The Children Are Our Future

11 Replies to “The Children Are Our Future”

1. I’d have shocked them.
   “Average is zero, which is an F. You all fail.”
   “But, but – what about the CURVE, maaaaaaan?”
   “I’m a teacher, not a robot. Here endeth the lesson.”

2. Remind me of another story about Cal State San Diego (this is a story from 1980s). One computer science professor is convinced that his students are guessing at the multiple choice test he gave as final exam. So he graded it this way: right answer = -2, wrong answer = -1. The only guy who pass the test is the guy who overslept and missed the test.

3. Did they show up and write “Present”?

4. There’s important information missing. Dr. Froehlich used to tell his classes about this quirk of the grading system at the beginning of every semester. In short, he pointed out the loophole and dared them to try and exploit it. Dr. Froehlich has spoken repeatedly about what he feels is an overly competitive atmosphere in the Johns Hopkins CS program and this was clearly him manipulating the students into rejecting traditional competitive exams for publicity (something he also quite vocally opposes). Think about it: a computer science professor creates a grading system with an obviously exploitable boundary condition? He’s either dangerously incompetent or up to something.
   Since three classes have called his bluff and pulled this off, the grading policy has been changed.
   Information also missing: the students used physical intimidation to prevent anyone entering the exam room at the scheduled time.

5. I think these students are really smart..
   The children are our future and they will create more Apple, Facebook, Twitter, electric car, clean energy.
   They will abandon religion, embrace science even more so.
   The future is bright.

6. To quote the Old Dogs,
   “Every time I hear about –
   some new game that they’re playing
   It sounds like – that same damn game –
   that I played before,”
   We did this in high school in Vancouver in 1980.

7. He should know that a null value (ie, missing) is not equivalent to 0.

8. This. of course, is the same strategy used by perpetual welfare recipients. Simply said ‘learn to work the system’. Giving them all an A for figuring out how to get something for nothing really isn’t the right message to send. However, it does ‘jive’ with the Obama administration’s theory of operations and will lead to more dependency on government (and society in general) so young people like these can say “hey, that’s what I learned in University”. Great message…

9. Your booby-trapped basement windows shouldn’t be much of a problem for
   that lot!

10. It’s kind of funny.

11. All future politicians,
    Find a loop hole, play with in the “rules”, twist them to their own advantage and “bobs your uncle” a whole class of entitled thieves and parasites.