Yeah, again, I don't care about whether students didn't know what the word "despot" meant. You probably missed my earlier post - the question is still a horrible question anyway. I don't seriously expect that a student who wrote (in an otherwise grammatically correct etc... essay) "I don't think Hitler was a tyrant because he was doing the right thing to get of the Jewish conspiracy" would get full credit. But since as worded the essay essentially asks for a matter of opinion, or otherwise unfalsifiable assertions, it's extremely unfair if that's true. Perhaps I am not giving the UK school system credit enough for being open minded - maybe they were willing to accept essays with any viewpoint and were grading on general essay structure, etc... I could imagine politics and all maybe would make it so they would accept any thesis opinions for fear of lawsuit - I might be applying bias because I would expect a similar essay in the US to have much more limited grading criteria. Again, that just seems highly unlikely to me though - it seems the question was meant to ask about the political structure of the Nazi regime, and in that case, there is no doubt the question is horribly worded, and also may be an unfair question to ask anyway since it would be highly specific and unlikely to have been taught or studied significantly by the students.
The despotic tyranny of the school system
- Thread starter aneeshm
- Start date
Yeah, again, I don't care about whether students didn't know what the word "despot" meant. You probably missed my earlier post - the question is still a horrible question anyway. I don't seriously expect that a student who wrote (in an otherwise grammatically correct etc... essay) "I don't think Hitler was a tyrant because he was doing the right thing to get of the Jewish conspiracy" would get full credit. But since as worded the essay essentially asks for a matter of opinion, or otherwise unfalsifiable assertions, it's extremely unfair if that's true. Perhaps I am not giving the UK school system credit enough for being open minded - maybe they were willing to accept essays with any viewpoint and were grading on general essay structure, etc... I could imagine politics and all maybe would make it so they would accept any thesis opinions for fear of lawsuit - I might be applying bias because I would expect a similar essay in the US to have much more limited grading criteria. Again, that just seems highly unlikely to me though - it seems the question was meant to ask about the political structure of the Nazi regime, and in that case, there is no doubt the question is horribly worded, and also may be an unfair question to ask anyway since it would be highly specific and unlikely to have been taught or studied significantly by the students.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Me too, but more because that wouldn't actually make sense as an argument. It's like saying "I do not think this is a donut, because it is filled with custard and not jam"; the criteria expressed by the student is not consistent with that pertinent to the common definition of the term.
The question was asking the students to describe the degree of personal influence which Adolf Hitler held during his tenure as Chancellor the German Third Reich in the period 1933-1945. While poorly worded, and perhaps a bit too complex for the students at which it was aimed, the question is not, in itself, absurd, or impossible to answer in an unbiased manner. This seems somewhat self-evident, given that the complaints were aimed at the use of the word "despotic", and not at the question as a whole.
No, I think it's more like there being a question on a political science test that said "How far do you agree that abortion is the murder of a human being?" If they don't accept any and all opinions - they could still grade on grammar or essay structure or whatever aspect of writing, it's a whole lot of unfair bias. Now, perhaps there is more to this - in which case the OP may have just given us a bad link. But like I said before, "Do you agree that Hitler was a tyrant?" is going to result in essays which are a matter of opinion. If the question is asking for an objective/unbiased discussion of German political structures (which I agree is probably what the question was meant to ask, as makes sense for a history course) then it's an absolutely horrible question as stands. Again, maybe British students are trained to accept and never question anything themselves, and like I said, US exams tend to avoid that by never releasing info so you can't ever question or challenge scores. (but then the SAT and all always just had easy-ball questions like "What does freedom mean to you.") If this is supposed to test historical knowledge of Germany's politics/government, then again it's just a terrible question as it stands. I know that's somewhat mitigated by the fact that realistically you could expect students to just play along and say "Hitler was evil, etc... etc..." but that still doesn't change the fact that you shouldn't have an essay question so strongly based around subjectivity or opinion. And, I'd imagine, if they were really just after historical details of what powers were delegated to whom, then students who still wrote the "right" thing but focused on more philosophical or opinionated or whatever criticisms or Hitler, would also get penalized. There's no way that question was enough to be a reasonable part of an end of year/course final exam.
