The importance of changing perspective

[Ronja]

Yesterday I sort of exploded over some college homework (compulsory pre-exam exercises, to be exact). The main gist of my displeasure was that these exercises, and the last one in particular, offered no meaningful challenge, which frustrated me greatly. See here for the sordid details - those that I managed to be aware of at the time: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 87#p550787

However, after letting off all that steam a question popped up in my head: "From the teacher's viewpoint, what is the goal and function of compulsory pre-exam exercises?"

And that changed my whole outlook on the exercises. In my experience, at a research university, which offers also bachelor's degrees, when dealing with a compulsory course attended by 150-300 undergraduates per year, the teacher has two main goals:

1) that arranging and teaching the course does not take too much time from the teacher's own or their postgraduate students' (= course TAs) research
2) that as many students as possible pass the exam on their first try = exam checking does not become a too depressing task for the teacher and the TAs

From the viewpoint of these goals, the role of computerized, compulsory pre-exam exercises becomes quite clear: the purpose of those exercises is to make sure that each student has - at least once - successfully worked through each of the basic problems that they are likely to encounter in the exam, i.e. that each student who comes to the exam has at least a minimum level of knowledge and thus a fighting chance to pass.

So the exercises were never intended to be challenging: they were intended as a low-water mark, to check that everyone passes a minimum standard. My bad.

And now I feel like an idiot, again. Thankfully, I'm quite used to that

[Rum]

I have to see I tend to be overly reasonable. I tend nearly always to look at issues from the other person's point of view before reaching a conclusion. I sometimes think of it as a weakness, but it has served me well too in terms of success at work and personal relationships. I nearly always reach consensus rather than a 'command' position.

I also wonder if this is self delusion and that if you talked to people who know me they would say that this was nonsense. I say this because I am gradually coming to the conclusion that a great deal of self reflection and navel gazing is totally irrelevant and lacking in true perspective. We are what we appear to others to be, not what we think we are.