The Very True Story of my Summer Taking Calculus: Thoughts and Discourse on Socialism (WIP)
There’s a popular anecdote about an economics professor that averages his students’ exam grades to teach them about socialism
The first exam everyone gets a “B” and the kids that studied hard are displeased and the kids that barely studied are thrilled.
The second exam rolls around and this time, the average is a “D” because the students that barely studied thought they would skate by on the good students’ work, so they didn’t study at all; and the good students were bitter and angry that the lazy students would get credit for their hard work so they studied less. The anecdote ends with the entire class failing- indicative that socialism would also fail.
So this anecdote always resonated with me for two reasons: I am an excellent student that consistently out performs my peers (so this anecdotal situation sounds nightmarish) and two, I have always felt that the wealth inequality in The United States is inhumane. So how did I reconcile the seeming futility of socialism with the reality that so many of my fellow Americans were suffering in poverty? I couldn’t. Until my summer in calculus.
Dr. H had both a doctorate in mathematics, as well as a degree in education. This was particularly uncommon in my smaller, research- focused university. So many of the professors were immeasurably brilliant in their field, but they lacked the ability to connect with their undergraduate students while lecturing lower level material. Dr. H was different. He compared mathematical theorems to PB&J sandwiches. He talked in derivatives and dad jokes that had us simultaneously rolling our eyes and chuckling. But there was something else Dr. H did that was especially unique- he averaged our quiz grades.
At first, I was furious. I should’ve had an “A” on the first quiz and instead I was stuck with a “C” thanks to my low scoring classmates. I’m a dean’s list student applying to medical schools, and some bogus teaching method was going to derail my GPA and dreams of ever being a physician. I sat with my graded quiz in front of me with a big red “19.5/20” across the top, when the girl next to me glanced over and said “damn, I’m sorry, I just did not understand the methods in this chapter at all,” as she flashed her grade at me- 11/20. Her apology seemed genuine so even though I was still fuming I let her off the hook, “It’s ok. It happens. Let me see if I can tell where you’re going wrong.” I could. It was the same problem type she kept making the same mistake on. As I explained it to her, a couple people near us started chiming in, “yeah it’s just like that example we went over Tuesday,” and “there’s a really helpful chart in the back of the book that helps break it down.” Another girl walking out said she missed a few like that too and was going to the library to study it more, did we want to join her? I was working as a research assistant over the summer and was heading to the library anyway, so I figured I could sit with them and check their work in between working on my own stuff. Over the next few days, more and more students joined us in the library after class. We checked out group study rooms and whiteboard markers and took turns explaining the problems we understood. We checked each other’s work and swapped websites and YouTube videos that broke down the concepts in detail. I got to know my classmates better than I ever had in a general education class. There was an older woman that had two kids that would get dropped off during our study sessions sometimes. They would stare in awe at their mom writing what looked like hieroglyphics to them while they worked quietly on their own homework. There was a guy that already passed Calc II but was taking this to boost his GPA so he mostly played games on his phone while occasionally tackling the challenge problems. By the time the next quiz rolled around, almost the entire class was squished in to one of those study rooms, quizzing each other and giving pep talks.