Writing on the Bell Curve

“You’re a fine writer,” Professor Slote told me. “But there’s a student in the class who is better. He gets the ‘A’.” He lifted his shoulders dismissively. “That’s how it works in my class. One ‘A,’ one ‘F.’ Everyone else falls somewhere in between.”

I started to cry, a reaction I regret to this day. I'm still mad that I cried. I couldn't have stopped, though; the tears were of frustration and fury, born from fifteen weeks of hard work, early morning hours spent in a cold basement computer lab, revisions and edits beyond count, all to to fit my words to this man’s schema of good writing.

“I’m not sure why you’re crying,” he said, genuinely flummoxed. “It’s a Bell Curve. Have you ever heard of the Bell Curve?” He pulled a piece of paper from the printer beside his desk and drew a gigantic, upside-down bell. “Here is the best writer in the class,” he said, starting below the hill. “He’s what we call the ‘cognitive elite’.” Then, making a slash on the beginning of the curve’s ascent, he said, with a flourish, “And this is you.”

I couldn’t think of a thing to say, except, miserably, “I really wanted to get straight ‘A’s this semester.”

“Not my problem,” he shrugged. “Listen, kiddo. It’s just the way the world works. It’s a hard, hard place to be. Part of my job is to get you ready for it.”

This story bubbled up recently with a group of my college pals. We were reminiscing about freshman-year requirements at our liberal arts college. Every freshman had to take an introductory humanities, science, art, and writing class, intended to be foundational classes to prepare, inspire, and lead us toward a major fitting our skills and interests.

I hated those classes because they were supposed to be standardized, equal, and fair— and they were anything but. Receiving a ‘B’ in an introductory writing class was massively bothersome to me; I mean, I was planning to major in English, for cryin’ out loud. I had friends who were barely functioning as students—skipping class or, worse, showing up reeking of binge drinking; turning in papers scratched out in the TV lounge over a game of euchre; open, guffawing mocking of the intro classes and how easy they were. Those students, though, were given clear, easy marks of 100% for their papers. I thought it was deeply unfair. They thought it was hilarious. “Bad luck,” they said, not sorry.

The problem with standardized classes, of course, is teachers aren’t standardized. They carry wildly different philosophies, strategies for instruction, and—we all know this, intimately—deeply conflicting approaches to grading. Professor Slote’s approach wasn’t conflicted in him, mind you; he saw it as a very simple mathematical equation, and there was exactly zero wiggle room.

But the teacher isn’t the only problem with standardized classes. Students aren’t standardized any more than teachers and instructors and professors are. Every single one is different. It can be argued, I suppose, that humans fit on a Bell Curve—if you look at all six billion of us as a lump, and if you’re up for a raucous debate about the dehumanizing nature of using such a curve— but learners don’t.

It’s not that we should be afraid of generosity with ‘A’s; in many ways, that’s problematic just as is an unwavering commitment to a Bell Curve. And we certainly shouldn’t give an ‘A’ just because a kid asks for one. But grades require a bit more thinking than a lot of the things we do.

My freshman year goal for perfect grades was, indeed, problematic. Professor Slote was right about that. Any goal in which “less than perfect” is a failure is doomed in many ways. But it took a lot of time and perspective for me to understand why. Professor Slote’s approach was to poo-poo the goal and tell me the world was hard. Far better—so much better—would have been for him to sit down and talk about it with me and, perhaps, do a little thinking and reflecting of his own.