In my last post, I offered a jokey little midterm exam making fun of “grade grubbing” -- particularly the situation of students who think that with the right amount of properly applied whining and cajoling, a professor will cave and change a grade of “B” into “A.” I’d like to revisit the subject, only this time in all seriousness.

There’s some merit to the complaints of those who consider grading in the humanities -- compared to the hard sciences and mathematics -- to be extremely subjective around the edges. Standards in the humanities are not as hard and fast as those in science and mathematics, and professors find it harder to quantify what is essentially a matter of quality. The standards often seem mushy. Even so, more than one colleague in the hard sciences and mathematics has assured me that grade grubbing knows no bounds. They, too, have had to listen to the appeals of students who think the right words can change a “B” into an “A.”

The fairness of grades given in courses on such topics as Shakespeare, English, history, French literature, philosophy, music or drawing is certainly not “provable,” but that judgments of quality can be fair and just is demonstrable. Reasonable people, assuming they have some acquaintance with the subject at hand, agree with astounding conformity about what’s bad, good, better and best. Squabbles erupt most often when two things are extremely close in quality (the fairness in a given instance of a grade of “A” as opposed to “A-,” for example). Big gaps seldom cause dispute (the fairness of a grade of “A” in a given instance, as opposed to a grade of “C”). (N.B. I have happily plagiarized this last point from my favorite essay on the subject, David Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste.") Most students trying to push a professor to move a “B” to an “A” are silenced when confronted with an actual example of a work that earned a grade of “A” in the class. Clear evidence has a way of instantaneously proving what the heart cannot accept.

The root cause of complaints about grades lies with the pedagogical upheaval that began in the 60s and led to the current model of the professor as a “guide at the side” instead of a “sage on the stage.” Where a guide at the side deliberately hides his or her knowledge, the sage on the stage makes no apologies for being a purveyor of wisdom. Even in instances where a particular individual “sage” was less than brilliant (or even thoroughly incompetent), the principle of the “sage on the stage” implied that wisdom and knowledge existed, and some people possessed these things. In the model of the sage on the stage, professors inspired respect (good), intimidation (sometimes bad, sometimes good), and even awe (sometimes bad, sometimes good). Students thought of them as living a life dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge that was above the ordinary fray of commerce and competition.

In the guide-at-the-side model, however, even though today's students possess residual respect for professors, they’re no longer intimidated nor awed by them. Why should they be? Professors are friendly and easily approachable sorts -- much like favored aunts or uncles. It's as if they're always quietly saying, “There’s really nothing very special about me, and you and I are pretty much equals except for the small fact that I happen to be a tad further along on the off-ramp of life than you are -- and, uh, oh, by the way, sorry, I have to give out some grades.”

In an age where professors and students are almost equals, what's astonishing isn't that some students brazenly try to simply negotiate their grades upwards. Rather, it’s a wonder all students don’t come knocking for a higher grade.