xx Cartoon by Wilhelm Busch |
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| Now, I�m afraid that Larry and some of his friends in the newsroom at Chicago may regard me as sententious and out of date. If so, there�s the unfortunate possibility that the following brief memoir will only confirm their unkind perceptions.
Nevertheless: after the Russians launched their first satellite in 1957, there was an immediate outcry that American educational standards were to blame for what had been a significant Cold War setback. I was in high school then and my workload became stiffer almost immediately. I particularly remember an enigmatic little book on set theory. The high school I was in was already considered hard and the average grade there was a �C.� My hard grading experiences continued at Chicago--where my final grade average, if I remember correctly, was a C+. (Nevertheless, I scored in the top percentiles nationally in both aptitude and in my major subject on the College Board Exam. I took those in my senior year.) I wonder if that unimpressive C+ average is a factor now when I try to interact with administration and faculty at Chicago. �Poor David,� they may say to themselves. (I imagine them gazing at my grade record on a computer screen, when talking to poor David on the phone.) They want to be tactful. But, �poor stupid David,� is perhaps what they are thinking. �He never had what it takes. In his day, students simply didn't eat enough fish. They didn't have Sesame Street. And it showed. They tried back then, but the best most of them could do were �C�s. �Today�s students are so much brighter. What a wonderful difference! Today students make almost all �A�s and �B�s! And of course we also have much better teachers now than when poor David was at Chicago. " . . . If that�s remotely like the way Chicago�s administration is actually thinking, it would represent discrimination, not only against me, but against all U of C graduates who are, let us say, fifty-five or older. Unfortunately, that�s also the subset of U of C graduates most likely to be in a position to help the university. That�s because those fifty-five and older are most likely to have either money or some sort of developed professional influence or both. There�s a modest step that could be taken to avoid insulting those influential alums. That would be to "normalize" everyone's final grade point average over all the generations at Chicago. That could be done mathematically and would give a fair basis for comparisons of different generations. And it doesn�t seem to me, looking at it casually, that it would be too much of a job. Since the new U of C President is a mathematician, perhaps he would like to take an interest in such a project. For the U of C to "become an honest woman" and begin grading on the cruve in all its classes would be a much larger project, but not imporssible. As for my corporation (see left), our objective is to construct a new and improved version of the famous �level playing field.� We'd like to utilize the legacy of Karl Gauss, as well as of more recent mathematicians. Most people, surely, prefer competition on that level playing field to war on the darkling plain, but if the playing field isn�t actually fairly level, the perception of unfariness can be an incitement for war. Reuturning to where we started this discussion, my opinion is that Iraq eventually could become a quite serious threat to the well-being of the average US citizen. If things got bad enough, Our precious Dysfunctional Elite might even begin to feel a degree of discomfort itself. To prevent THAT terrible calamity, better homeland performance standards may be as important as anything we may do militarily. Last modified February 2007 Home page |
| DS Gaus Corporation --of Indiana (est. 1983) is in good standing with the Indiana Secretary of State. That fact may be verified for free on the Secretary"s web page. And below I've included a link to streamline navigation for anyone who's interested in us. It's easy. Click below, then click "businesss entity name search" and then enter this exact spelling: DS Gaus Corporation Finally, when the new page appears, click on the DS Gaus Corporation hyperlink at left for more information. CLICK FOR IND SEC. STATE |
| Any reader who is interested may also refer to a longer history of past efforts with the Indiana Pacers and the Chicago Bulls: Click |