I think that a lot of the essence of this post has to do with my idea of success. In most schools students are graded on an A-F system. It isn't always about personal growth/progress but about how you measure up to whatever standard was set. I'm not saying standards are bad, but they don't catch the whole picture.
I have almost always been an academian and to that end have always made grades my measure of success.
Is this bad? Not always.
The A-F system of measurement has it's merits and it's faults. First of all, just to be a decent person you don't have to be good at everything. Now, I'm not saying that you should be happy with A's in some subject and F's in another subject. That is not my point. But people don't get Ph.D.'s in everything for a reason. Just because you are good at math doesn't mean you should ignore other subjects but I doubt there are many people that could be considered a research mathematician *and* a Shakespearean scholar.
To back up a little bit to the initial question posed by the comment "Would you have felt better if you did not fail class? If so, then who controls your feelings? You, or the coincidence of passing or failing a test?" No, I would not feel great about failing a class but that is because I often measure my own success through academic achievements. I do control my feelings to a degree (I mean, if someone hits me I will feel pain and I can't really control that). But I do hope that students feel something when they fail an exam.
I am not saying that failing students should be used as punishment. But there should be some sort of reflection process.
From the teachers standpoint:
- Did a lot of students fail the exam?
- Was the exam fair? Too difficult? Too easy? Too tricky?
- If I was taking this exam and had been a student in my class, would I have passed?
- Has this student improved over the course of this class or stayed stagnant?
From the students' standpoint:
- Was this a good performance for me?
- Did I study/prepare for the exam?
- Was my head in the game? i.e., Did I really try?
There are many factors, some from a "self" perspective, that will influence how one performs on an exam. If you had a good nights sleep, good nutrition, stress levels, and all sorts of other factors.
I may be a "high-achiever" but that doesn't mean I've never failed a test before. But the question I usually have after an exam is whether or not (a) I was prepared and/or could have prepared better and (b) if I thought the exam was fair.
One thing instructors (at least as far as I have found) confuse is the idea of a good exam. In math, yes everything builds on itself. But is it really fair to ask a student to recall knowledge from 2 or 3 courses back and not give them a heads up? Should students taking an abstract algebra course be required to remember pre-cal from long ago? Maybe, but maybe not. Courses should, to some degree, be self-contained. Everything students need to pass should be right out in front of them. It should be an example in the book or something. Don't blind-side students by pulling mathematical structures/problems out of a magic hat. If your book only has theorems, don't ask students for examples without giving them a second reference book that you recommend.
A lot of this comes down to having clear expectations for students. If you want your class to go to the library every day and read out of 10 different abstract algebra books then say so and don't leave it up to ambiguity. Sometimes I wonder if instructors really want students to fail their exams - but I really don't think that is the case. It's not always the teachers' fault and it's not always the students' fault. Sometimes it's neither parties fault! But those aren't the cases I'm talking about.
With fair assessments (sometimes I have had these and sometimes I have not) then I think students *should* reflect on their own practices. But without fair assessments then it is difficult for students to ante-up to their own responsibility and carry the course. An instructor shouldn't assume that because 1 student gets 100% the assessment is fair but I understand the pull away from making assessments too easy as well. It's definitely a hard balance to strike.
Now to make you (the reader's) reflect: What are your thoughts? Should a student feel bad (at least ever so slightly) when they fail? Should instructors/teachers/professors look more closely at their exams?
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