4 ms·

Addressing the second situation because it’s easier to bike shed about, I feel like your friend went to the dean with a problem rather than a solution. You sai

Addressing the second situation because it’s easier to bike shed about, I feel like your friend went to the dean with a problem rather than a solution. You said it yourself, the dean’s primary concern was keeping the school running, which in contrast to letting some loser kids pass a physics class seems very reasonable. It’s also the reason why trusting straight-A students is using a flawed metric, there are A students and then there are students with A grades. We have more complex inspection processes to deal with this. A better solution (full bike shed mode now), would be to help address the deficiencies in the class at an earlier level. Talk with previous teachers, get them feedback about what it is that kids are missing when they get to his class. Help them address the root cause of the problem. “Dean, I’ve found X, fed it back to teachers Y and began to see a yoy improvement in the pass rate of class Z.” Beautiful.

alok-g 3y ago
I do not have all the facts of the situation at hand. However, I have no reason to believe that my friend would not have done all that. I do know for a fact that he is actively trying to teach the students those pre-requisite concepts himself. The dean should have talked about digging into the problem as needed (my friend also could have been doing something wrong; knowing him, I know he would have readily accepted his mistakes if that were the case) and help solve, instead of forcing him to pass the students. I do recognize that this story is not a good example of the Shirky principle. An educational institute is likely genuinely trying to solve the problem, which is to educate the students. That problem continues because fresh students keep coming in, not because the institute itself is preventing the solution. An educational institution cannot be expected to pursue inventing a solution that disrupts the education sector altogether.

alok-g 3y ago

I do not have all the facts of the situation at hand. However, I have no reason to believe that my friend would not have done all that. I do know for a fact that he is actively trying to teach the students those pre-requisite concepts himself. The dean should have talked about digging into the problem as needed (my friend also could have been doing something wrong; knowing him, I know he would have readily accepted his mistakes if that were the case) and help solve, instead of forcing him to pass the students. I do recognize that this story is not a good example of the Shirky principle. An educational institute is likely genuinely trying to solve the problem, which is to educate the students. That problem continues because fresh students keep coming in, not because the institute itself is preventing the solution. An educational institution cannot be expected to pursue inventing a solution that disrupts the education sector altogether.