Comment by jasoneckert | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasoneckert | Hacker News Reader

I think part of the reason for this inflation involves modern academic faculty rejecting the traditional antiquated assessment-based educational system. In other words, they're of the opinion that "marks don't matter" - what you learn and what you can demonstrate does.

James Paul Gee from Arizona State University put it best when he said:

We take it as completely natural that you would be in an Algebra class for 12 weeks, and then I would give you a test on Algebra …. to see if you learned any Algebra. Let’s say a kid plays Halo on Hard …. and finishes Halo. Would you be tempted to give him a Halo test? No. Not at all. You’d say the game already tested him. So let’s think - Why is it that we’re not tempted to give him a Halo test, but we are tempted to give that Algebra test and use that as a judgement? We’ll its because you actually trust the design and learning of Halo better than you trust the design and learning of that Algebra class.

Seems like a false equivalence. Playing Halo is itself the test. To have beaten the game is to have passed the test. If anything, that metaphor suggests students should be continuously tested to prove competence, and only by "beating" the test can they work on the next lesson. Which may be a good way to handle asynchronous learning, but doesn't work in a cohort.

> Why is it that we’re not tempted to give him a Halo test, but we are tempted to give that Algebra test and use that as a judgement? We’ll its because you actually trust the design and learning of Halo ...

Actually, it is because no one cares about whether the kid finished Halo. The kid could have leave Halo unfinished half way and it would be still same thing. There is no one who would be giving the kid the "proeficient in Halo" degree.

I agree also with other responses, in particular the one about Halo itself being the test. But even if Halo was not a test and allowed cheats, there still the aspect of no one caring whether kid learned Halo or not.

>We’ll its because you actually trust the design and learning of Halo better than you trust the design and learning of that Algebra class.

I don't agree with that logic. I'm pretty sure the real reason is that people typically don't care about someone's halo skills the same way an employer might care about algebra skills. If that person wanted to become a professional halo player, they would certainly need to pass some form of test or prove their ability in additional ways.

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