Grade Inflation Trends in US American Colleges and Universities

I find this fascinating as we just submitted grades for this semester and are bracing ourselves for grade appeals even though the grades were more than fair this semester. 

This guy from this site has been tracking trends since the 1920s in private and public institutions.  Gives an example of what a grade actually means these days. 

I have seen this in many places my last 5 years of teaching - teachers and administrators nervous about angry parents, grade appeals, and getting fired based on the option to grade honestly.  Many senior teachers I have worked with put together rubrics at the beginning of the year/semester and try their best to communicate those expectations to their students.  Only one teacher in 5 years that I have worked with has truly stuck to their rubric and skillfully helped the students take responsibility for their work, whether it was A work or C work.

The inherent subjectivity in grading is undeniable.  But, if a good teacher is able to create rubrics and hold students accountable, then it does add some piece of objectivity to the mess.  And anyway, if they are hiring you to give the grades, then someone trusts that you will know what is good and what is awful, right?  Isn't that why we've all spent so much time in school? 

Today I learned...

that Gandhi and Nehru could have agitated the British further during the beginning of WWII potentially executing their campaign for home-rule while attentions were distracted with fascist regimes in Europe.  Not the case - They decided, along with the Bengali intellectual contingent (Tagore, Coomaraswamy and Nandalal Bose) that the fight against fascist regeimes was more important at the time than independence. 

Others such as Subhas Chandra Bose did not agree.  He wanted to take advantage of the weakened British state to gain independence.  He spent time with Hitler looking to connect on the "aryan" thing - meaning the Aryans origninated in the Indus river valley civilization, thus Bose saw himself as an Aryan, yet, Hitler didn't know what to do with him - he had dark skin and didn't fit the bill.  Hitler sent him to Japan.  Japanese didn't know what to do with him, so they sent him in to Burma to fight the Brits.  That lasted for a bit and then he was killed (more info needed).  There are some that think he is still out there in a cave somewhere waiting until the time is right when he will emerge as a messianic figure to lead India on to global domination.

The dangers of developing a national identity - seems Gandhi and the Bengalis had their feet on the ground and were able to balance their inspiration from the Russian and European idealist identity writers (Hegel, Tolstoy...) with the understanding of human empathy and Truth.  Bose missed the boat on that one. 

One can draw an argument here from looking at the development of the nation-state theology in the late 18th c. and take Hitler's third reich as an example of how destructive (yet mesmerizing) developing national identity can be.  The other example are the Indian nationalists in the middle of the 20th c. 

hm.

Global Tiger Initiative

In this year 2010, the Year of the Tiger, the Global Tiger Initiative launched with a conference including the 13 countries that govern tiger habitat.  The conference was in Kathmandu... (neutral ground? Or where the best facilitators are?) in late October.  During the four days, aims and objectives were established to protect tiger habitat which has reached 10% of the historical range, and make efforts for valuing live tigers rather than dead ones.

This HT article talks about Nepal's initiative to count their tigers starting next week.  Only full grown tigers will be counted.  Estimates were at 121 tigers in Nepal two years ago.

World Bank is involved: this is their tiger website.

Youtube has a page for GTI.



(read some of the reports on the gti website to see if any are appropriate for the Chitwan reader... final report summary?  other academic papers?  how can we link this in with lectures the students will hear?  ask anil and watch youtube pieces to see if any are appropriate for viewing with the students)

Steven Jenkins - Humbolt State

Professor Steven Jenkins gave a talk at Kathmandu University's Center for Buddhist Studies annual symposium last month about the Buddhist Ethics of warfare. 

I found some podcasts of talks he gave at another KTM-based Buddhist Studies organization - Institute of Buddhist Studies - in spring 2009.  

Prof. Jenkins is writing a book that he mentioned will be out soon.