The other day, two of my ex-students came back for a visit to the alma mater. One, a literature major, the other, chem. Lindsay tried to apologize for Carrie's deleterious view of fine arts in general.
"It's all so made up," Carrie had complained.
"Of course it is," I responded, "isn't that what makes it interesting?"
"No," she retorted. "That just makes it bullshit (or something to that effect."
"How is chemistry any different?"
"We have facts and real things to look at."
"So do we- books are real, right? Ink on pages... all real."
At that point, Lindsay tried to explain to me that Chemistry majors don't really get any of this stuff I was talking about. That was about how deep your average science major wants to go philosophically.
This encounter was followed by one I had with one Peter Bertram, chemistry teacher. I have begun to see where this dogmatic notion of science stems. He was reflecting on how ambiguous and challenging the questions on the ELA he had just proctored for me were. I agreed with him and his lock step mind concluded that there was clearly one superior answer, but it was pretty easy to see how a student would pick the lesser of the two "right" answers.
Now this is a big area of interest for me, and like my blog says, be ready to take some time if you want to talk about this with me. I am a reader response guy through and through. Philosophically, I am as pragmatic as they come in practice, but in theory, I am a phenomenologist somewhere between Kant and Husserl, or more in line, Heidegger. Which is to say I generally admit that reality is what I am conscious of and that when one claims to be holding on to a firm grasp of what "is," I smile and know you are a damned villain. You have no more claim to it than I do, and I've been looking most of my life.
So, when Mr. Bertram said he had the right answer, I began to query:
"What do you mean by 'the right answer'?"
"Well, there were two answers, but one is the one they are looking for."
"Ah, so the writers of the questions are the source of what is right?"
You can imagine how far we got... about that far. Just like Carrie...
And after the exam was over, this issue reared its head again as we discussed why the ELA was being given on the 11th and would not be actually determined (as far as scores go) until a week or so later. We English teachers explained to each other that this way the state can determine what the standard is based on how kids performed on this test. It is a new test, so there is no base line data. What they will do in subsequent exams is unclear.
Matt thought this was a bit disconcerting. I explained that there are two ways of evaluating: the American and the Danish system. In the Danish system (as in the way 4-H rates their kids), a criteria is established, and you either meet it (blue ribbon), or you don't (red ribbon). That means out of 10 kids, all 10 could get blues and 0 could get reds (fail). In the American system, your success is determined by whether someone in the contest out performs you. You get a blue ribbon only if you are the best. You could all suck, but if you suck the least, you get a blue ribbon.
I would argue that while the Danish system sounds more scientific and more stable, its competitor is more in line with how values are determined in the "real world." When we grade papers, we look over the papers and put them in piles. The ones that perform really well get the As, etc. Honestly, if I get a pile of papers that are really a pile of .... ahem.... I will not give any As, but getting my pile of lousy papers tells me one of three or four things. Either my assignment was beyond my students, or they are a bunch of doofuses, or I was not clear what I wanted in the papers, or there was a big concert that weekend, and 50% of them got stoned instead of really working on the paper.
In job pursuits, the American system prevails as well. When you go to a job interview where you are competing against the best and the brightest, you better be better than the last guy who went in for the interview. If you go out lookin for love in all the wrong places, it is easier to find someone when it gets close to quittin' time. Yes, I suppose in each of these cases, one has minimum standards we have to meet. I am not going to hire an unqualified person simply because he sucks the least, and most of us will not date someone with several teeth missing, but, hey, if you're desperate....
So, it is quite pragmatic to say that grades and values are determined ultimately by comparison with each other and not with any rock solid standard. In fact, one of the reasons we continue to be in a crisis mode in education is not that we are doing worse at meeting our current goals, but it is because we are not keeping up with the Dutch and the Danish and half of the other industrialized countries when it comes to math and other skills.
So, back to my science discussions. The scientists think they are working with absolutely static and measurable facts and that their field of inquiry is about finding truth. This brings me to my final move- what is Pluto? Planet or dwarf? In the NYT this week, there's an article that explains that the dwarf planet they found some time ago is smaller than they thought it was. Due to new methods of determining such things, they may go back to calling Pluto the 9th planet. Thus, the utterance "Pluto is the 9th planet in our solar system." Was meaningless for centuries, then it gained some credence, and then it was accepted as fact, then doubted and then called wrong, and now may be returned to a status somewhere near true.
Here we have the work of scientists- what makes a planet a planet? Who decided whether it was or wasn't planet worthy? All valuations (as Nietzsche would cry) are arbitrary!
In the end, scientists and English professors are doing the same things- trying to make meaning of the chaos. My right answer works for me, and I will be sure of this for at least another two minutes or so.
Peter Bertram
Pluto vs. Aris
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