I was reading this story in the New York Times the other day, about how digital technology is distracting students. I could talk at length about a lot of the issues that the article raises, but there’s one thing in particular I want to comment on just now, and that’s this passage:
“Several teachers call Vishal one of their brightest students, and they wonder why things are not adding up. Last semester, his grade point average was 2.3 after a D-plus in English and an F in Algebra II. He got an A in film critique.”
This is an issue I’ve gone on about many times in the past, and it’s this bizarre idea that grades are an accurate measurement of . . . anything. What does it tell us that Vishal got a D+ in English and an F in Algebra? Well, allow me to answer that with a little bit of a story about myself:
I was a C student in high school. There were classes that I did extremely well in, and classes that I did very poorly in, though I never actually failed anything. At any rate, at the end of high school I had pretty poor marks, and I had trouble getting into university. I finished my Honours BA, and moved on to grad school. I went on to get straight As while working on my Masters degree in history. Following that, I taught myself computer programming and I’m now employed more or less as a web developer.
What’s the moral of this story? That my grades in high school told you nothing about my capacity for learning, even academic learning. All they told you is that I didn’t get good grades in high school, but they couldn’t have told you why (largely because I thought high school was pointless, which is a sentiment I still hold). So what does it mean that Vishal has poor grades in some of his courses? Is there some kind of message about the way that technology is holding back otherwise intelligent students from achieving their true potential? I doubt it. Marks just don’t mean anything.
I’ve been thinking a little bit about the Occupy protests and the language that’s used to describe them (and for that matter, similar protests like the one at the 2010 G20 conference in Toronto). Many detractors of the movement claim that the sit-ins are disruptive and unnecessary. I think that those claims can be responded to separately. As to whether or not they’re necessary, well, it’s clear to me that the situation in Canada at the moment isn’t what it is in the U.S. There’s a reason that the protests began by specifically targetting Wall Street, and it’s because people are angry about the massive fraud committed by financial institutions in the run-up to the current recession. Just as much as that, many people are angry that the president who they voted for because they thought he would tackle those issues and prosecute potential wrongdoing has instead sat by while his Justice Department actively lobbies to ensure no one is prosecuted for financial crimes. Related to that is the frustration over the burst of housing bubbles in many parts of the U.S., bubbles that economist Dean Baker estimates have resulted in the loss of $6 billion in housing wealth. So it’s clear what Americans are targeting their anger at.
If you’re not familiar with this story yet, the Toronto Star has a series of three articles(1, 2, 3) that are well worth reading. It reminded me of this story from a couple of years ago. One of the reasons this story is so interesting is that the parents of the child are given ample time to explain both what they are doing and why they are doing it. I think they come across as articulate, thoughtful, and intelligent. And for the record, I’m going to be writing here under the assumption that we all agree (at least roughly) on the difference between sex (which is biological) and gender (which is a social construct which intersects with, but is not always directly related to, sex). If not, well, that’s a whole other discussion, though I’ll be touching on it a bit in what follows.
The real question, I’d say, isn’t whether they’re nice people or whether their idea sounds neat, but whether or not this is actually a good thing to do. And I guess my answer is that I’m not entirely sure. I thoroughly support what they are doing in principle – gender stereotypes are harmful in very real and meaningful ways, and as a society and a culture we should be working to eliminate them. The fear I have is that Storm could be the recipient of significant ridicule and harassment; however, while most people who share this fear think that Storm will be ridiculed because of other children, I think Storm will be ridiculed by other children’s parents.
One would think that after an election in which the Conservative party comes to power as a majority government, the Canadian media might show a little bit of interest in figuring out who makes up the new governing party, and how that party might be planning on governing over the next 4 years. Alas, it seems instead that our media is more concerned with criticising a small number of MPs representing the official opposition, primarily on the basis of the fact that those MPs are fairly young in the political world.
It tends to be the case that no particular argument is made as to why we shouldn’t have young MPs. The criticism tends to be something along the lines of “several of the new NDP MPs are students at McGill”. There is almost inevitably mention of the fact that, if they remain MPs for the duration of this Parliament, they will collect approximately $700 000 in salary. No one ever specifically says why they shouldn’t collect the same salary as every other MP, but I think the underlying assumptions are well understood; namely, that:
1. Young people are inexperienced, and we want experienced people to run our government.
2. Older people deserve more money because they’ve worked harder to get to where they are.
I think both of those views are incorrect – or at the very least ill-founded – so I’m going to explain why I think having young MPs is great for our political system. I want to clarify here that I don’t personally know any of the people in question, so this is a defence of young MPs generally and not of any particular individual(s).
