My girlfriend, being an immense fan of the television series Smallville, urged me to begin watching and lent me her copies of the first 4 seasons so I could begin catching up to the 7th season just completed a couple weeks ago. For those of you unfamiliar with the CW show, Smallville depicts the maturation of Clark Kent as he experiences adolescence and young-adulthood coping with and mastering his exceptional abilities while grappling with and confronting the strange and unusual truth of his existence. Smallville carefully avoids being the story of Superman, or rather Superboy, and embraces the telling of the story of Clark.
After watching several episodes I was intrigued, but admittedly I reached a point where I confided in my roommate that if Clark Kent didn't start changing in phone booths and flying around soon I was going to lose interest. Thankfully, I was wrong.
I remember watching Christopher Reeves glide across the Metropolis skylines as a young boy wishing that I had the ability to do the same, but I know that many of the students I work with are a bit too young to have such memories. Thus, I've grown to appreciate how the story of Clark Kent has been brought into a contemporary setting to reintroduce the hero's secret identity to a younger audience. I also appreciate how we as its audience are being asked to identify solely - at least presently - with the mild-mannered Clark as opposed to the Man of Steel. While we can all dream of having super-strength and x-ray vision, it's not exactly easy to identify with these attributes. However, Clark's character traits and the personal conflicts he encounters are absolutely relatable. Though compounded by extraordinary circumstances, his battle to know himself and be himself to the greatest extent he can is not at all unlike the battles we all must fight to find our true selves and our places in the world, battles that continue and may become more or less difficult as we mature and embrace new challenges in life.
Smallville effectively completes - or is in the process of completing - the primary chapters of the Superman mythology. This intentional use of the word mythology is a point I want to stress. Numerous cultures around the globe have histories much longer and more extensive than that of Americans - or USAians to be precise. These cultures have adopted mythologies that romanticize and popularize the histories of their ancient societies. I've encountered the argument that the Lord of the Rings stands alone as a mythology for English culture, and I support it. Likewise, I support the notion that comics and our stories of superheroes are our Mythology. Inspired by the truly great stories cherished by other cultures, we've reinvented the characters and retold the tales in our own time.
I enjoy and applaud Smallville for updating and adding a new dimension to the mythology of Superman. I haven't caught up on the entire series yet - I'm really not even that close - but I'm committed to doing so and, knowing how the 7th season ended, eager to keep watching. However, some flying would be nice.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
no more alphabet soup
Faculty at Standford Law School voted last week to cease the use of letter grades in measuring student achievement: http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/02/stanford. Stanford joins Yale and Berkeley as the only institutions to take such action, and there's already immediate expectations that Harvard Law will follow suit.
I think this is an ingenious idea. I think it would be a horrible action to take at the high school level, an inappropriate measure at the undergraduate level, but a useful and logical precedent to set at the graduate level. Grades are important evaluative measures of student performance. As a college admission officer, I place much emphasis on how well students have performed in the classroom when making decisions. I place equal emphasis on what students have accomplished outside the classroom in making decisions as well. I'm also aware that the importance of grades is overshadowed by process of learning and immersing oneself into a subject matter. In cutthroat environments like those often found at highly competitive law schools, the pressure to achieve A's drowns out the pleasure of learning something new and the anticipation of putting acquired knowledge to use.
I'll repeat: grades are important. Though casting aside the caste system of letter grades, Stanford, Yale and Berkeley still assign a measure of performance to their students.
Correctly identifying and distinguishing those students whose academic achievements stand out from those of their peers is important, just as it's important to celebrate their peers for their accomplishments in athletics, service, leadership, etc. Grades are an important factor in correctly admitting students to an undergraduate or graduate program, but again, they're one of numerous important factors. When reviewing college applications, I'll give equal consideration to a student who is in the top 1% of his class and a student who is in the top 51% of his class. Granted, the first student has much better odds at being admitted to a selective institution, but both merit equal consideration.
