The spring semester has about a month left in it, which means that some students are suddenly discovering that their grades are not what they had hoped. During this time I am exposed to a variety of excuses and pleas.
A recent one, which I have heard often in the past, is when a student points out that s/he is not a philosophy major while asking for a better grade or some sort of special treatment. Presumably the idea is that if a student is not majoring in the course subject, this entails that s/he is owed some sort of special treatment.
Since I teach classes that take care of humanities requirements and are often required by other majors, most of my students are not philosophy majors. Interestingly, most of them seem to have no problem with the courses. Also, I design the classes with this fact in mind, so this result is hardly surprising. As I tell my students in my upper level classes, I assume that most students are not majors, have no idea how to write philosophy papers, and have special interest in the subject. I go on to assure them that I will teach them all they will need to succeed in the class.
Obviously, being a major in a subject might give a student an advantage. However, this hardly seems to be an unfair advantage. After all, people who are taking a Spanish class should not expect a grade boost just because a native Spanish speaker would have things easier in such a class. Naturally, to grade the class relative to the Spanish speaker would be unfair. Likewise, a student who has taken philosophy classes will have an edge, but this is not unfair (unless the other students are graded relative to this student).
I would, of course, be concerned if non-majors consistently did badly in my classes. However, I always get the right sort of grade distribution even when not a single major is in the class. As such, this excuse really has no merit in my classes. That said, professors who have classes that are required or frequented by non-majors (classes that are needed for general education requirement, for example) should take this fact into account when setting requirements and expectations.
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Being a major isn’t even analogous to being a native Spanish speaker — because, the only advantage a major may have is that they’ve had more philosophy courses. This is something the non-major whiner could do as well.
The better analogy is a casual swimmer complaining that it is unfair that they have to swim in the same pool as someone who is on the swim team.
True, the analogy does break down a bit. However, even with a native Spanish speaker in a class, students do not get extra points for not being native speakers. Since the native speaker has an even greater advantage than a major, this provide even more support to my claim.
If the casual swimmer had to compete with the swim team member, then it would be “unfair.” But, if they both have to meet the same basic goals and the goals are geared towards the casual swimmer, then things would be quite fair. While the swim team member (or major) would have it easier, the casual swimmer would not be facing unreasonable standards.
Just tell them that it’s your job as a philosopher to decide which of them will have fulfilling careers and which will be stuck in dead-end, menial jobs.
Then tell them that for extra credit they can write an essay as to why this arrangement is unfair, and demonstrate knowledge of Plato’s Republic in their response.
Actually, people generally decide that for themselves. 🙂