The historian and artist Nell Painter has a wonderful book called "The History of White People," which is a sweeping historical analysis of the concept of whiteness that begins in the ancient mediterranean before the concept ever existed as such. Despite the fact that these people weren't really "white" for any variety of reasons, she begins there because as Ted points out, later thinkers and race scientists leaned heavily on defining them as "white" in order to establish their own meaning of "whiteness."
As a college instructor I would 100% support more oral examination. Indeed, I think the whole premise of grades as we use them now is wrongheaded and misconceived. Socrates and Confucius never received a letter grade on anything they ever did and they're revered as history's greatest sages, so why are we so hung up on the concept now? Most of the figures we tend to think of as emblematic of brilliance never received letter grades, which only emerged--really--in the early 20th century, and yet any talk of getting rid of grades or even de-emphasizing them is met by alarmist talk of a the end of "rigor."
My only answer is that switching to things like oral examination and qualitative/narrative assessment requires more teachers, and giving more resources to those teachers, and doesn't lend itself as well to the factory model of education that our institutions have become so invested in over the last 100 years or so as education has become more democratic/accessible. Many educational administrators--it seems--would rather spend billions on tech solutions not rooted in educational scholarship or experience before they spend a dime on hiring more teachers.
John, as I said, I support oral examinations. But the comparison with Socrates and Confucius is not informative. They didn't have to get on a job market and show potential employers that they knew how to write and think...
I agree that getting rid of grades doesn't fit the factory model. But I'm not sure I have a problem with grades per se -- after all, we do need a measure of proficiency on the part of the student. My objection is to the ways we grade students, especially when based on multiple choice quizzes that are easy to score on a computer.
My older daugher attended a small liberal arts college that does not issue grades. Each professor writes a narrative evaluation for each student. She shared a couple of her evaluations with me. Far more daunting (yet also more informative) than a mere letter grade. The lack of grades was not a sign of lack of rigor--in fact, it was probably the exact opposite.
. . . and it turns out that the same lack of grades does not inhibit future endeavors. The school's record of placement in graduate and professional schools is exemplary, and, from what I understand, it has historically punched above its weight in generating Fullbright scholars, etc.
A provocative list . . . it is not that I have any lack of things to read (more like a lack of time to get to the things I want), but some of those will be worth a look . . .
A couple of thoughts . . .
On oral examinations: One of the best experiences of my undergraduate career was an oral examination at the end of my sophomore year. The course was on the American Revolution. The professor was a (justly) famous scholar of the period (and a warm and unfailingly polite individual). The panel was the professor and two of his teaching assistants (neither of whom had been my section leader). It quickly evolved into a freewheeling discussion of the period, which was all too short. Wonderful.
On Plato (or Socrates, or Aristotle) not being "white." It has struck me that attaching the concept of "whiteness" (which, at a minimum, has to look at Germanic and other northern peoples, and their movements across northwestern Europe centuries after Plato; and which is very likely a construct of the early modern period) to some guys who lived in a Mediterranean culture with interactions with Egypt, Persia and a host of other influences was anachronistic. No doubt that Plato (and the other two--as well as many many others) had a profound effect on what we have come to call Western civilization. But they precede it, and their thought is open to all (think of their influence on Islamic culture, for one). Will follow that link to see if perhaps I was, in my musing, on to something . . .
Ted, yes, you guessed correctly the gist of the article about Plato. "Whitneness" in the contemporary meaning of the term is a result of the Enlightenment and the Colonial period, so it's definitely anachronistic to apply to Plato, or, really, anyone who lived before the Enlightenment.
As for oral exams, the experience you describe was my experience for every single exam at university when I was in Rome in the '80s.
. . . does that mean that I can tell my (slightly) woke daughters that they are in error when they attribute "whiteness" to Shakespeare, Donne, or to Bach? :)
. . . re oral exams . . . the American model for post-secondary education is almost industrial (even in our so-called elite universities (the one I attended is on that list)). I got to take the oral exam because I had selected a "writing intensive option" for the course, which meant several papers and the oral exam--there were probably about 40 of us in that option, out of a total of about 140-160 in the course overall. Hard enough to do in that kind of environment--impossible at a big state university, where lecture courses with several hundred students are not uncommon . . .
. . . still, I think the developments in AI will make the in-person oral exam more attractive . . . harder to cheat in that context . . .
I wouldn't recommend provoking your woke daughters, but yes, you *could* tell them that...
Oral exams are certainly difficult to scale up to large numbers. Which of course means we should spend more time on education and reduce the teachers / students ratio. That said, I took large courses at the University of Rome, and the orals were administered over a number of days by the professor and his/her assistants.