What I'm hearing from people - you know, out there on the streets - is that many employers, especially law firms, will only interview students in the top 10%, top 25%, etc. of their class. Seriously?! It's not possible at a competitive law school that an artful litigator is ranked in the top 27% of her class? It's not possible that an outstanding future advocate of the wrongfully accused is ranked in the fourth decile of his class? Maybe such students didn't perform as well on their exams, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't learn as much or gain as pertinent experience as those who did.
The point I'm hoping to make is that anyone and everyone is worth a look. Employers who know what they're doing place little emphasis on a candidate's GPA while placing strong emphasis on a candidate's reflections and insights from earning a degree, on their goals and aspirations, and on their personality and presence. Admission officers who know what they're doing carefully consider GPA's, SAT's and other statistical variables against qualities of character, ethic, and passion. So if Stanford, Yale and Berkeley have found a way to open doors previously shut to the majority of students by eliminating the traditional letter grades that unfortunately become labels, then I'm all for it.
I think this is an ingenious idea. I think it would be a horrible action to take at the high school level, an inappropriate measure at the undergraduate level, but a useful and logical precedent to set at the graduate level. Grades are important evaluative measures of student performance. As a college admission officer, I place much emphasis on how well students have performed in the classroom when making decisions. I place equal emphasis on what students have accomplished outside the classroom in making decisions as well. I'm also aware that the importance of grades is overshadowed by process of learning and immersing oneself into a subject matter. In cutthroat environments like those often found at highly competitive law schools, the pressure to achieve A's drowns out the pleasure of learning something new and the anticipation of putting acquired knowledge to use.
I'll repeat: grades are important. Though casting aside the caste system of letter grades, Stanford, Yale and Berkeley still assign a measure of performance to their students.
Correctly identifying and distinguishing those students whose academic achievements stand out from those of their peers is important, just as it's important to celebrate their peers for their accomplishments in athletics, service, leadership, etc. Grades are an important factor in correctly admitting students to an undergraduate or graduate program, but again, they're one of numerous important factors. When reviewing college applications, I'll give equal consideration to a student who is in the top 1% of his class and a student who is in the top 51% of his class. Granted, the first student has much better odds at being admitted to a selective institution, but both merit equal consideration.
What I'm hearing from people - you know, out there on the streets - is that many employers, especially law firms, will only interview students in the top 10%, top 25%, etc. of their class. Seriously?! It's not possible at a competitive law school that an artful litigator is ranked in the top 27% of her class? It's not possible that an outstanding future advocate of the wrongfully accused is ranked in the fourth decile of his class? Maybe such students didn't perform as well on their exams, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't learn as much or gain as pertinent experience as those who did.
The point I'm hoping to make is that anyone and everyone is worth a look. Employers who know what they're doing place little emphasis on a candidate's GPA while placing strong emphasis on a candidate's reflections and insights from earning a degree, on their goals and aspirations, and on their personality and presence. Admission officers who know what they're doing carefully consider GPA's, SAT's and other statistical variables against qualities of character, ethic, and passion. So if Stanford, Yale and Berkeley have found a way to open doors previously shut to the majority of students by eliminating the traditional letter grades that unfortunately become labels, then I'm all for it.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
guess who's back
It's been so long since my last post that it hardly merits mention or explanation. Rest assured I survived the admission cycle (barely) and am doing my best to enjoy the summer months before I head back to school this fall - I'll be pursuing an MA in Higher Education at Boston College.
I've always romanticized the idea of traveling - like actual traveling and not driving 7 hours to attend a college fair in Southwest Virginia traveling (not that I don't love Southwest Virginia) - but I've never had much opportunity to do it. Thankfully, I have someone in my life right now who's helping me change that. Take a look:
I know this blog entry is rather brief, but as an intelligent man reminded me this afternoon, a few pictures can be worth several thousand words.
I've always romanticized the idea of traveling - like actual traveling and not driving 7 hours to attend a college fair in Southwest Virginia traveling (not that I don't love Southwest Virginia) - but I've never had much opportunity to do it. Thankfully, I have someone in my life right now who's helping me change that. Take a look:
I know this blog entry is rather brief, but as an intelligent man reminded me this afternoon, a few pictures can be worth several thousand words.
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