UC-San Diego Lecturer Gives Every Student an A in Effort to Decolonize Higher Education
“Anyone who takes my class automatically gets an A. They’re told in the first week that they’re going to get an A”
Don’t forget. This makes things much easier for the teacher, not just the students.
Campus Reform reports:
‘Anyone who takes my class automatically gets an A,’ former university lecturer states
Chandler Puritty, a former lecturer at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), bragged about not subjecting her students to grading or homework as part of her efforts to “decolonize” higher education.
Puritty informs viewers of “how to decolonize a classroom and how [she] decolonize[s] [her] teaching,” a TikTok video shows.
“Anyone who takes my class automatically gets an A. They’re told in the first week that they’re going to get an A,” she claimed. “The only thing that’s required is attendance, and I have weeks of excused absences built in, so that if people are sick or they have family obligations it won’t affect their grade.”
Professor Puritty’s grading system is not isolated to her classroom.
Earlier this year, for example, the University of California system announced that it was exploring “more effective [grading] options for advancing achievement and educational equity” because “[t]raditional assessment and grading practices may perpetuate bias and inequities,” as Campus Reform previously reported.
Universities are also shedding standardized testing requirements, citing similar reasoning.
Following a decision by the American Bar Association, some law schools may follow suit and drop their LSAT requirements, Reuters reported.
Critics have pointed out that pivoting away from standard grading practices may worsen outcomes for students. Puritty responded to such criticisms in her video by asking a rhetorical question.
“So, since I’m not grading them, I’m just giving them A’s, like, how do I know that they’re doing anything, and how do I know that they’re learning anything,” she asked.
“I run a discussion style classroom, so my students and I have equal part when it comes to bringing information to the table. We all sit together and share what we’re talking about, and they get to use their critical thinking skills to apply the things they learned in all their other classes.”
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Comments
Old hat. jerry Farber was giving all A grades at San Diego State College 40 years ago.
Lets all hope that Chandler gets to meet up with a former student down the road as an ER doc. AA fails when the person in question is given a pointy object.
Her PhD is in “plant community ecology.” I think this means she is a plant community organizer. I’m unsure ER docs study this…although these days you never know.
If that is a general education science elective, I can see all types of students lining up for it – just for the easy A. (Orobably not an er doc, since they would have lots of other science classes already. But – maybe the person who does her taxes or teaches her children…
After my first test in Intermediate Accounting, about a third of the class disappeared.
It was a hard test!
With the teacher’s grading system, everyone would be stars and many would be over their heads in the second semester.
Well, I’m sure all the other courses would be guaranteed A’s, too! So that would be a breeze.
The problem is how many would be going to jail because their company’s books didn’t add up when the IRS dropped by.
No problem. The IRS folks have taken the same “courses.”
The IRS will be looking to see whether the company has “decolonized” its activities with ESG accounting, and students who have “passed” courses with decolonized grading will be expert at that.
Giving all A’s just a lazy way of grading that’s been around for many years. The students won’t complain, and if the administration doesn’t enforce any standards, everybody will be happy.
It’s very different if you try to impose standards on students who aren’t used to them. Maitland Jones, who was a popular chemistry teacher at Princeton for 40 years or so, was asked to fill in for a class at NYU. He did so, using his standards he had developed over 40 years at Princeton.
So many NYU students were furious at being held to standards that they got Jones fired!
https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2022/10/maitland-jones-nyu-princeton-professor-terminated
So: If you just want grades, go to NYU so you can get easy grades. If you want to be well educated, go to Princeton!
Participation diplomas!
grade inflation means the grades and the degrees are worthless. But the debt acquired by the students (except for a token 20k forgiven by brandon) stays on.
How are students bringing information to the table? The special “student’s way of knowing”? I thought that job was the instructor’s.
Keep lowering the Standards. What could go wrong?