Edit: There are plenty of unfalsifiable ways to claim Hitler was not tyrannical - mostly relying on unprovable claims about racial superiority/religion/whatever. Plenty of "facts" - from the other nations Germany was in conflict with to other historical events of persecution against Jews, various religious artifacts/events significant to certain churches, the writings of other historical personages, etc...could be discussed in such an essay. Again, I don't expect many students held these opinions or wrote about them - nobody wants to jeopardize their exam score, but the mere fact that the essay was based around opinion, when it could have clearly asked about things like "powers delegated or assumed by high level officials, the military, whatever" to be much more obvious, is what makes it a poor prompt.
Last - I think this merits more investigation of the whole format/details of the exam (like how it compares to previous years, or what, I don't know the format of UK high-school level testing at all), I don't have much more to say here and it is possible a lot of relevant information is missing, the OP and links were very sparse and full of random comments. I'll probably look it up on my own, but then again I know I have 0 impact and no good reason to care more about whether UK students are given bad history essays to write, so meh.
Edit: There are plenty of unfalsifiable ways to claim Hitler was not tyrannical - mostly relying on unprovable claims about racial superiority/religion/whatever. Plenty of "facts" - from the other nations Germany was in conflict with to other historical events of persecution against Jews, various religious artifacts/events significant to certain churches, the writings of other historical personages, etc...could be discussed in such an essay. Again, I don't expect many students held these opinions or wrote about them - nobody wants to jeopardize their exam score, but the mere fact that the essay was based around opinion, when it could have clearly asked about things like "powers delegated or assumed by high level officials, the military, whatever" to be much more obvious, is what makes it a poor prompt.
Last - I think this merits more investigation of the whole format/details of the exam (like how it compares to previous years, or what, I don't know the format of UK high-school level testing at all), I don't have much more to say here and it is possible a lot of relevant information is missing, the OP and links were very sparse and full of random comments. I'll probably look it up on my own, but then again I know I have 0 impact and no good reason to care more about whether UK students are given bad history essays to write, so meh.
The question is poor for a number of reasons, but I don't think bias is the problem here.
This was history, not philosophy class - and as such, presented opinions need to be backed up by facts.
Now, I'd like to see anyone present a valid, fact-based argumentation to prove that Hitler was, in fact, a submissive democrat.
NB! Anyone want to bet how long until a famous movie scene will be dubbed based on this particular story?
EDIT: ...in addition to 548 parodies already hosted on YouTube?
This was history, not philosophy class - and as such, presented opinions need to be backed up by facts.
Now, I'd like to see anyone present a valid, fact-based argumentation to prove that Hitler was, in fact, a submissive democrat.
NB! Anyone want to bet how long until a famous movie scene will be dubbed based on this particular story?
EDIT: ...in addition to 548 parodies already hosted on YouTube?
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
All of that assums a particular use of "tyrant", one which, given the presumably impartial nature of academic studies can be ruled out. In this context, "tyrant" simply refers to a reppressive or authoritarian ruler; any negative connotations drawn from that definition are the result of the readers personal bias. In context, it refers to the concept of Hitler as an overwhelmingly powerful individual within Nazi Germany, and the question posed asks students to explain whether or not they considered this to be accurate. Granted, it would have been perferable to avoid the potential of such negative connotations whatsoever, but it seems unfair to blame whoever wrote the question for the students' inability to adopt a properly academic mindset- if, indeed, that is the case; I certainly don't recall any of them complaints being to such an effect.
"Tyrant", like "dictator", is not an inherently pejorative term, it merely happens to be used as such in the West because of our particular ideological norms. Much the same applies to "despot", if not more so; "despot", at least, merely implies authoritarian absolutism, without the same connotations of repressiveness that "tyrant" has in day-to-day conversation.
Ecofarm
Deity
Yo, Eco, lrn2history.
But if we're going to get into historical definitions of a term, despotes, like tyrannos, was originally a generic office, with no negative connotations. So I dunno what you people are arguing about, but maybe that has an impact.