The historian and artist Nell Painter has a wonderful book called "The History of White People," which is a sweeping historical analysis of the concept of whiteness that begins in the ancient mediterranean before the concept ever existed as such. Despite the fact that these people weren't really "white" for any variety of reasons, she begins there because as Ted points out, later thinkers and race scientists leaned heavily on defining them as "white" in order to establish their own meaning of "whiteness."
As a college instructor I would 100% support more oral examination. Indeed, I think the whole premise of grades as we use them now is wrongheaded and misconceived. Socrates and Confucius never received a letter grade on anything they ever did and they're revered as history's greatest sages, so why are we so hung up on the concept now? Most of the figures we tend to think of as emblematic of brilliance never received letter grades, which only emerged--really--in the early 20th century, and yet any talk of getting rid of grades or even de-emphasizing them is met by alarmist talk of a the end of "rigor."
My only answer is that switching to things like oral examination and qualitative/narrative assessment requires more teachers, and giving more resources to those teachers, and doesn't lend itself as well to the factory model of education that our institutions have become so invested in over the last 100 years or so as education has become more democratic/accessible. Many educational administrators--it seems--would rather spend billions on tech solutions not rooted in educational scholarship or experience before they spend a dime on hiring more teachers.
John, as I said, I support oral examinations. But the comparison with Socrates and Confucius is not informative. They didn't have to get on a job market and show potential employers that they knew how to write and think...
I agree that getting rid of grades doesn't fit the factory model. But I'm not sure I have a problem with grades per se -- after all, we do need a measure of proficiency on the part of the student. My objection is to the ways we grade students, especially when based on multiple choice quizzes that are easy to score on a computer.
My older daugher attended a small liberal arts college that does not issue grades. Each professor writes a narrative evaluation for each student. She shared a couple of her evaluations with me. Far more daunting (yet also more informative) than a mere letter grade. The lack of grades was not a sign of lack of rigor--in fact, it was probably the exact opposite.
. . . and it turns out that the same lack of grades does not inhibit future endeavors. The school's record of placement in graduate and professional schools is exemplary, and, from what I understand, it has historically punched above its weight in generating Fullbright scholars, etc.
A provocative list . . . it is not that I have any lack of things to read (more like a lack of time to get to the things I want), but some of those will be worth a look . . .
A couple of thoughts . . .
On oral examinations: One of the best experiences of my undergraduate career was an oral examination at the end of my sophomore year. The course was on the American Revolution. The professor was a (justly) famous scholar of the period (and a warm and unfailingly polite individual). The panel was the professor and two of his teaching assistants (neither of whom had been my section leader). It quickly evolved into a freewheeling discussion of the period, which was all too short. Wonderful.
On Plato (or Socrates, or Aristotle) not being "white." It has struck me that attaching the concept of "whiteness" (which, at a minimum, has to look at Germanic and other northern peoples, and their movements across northwestern Europe centuries after Plato; and which is very likely a construct of the early modern period) to some guys who lived in a Mediterranean culture with interactions with Egypt, Persia and a host of other influences was anachronistic. No doubt that Plato (and the other two--as well as many many others) had a profound effect on what we have come to call Western civilization. But they precede it, and their thought is open to all (think of their influence on Islamic culture, for one). Will follow that link to see if perhaps I was, in my musing, on to something . . .
Ted, yes, you guessed correctly the gist of the article about Plato. "Whitneness" in the contemporary meaning of the term is a result of the Enlightenment and the Colonial period, so it's definitely anachronistic to apply to Plato, or, really, anyone who lived before the Enlightenment.
As for oral exams, the experience you describe was my experience for every single exam at university when I was in Rome in the '80s.
. . . does that mean that I can tell my (slightly) woke daughters that they are in error when they attribute "whiteness" to Shakespeare, Donne, or to Bach? :)
. . . re oral exams . . . the American model for post-secondary education is almost industrial (even in our so-called elite universities (the one I attended is on that list)). I got to take the oral exam because I had selected a "writing intensive option" for the course, which meant several papers and the oral exam--there were probably about 40 of us in that option, out of a total of about 140-160 in the course overall. Hard enough to do in that kind of environment--impossible at a big state university, where lecture courses with several hundred students are not uncommon . . .
. . . still, I think the developments in AI will make the in-person oral exam more attractive . . . harder to cheat in that context . . .
I wouldn't recommend provoking your woke daughters, but yes, you *could* tell them that...
Oral exams are certainly difficult to scale up to large numbers. Which of course means we should spend more time on education and reduce the teachers / students ratio. That said, I took large courses at the University of Rome, and the orals were administered over a number of days by the professor and his/her assistants.