceptions-addressed/ http://talldarkandmysterious.ca/2006/03/22/your-stupid-misconceptions-addressed/#comments Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000 Moebius Strippe http://talldarkandmysterious.ca/?p=1035

Things are pretty busy here at TD&M Headquarters: I’m away on business working long hours; I’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio; and, oh yeah, I’ve been taking care of everything that needed to be taken care of before my new condo officially became mine. Why, I’d have nothing worth blogging if it weren’t for the fact that one of my former students recently took me to task in the comments section on my most recent post!

Just kidding! Reader Carolyn wasn’t one of my students; rather, she’s a genetically engineered composite of every student that every academic blogger has ever complained about. O Lord, thank you for this bounty.

Hi, I just happened to come across your website while searching for something on Google.

Welcome! Make yourself at home, and above all, don’t be shy about telling me what you think of me and my blog!

I have read a lot of your posts and some of them are pretty interesting, while others are kinda depressing.

I am currently an undergraduate student, and therefore your posts about education interests me the most. I’d like to say that some of them are not totally fair, this is, of course, from a student’s perspective, and as we all know, a students’ perspective is often different from that of the teachers.

Yes, different. Bear in mind, though, that all teachers once were students, whereas few students once were teachers.

It’s called perspective.

First of all, I’d like to state that I am not a bad student, nor a lazy one. In fact I’m a pretty good student, if not the best in my school. Still, I found that playing bingos made of students’ mistakes is a cruel idea.

You should see the bingo card I made from students’ complaints about my blog.

Well, yes, I can see the humor in it, but still, in my homeland, there is an old saying: there are no bad students, there are only bad teachers.

And you left your homeland, yes?

I understand a teacher’s frustration when he can not make a student understand something, I also understand that certain students can be irritating, but, it’s not very professional to make fun of your students that way, well, not even on a website. You know not everybody in this world is very bright, but if you are not tolerant of this, you shouldn’t be teaching in the first place.Maybe I am taking it too seriously , but I feel very sad when I think about the possiblity that my own teachers may do the same with our mistakes.

Let me provide some never-before-published context to Precalculus Bingo, one of whose squares is “(x+y)^2=x^2+y^2″. Students are taught to expand (x+y)^2 in grade nine, if not grade ten; they then use it again in grades eleven and twelve, both of which were prerequisites for the college math class I taught. I had them expand such a quantity on their first quiz. Three quarters of them made the mistake on the bingo card. I spent ten minutes the next day going over it; I explained how they could substitute values for x and y and see that their fabricated identity didn’t hold; I showed them how to expand it.

A week later, I gave the same question on the next quiz. Nearly as many students got it wrong. Again I went over it in detail; again I explained how to expand algebraic expressions. I announced that I’d spent over half an hour on that one question, plus they’d had plenty of similar ones in the homework; I told my students that if I ever saw that mistake again, they’d get a mark of zero on the question. Consider yourselves warned, I said.

Five students made that mistake on the test ragazze online. This is the sort of mistake I put on my bingo card.

Secondly, about grade inflation. I’d like to say that grades are not accurate indicators of one’s ability and will never be. I am not saying that people who always get D’s can actually be bright, though many famous scientists used to be terrible students when they were young (Albert Eistein for one). Therefore, I see no point for a teacher to take it to the extreme and say “oh, I am gonna be a super strict teacher and give the whole class a D average just to prove I am a committed teacher who cares about my students”.

Oh, and I said that where? Nowhere. I did, however, say this:

Precalculus I is a prerequisite for Precalculus II, which many of my students, such as you, are going to need to take. And Precalculus II is harder than this course, and builds upon it. A mark of C+ or higher, from me, means that you have the background that you need to pass Precalculus II. If I just increase marks of D’s to B’s, that doesn’t mean that a D student has the understanding they need for Precalculus II – they’ll still fail it. So I wouldn’t be doing anyone any favours if I made this course, or my tests, easier. It’s only by showing me that you have C+ understanding, or more, of this class, that I will be able to see that you’re prepared for Precalculus II.

I, and every single other teacher who does not run an independent school, have a curriculum to follow. Mathematics is cumulative; I need to know that my students have attained the level of understanding that they need to move on. Which kind of flies in the face of your “marks don’t mean anything, so give me an A” theory, so feel free to disregard. After all, students often have a different perspective from teachers.

From my experience, the real learning does not take place in school anyways.

And this translates into a mandate to give higher marks…how, precisely?

If a person is really commited to learning, he/she can always borrow books from library and study on his/her own without going through any kind of formal education. Since you are a college professor, I would assume your students are old enough to do this if they want to.

That’s two uses of the hypothetical syllogism in as many sentences, so let’s address both antecedents right now:

One – here’s a real-life conversation (abridged) that I had last term:

Student: I was never good at math and haven’t taken any math courses for the first three years of my degree. What do you suggest?

Me: Well, I’ve placed some high school math books on reserve in the library, and -

Student: Where’s the library?

Two – speaking of learning stuff on one’s own: sidebar sez, erstwhile college instructor. Run along, look it up on your own outside the classroom; I’ll still be here when you’re done.

Then, what’s the real point of going to university or college? learning? well, maybe, a little bit. I don’t think that learning something in three months and then getting tested on it(whether it’s math or statistics) can make one more educated.

Then get out of the classroom; you’re wasting your time.

Therefore, in my humble opinion, an important aspect of going to school is getting regonized for one’s abilility. That’s what the grading system is for. It is to show the future employer that a person is intelligent enough to perform certain tasks. Therefore, grades are important to students and will always be.

