being taught

When I began with my courses, I was pretty set on BU not teaching the way I was used to and I may have psyched myself out a bit. The truth is, my courses here are very different than back at Bennington: larger class, lecture style, less discussion... but is it useful to point out the differences without pointing out the similarities?

Class is class, right? I go in and when I come out, I know more. There were certainly times at Bennington when I didn't come out any smarter, only more confused and frustrated. Some may argue that that is what a Bennington Education is: taking steps back to make leaps forward. Every time I've been to class since I began the semester, I've been told to keep my eyes and ears open and the professors just poor the knowledge in, with only a handful of times when the professors allows for a response.

And quizzes. I've had two. 100% on the first, 96% on the second (apparently just because I didn't hear any advertisements when listening to RTE for an hour, doesn't mean that they don't get some of their revenue from them :P). I psyched myself out for the first one, studying and memorizing dates like mad for a ten question quiz. I've argued in the past that giving quizzes to determine who's paying attention and doing the reading is a silly one. Students will cram right before then forget directly afterwards (I cannot remember which year William Gladstone first became Prime Minister of Britain unfortunately). Nothing comes of it really. Yet were those quizzes that bad for me? Not really. A waste of time? Perhaps. It did no harm.

Grades. Those quizzes were both 10% of my grade for each class. That means that I can calculate where I will stand when it comes to the Final Exam and know how well I do. That seems silly to me. But it works in the grade system. Come back to the Bennington Evaluation system for a second...

We receive written evaluations for every class we complete. There are two portions on the evaluation form: For Transcript and Not for Transcript. The professor can choose to write personal comments for encouragement and improvement outside of simply writing about the student's performance. Do professors use it? Sometimes. When they do, it's usually a pat on the back. A reminder that they want to see you succeed not fail, no matter what the grade.

And when it's not? Somehow it still boils down in my head to be about the grade. When I don't receive some recognition of my attempts I revert back to the B- I received. The point of the evalution is to provide better guidance and lead to improvement. When there isn't any of that... it is the same as a grade.

My B- is a pain. I deserved it. Maybe I'm just looking for some petting... maybe... but the whole point of the Bennington Way is to encourage and direct.

Maybe I'd have been better off in a system like BU's.

Nah. Arbitrary or not. I want my paragraphs.