The "best" students are often the most diligent and dutiful, but not necessarily the most passionate about learning or the smartest. Fairly or not, women and Asian students are often viewed in that light. The University of California reputedly sets limits on their Asian student acceptances.
Profs often find the "best" students boring to teach. Tom Wood at the NAS discusses. One quote:
Some years ago a friend mentioned that a professor at Berkeley he knew had either left for another teaching job or quit teaching altogether (I can’t remember which). The professor had no complaints about the salary, his opportunities to do research and writing, or his department colleagues. In most respects, he was quite happy at Cal—except for the students. And in fact, his complaints about the students were quite limited and specific. He had told my friend that the students were very, very good academically. They could and did do the work. They kept up with the course material, and did well on tests. But they were boring. They weren’t passionate. They weren’t engaged. And because the students were boring, he had come to find teaching boring. So he gave up his tenured position for some other place in academe, or perhaps outside academe altogether.
The President wants more college grads. As VDH noted in Triumph of Banality: President Obama also promises historic new rates of high-school and college graduation. Again, he seems to think the present problem is the absence of money — as if brilliant,
Tracked: Mar 04, 13:09