Sammy's Dot

I admit that not all university professors are created equal when it comes to grading. For sure, I’ve had a better experience in the (much tinier) Faculty of Environmental Studies at York than I ever did in the (gigantic) Psychology Department at the University of Toronto.

But I really, really don’t think that the answer to profs who don’t have time to grade students’ work effectively, or who just find it boring, is to outsource grading to India. This has nothing to do with the quality of work that the people hired by this company do; I have no doubt that it is high. But constructive commentary on a single paper is not enough to replace an effective professor or teaching assistant.

Last year, I got a B on my first essay for environmental politics. It hurt; I worked hard on that paper, and it was the only non-A I got last year. I determined to get an A on the second essay, and I did – but I know that part of the reason I was able to improve my work was that I didn’t just go by the comments my TA gave me on the first paper. I went back to her and talked to her about the outline for my second paper in light of those comments. And because she knew me, she knew the work that I had done in the past, and she knew what I was currently working on, she was able to offer helpful criticism before I submitted the paper.

And moreover, that was her job. That’s part of the academic apprenticeship of a teaching assistant position: learning how to gauge a student’s ability and progress and how to help that student improve. I know perfectly well that most full professors do not do their own grading, but I am also well-aware that they supervise their TAs, often quite closely, to help them and help their undergraduate students. It’s a hard job, I know. I spent more than two hours yesterday going over a friend’s application to grad school and giving him feedback on how to make it better. But I think I learned from doing that too. When I start graduate school next year, I want to have the opportunity to learn teach, not just to research; what good is my research if I can’t share what I learn?

This isn’t something that can or should be outsourced. It saddens me that any professor sees so little value in their role as a teacher.