Barbara looked the exam over carefully. The class was not for students expecting to go into business or the sciences and therefore covered more basic, practical concepts. It seemed simple enough.
The longer she looked at the exam, the longer she felt that the questions themselves were flawed.Charlie was being asked to compare statements like doubling rates of gunshot deaths in children versus doubling rates of children killed by firearm violence. The question was marked as incorrect, as Charlie had indicated the statements were in not comparable as opposed to conflicting or consistent.
Shaking her head, Barbara said, “These questions are stupid. Who the hell wrote this test? At the very least you’re using your head and noting the difference in implied intent of the statements.”
The asker, she suspected, was not likely to be smart enough to realize the difference. As a math question, saying the rates doubled annually in one statement versus doubling over a twenty year period, Barbara was quite sure the answer they were looking for was “in conflict” as annual doubling is a lot greater jump over twenty years than a doubling of the initial annual numbers at the end of a twenty year period.
As Barbara worked her way through the exam, she found a number of other such questions which were stated in ways that left way too much room for interpretation. Giving Charlie half marks for those questionable wrong answers by the time the exam was over, she ended up with a score of 81%. Not likely to put her at the top of the class, but a low B was a heck of a lot nicer grade than a D+.
Charlie had worked so hard that it was painful to see her so disheartened by the poor grade. Barbara picked up her cell phone and dialed the school’s number. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to help you learn to frame your interpretation of the questions on the context. In other words, questions like this stupid one to be examined as a math question only rather than one directly comparing topics one might consider in civics.”
Pausing, Barbara’s finger came up to silence any possible comment from Charlie. “I want to talk to Mr. Jacobs in the Math Department. I expect an explanation from him on who exactly taught him to grade an exam. Yes, I’ll hold.”
As the dead air of the telephone transfer system rang in Barbara’s ear, she turned to Charlie and extended her right index finger. “You did better with this ridiculous test than your grade suggests.”
“Yes, Mr. Jacobs? I’m Charlie’s mother. Charlie Radcliffe. Yes, from your fourth period class. No, not Mrs. Radcliffe, please call me Ms. Gordon.”
“Where exactly did you get this exam? I want a meeting to discuss my daughter’s grade, and how you’re going to curve up the grades of those students who deserved part marks for this poorly worded crap on a cracker you call a test.”
Waiting tensely as the teacher explained the source of the question, Barbara shook her head. “Oh, no no. Look at question 19. There’s a clear implication of intent in that statement. Deaths versus killings? How could you not award even partial marks for recognizing the potential Charlie clearly explained in her answer?”
“I know this is not a Social Studies class, but does that mean you should be absolved from providing questions in clearly understandable English?” Barbara demanded. “I’m not arguing question 22, although now that you mention it it would not be a bad idea to encourage students to get all the information about the equivalency of statements. After all, it’s about relative impact of firearm violence and yet you reference those who’ve died in theaters of war over the last decade. How many were killed by IEDs? Died of malarial infection? Dysentery? And look at question 46. It’s not Charlie’s fault that you don’t understand that a Megabyte is, by definition 1024 kilobytes or that a Gig is 1024 Megs. Is it any wonder these kids are confused when they buy a 16 Gig device and find it only has 15.25 Gigs of actual space on it?”
After a moment of silence on Barbara’s side, she locked her jaw firmly in place and spat out, “Do you mean to tell me you’re just there to teach math and don’t give a damn about imparting critical thinking skills to your students? No wonder Gotham’s public school system is so far below that national average.”
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