A summary:

1. Grades are meaningless.
2. Therefore I should give higher grades.
3. You don’t really get educated in school, remember? Grades are meaningless.
4. Grades are a means of recognizing students for their ability.
5. Which was not acquired or honed in the classroom in which those grades were assigned.
6. Making grades kinda disconnected from the grader and the material being graded.
7. Still, because they determine employment prospects, grades are super important to students.
8. But still meaningless.

Good to know.

Many would be idealistic and say university is about learning, I would beg to differ and say it’s 50% about personal growth and 20% about learning and 30% about the degree.

Well, that’s a load of 95% bullshit.

Seriously: I hate, hate, hate it when people think that their unfounded theories gain legitimacy by virtue of having made-up numbers attached to them. That right there is a reason that every member of a democratic society should learn statistics: so that they’re not so dazzled by numbers that they accept uncritically every statement that invokes them. Nonetheless, even if we accept your made-up statistics, how does the fact that university is 50% about personal growth mandate me giving higher grades?

This leads to the whole “students complaining about marks” question. I wouldn’t lie and say I have never complained about a teacher giving us a unreasonably hard test or about an irresponsible TA marking over-strictly. I actually do it a lot, though not always directly to the professor or the TA’s.

And we take your complaints very very seriously. Sometimes we even blog about them!

I have to say that students, as payers of their education, should have the right to question an unfair mark, if they indeed have the reason to.

And they do have that right; it’s a free country. Hell, I even let my non-paying scholarship and bursary students question their marks. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees them the right to ask questions; who am I to rescind it?

I have found, from my undergraduate experience, that professors and TA’s can be totally unreasonable and unfair when marking students’ tests. I can understand that from a teacher’s point of view, you may not think you have done anything wrong. But from the students’ point of view, we have not done anything wrong neither. And there is no reason why you must be absolutely right, and we must be absolutely wrong.

Yes, there is a reason: I have two degrees in the subject I teach, and you have none. I am familiar with the curriculum; therefore, I know what students need to know in order to advance to the next course, and you don’t. I have a broad background in my subject, and I know how the various threads of it fit together; consequently, I know what types of mistakes are serious, and which types are minor – and you don’t. I bring a decade of study and experience to the table, and I base my judgements on that. You bring only a sense of entitlement. There’s a chance you’re right and I’m wrong about a test or a grade, but frankly, the odds are against you.

One important thing about academia is the freedom of thoughts, the freedom of argument and sharing our different views. I’m sorry if I have sounded rude, but that’s the way it is.

You don’t sound rude; just ignorant. After all, you’re espousing the view that learning is only a minor function of the academy, whereas providing a forum where people wave around their baseless claims so that they can compete with one another on equal footing is “one important thing” about it. You don’t need university to “share [your] different views”; you can do that at a coffee shop, a park, or a party. You can even complain about how unfair your teachers are in all of those forums.

If you are going to outright dismiss the superior expertise and background of the people charged with expanding your worldview and not merely validating it, then there is no point in you going to university.

People are biased creatures you know, even the brightest man can make mistakes, and I don’t think every professor belongs to the brightest catogary.

Yes, everyone can make mistakes. I have certainly done so in setting tests or grading, and I have made amends – successfully, from what I’ve been told – whenever that came to my attention.

A low grade or a difficult test, however, is not prima facie a mistake.

Finally, I want to agree with you that the Canadian, and actually the whole North American education system doesn’t prepare a lot of people well for an university education. . Since I have studied for quite some time in East Asia, I have a comparison. It’s true that the education here is pretty slack. From your posts I can see that you are quite fond of the education of “your time”, and I am kind of suspicous of this.

Well, “my time” had its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, I’m feeling more than a shade nostalgic for those halcyon days when we didn’t sass our elders like you’re doing now. On the other hand, walking to school barefoot in the snow kinda sucked.

In fact, I find this generation of students to be a lot brighter on average than the previous generations, in many aspects (technology for one).

I tutored a grade 12 student this summer. He was weak in basic algebra, so we spent some time going over the basics. I went through one linear equation step-by-step, and then pointed to the last line and said, “So – x equals five times two,” and paused.

“Holdonasec,” said my student, and darted upstairs. I waited for two minutes until he returned with his backpack. He threw the bag on the floor beside him, opened it, and withdrew a pencil case. Slowly, he opened the pencil case, and pulled out a fucking graphing calculator. He then keyed in, 5, x, 2, = before triumphantly declaring, “Ten.”

Every generation has geniues and idiots, and it’s hard to compare.

No, it’s easy to compare: a first-year statistics course’ll provide you with the tools to identify trends. See your local university for a statistics class near you! If you think that you can’t analyze data because it can’t always be linearly ordered, then your university education has been for naught.

Easter education is probably the strictest and the most rigorious in the world, but they produce far less Nobelist than North America, and there is a reason for that. This is where a rigorous education is simply not enough.

In any first-year statistics course – you know, the one whose content you obviously don’t get at all – one learns that one can’t compare data sets by looking at the outliers.

Go learn about what that means – independently, in a library – and then we’ll talk.

well, this was a long rant. Just wanted to share a student’s point of view, somewhat different from yours. Maybe you find these ideas unimpressive, but at least it will help you understand better what your students may be thinking. I see you are a committed and serious teacher, these are what you want to know, right?

Well, inasmuch as gazing into the abyss can be educational, sure.