Timmy and Public Schools (semi off-topic)

[Brooks Fudenberg]

After reading the posts, I must admit to mixed feelings.  Yes, it
certainly sounds horrible.  On the other hand, I remember my first year
teaching, when a few students found an ambiguity in a test question--an
ambiguity that went to an entirely different field than the one I was
teaching--and wrote about that.  How to grade them?  Fortunately, these
students also wrote good essays on the course-related issue.

But the support I received from my peers is instructive:  "You would think
that by the time they're in law school, they would know to write about the
topic of the course."  How are they supposed to learn *that,* if not by
actions like those of Timmy's teacher?

Perhaps a better response by Tim's teacher would have been to give some
credit, and tell him, "next time, confine your answer to the course
material," or "next time, at least provide an answer from the material,
and then, if you want, add a non-course response."

Or better yet:  perhaps every class beyond second grade should be told
that, at the beginning of the term.

(Then, of course, we get into hard questions about insights lying just
outside the course, but that shed light on the course material, which
students may become afraid to voice . . .)

----
Off topic part:

By the way, I now include a sentence more or less to that effect in my
exams.  The last exam, for example, asked students to evaluate
whether First National Bank v. Bellotti and Austin v. Michigan Chamber of
Commerce were rightly decided.  And there was a sentence or two along the
lines of "No Fair saying, 'Austin was controlled by Bellotti and so should
have been decided similarly.'  Don't attempt to get out of the hard
questions in Austin by simply citing Bellotti."  And that they should at
least tell me how one could argue to distinguish the two, and why those
distinctions fail/succeed.  I'd be interested if anyone has found another
way to deal with this problem.  Do all of you simply write exam questions
that are so clear that no one could misinterpret them?

Replies off-list would probably be appropriate.

Brooks R. Fudenberg
University of Miami School of Law


On Wed, 6 Aug 1997, stoke001 at maroon.tc.umn.edu wrote:

> Sandy Levinson and Doug Laycock (and I think several others) have
> questioned Timmy's existence or the accuracy of the story, as perhaps
> another urban legend horror story.  Perhaps it is.  But my experience
> in these matters is that truth is often stranger than a Volokh hypo!
> I am surprised that Sandy and Doug are so skeptical.  Brittney Settle
> received a grade of "zero" (as in, "I won't even read this") because
> she wrote a term paper on Jesus.  The teacher had said students could
> write on any topic of their choice, so long as interesting,
> researchable (in the sense that the student could find four sources
> on it), and "decent" (probably a separate constitutional violation
> (:-) but not relevant here).  The teacher rejected this topic
> nonetheless because it was religious and you can't talk about
> religion in public schools.  The teacher, in the deposition (which I
> have read), obviously after thorough but ineffective coaching by
> counsel, gave every conceivable additional, implausible explanation
> for her actions, including that it would be impossible to find four
> sources on the life of Jesus Christ.
>
> In researching the cert petition, I came across enough other cases of
> similar idiocy to convince me that, even if not *typical*, this sort
> of thing happens *often enough* to constitute a serious problem.
> Reported judicial opinions are the tip of the iceberg.  Public school
> teachers -- some of them, some of the time -- can be narrow-minded,
> intolerant, narrow in their world view, lazy in test creation and
> grading, inattentive to details, you name it.  This is a
> characteristic of humans, not public school teachers in particular.
> Some public school teachers are hostile to religion.  *All* of
> today's generation have been trained (wrongly) that religion is an
> inappropriate subject for discussion in public schools; this
> official NEA ideology breeds a type of hostility and intolerance all
> its own.  Few public teachers appreciate being questioned about
> their questions.
>
> I thus have no trouble believing that a public school teacher could:
> (a) write a poorly worded general question;
> (b) give a reflexive "wrong" in response to an unexpected answer;
> (c) give a knowing and deliberate wrong to a "religious" answer
> when the teacher had intended, by the thoughtless or poorly worded
> question, to ask some question other than a philosophical one;
> (d) regard discussion of alternative philosophical points of view
> about the origins of the universe -- and specifically religious ones
> -- as inappropriate in a public school setting;
> (e) regard discussion of alternative philosophical points of view
> about the origins of the universe -- and specifically religious ones
> -- as *wrong*, and reflective of a dangerous world view that it is the
> high duty and privilege of the public school system to correct, if
> possible;
> (f) resent any challenge, however polite, to the question and
> the failure to give credit;
> (g) give the matter far less thought than
> this discussion list; or
> (h) all of the above.
>