But if we're going to get into historical definitions of a term, despotes, like tyrannos, was originally a generic office, with no negative connotations. So I dunno what you people are arguing about, but maybe that has an impact.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
In both cases, I would point to the first definition. You'll see that it is, in such usage, a functional and non-pejorative term. Given that the question was posed in an unbiased, academic context, we can only assume such usage was intended.Ecofarm said:
First, I'll say I actually looked up a little more, cause I'm good like that - so some relevant things
-This was a Modern History course, and students were presumably expecting to be tested on the Nazis. Why studying the Nazis is central to UK high school curriculum, I don't know.
-This test/exam was apparently written by a private/non-governmental (or something) organization, EDEXCEL - I don't know anything about them, maybe some UK student knows more. But, they apparently provide suggested reading/research on the subjects of each year's test.
-Other than that, there's a ton of noise, however, it seems like the following are true - This was clearly a national exam, not some local high school district which is evident by the number of students who took it. Also, there were numerous complaints by various school localities/teachers, parents, and students groups (hard to track down over the web, I've done enough Googling) that, regardless of the wording we're talking about, the exam was inconsistent with previous years and didn't cover the material expected. Again, anyone who knows more, would be great.
I thought of a much better analogy that gets to the point I was considering, and fwiw, I'm still sticking by the fact that this wording is too "subjective" or "biased" or whatever. I know some here aren't Americans, but you should understand this Dachs:
Say either of the following questions were asked on a history exam in the US (something like AP or IB, presumably US history course)
A) During the time period of the US Civil War (1861-1865) who do you think was more of a tyrant, Jefferson Davis or Abraham Lincoln?
B) Compare and contrast the leadership of the opposing sides in the Civil War (1861-1865), the United States (Union) and Confederate States of America. How did either government's role and authority develop as the war progressed? Discuss the importance of leadership in the legitimacy of each government in citizens' eyes, the decision of key military conflicts, and relations with foreign nations.
Now, again, I'm not an expert writer of history exams, nor could I say a perfect answer to such questions, but question (B) encourages historical details whether it's the actual powers each President had, the appointment/management of generals, the push in 1864 to win key battles like Atlanta that helped Lincoln's reelection, etc... Also, I know the exams mentioned above in the US tend to give articles/speeches/whatever to discuss in some questions - the above example could, but I have no clue how the "backround reading" or whatever works in the UK, so let's just look at the questions on their own. But I hope it's clear, that while both questions sound like plausible prompts at first glance, the first is poorly written/biased. If question (A) was given on an exam in the US, there would be uproar from students, parents, you name it. Basically, the way I see it, question (A) implies subjectivity in an answer is acceptable or even required. If question (A) was given on the exam, the purpose may have been something more like question (B), but you couldn't honestly expect high school students across the nation (16-17, I don't know the exact age/year equivalent in Britain) to answer those questions the same. Even some students who didn't go off into political/philosophical rants would still not give the same answers they would to prompt B. So, let's look again at the question offered here:
“How far do you agree that Hitler’s role 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?”
So I still maintain, that sure, a large majority would just say that "Hitler was tyrannical" it's inherently bad, and very poor exam writing, to have a question that's so subjective. I'm sure that they meant the question to be like question (B), but the way it's written it's likely many would give a different response, and again, this is entirely apart from whether students "ZOMG don't know what despotic means"!11!
Edit: Being warned about Dachs' propensity to post images/Internet memes as responses to some things, I'll let you know I've already forseen any "Philosoraptor" ruminations on "Tyrannosaurus" so just pre-empting that.
-This was a Modern History course, and students were presumably expecting to be tested on the Nazis. Why studying the Nazis is central to UK high school curriculum, I don't know.
-This test/exam was apparently written by a private/non-governmental (or something) organization, EDEXCEL - I don't know anything about them, maybe some UK student knows more. But, they apparently provide suggested reading/research on the subjects of each year's test.
-Other than that, there's a ton of noise, however, it seems like the following are true - This was clearly a national exam, not some local high school district which is evident by the number of students who took it. Also, there were numerous complaints by various school localities/teachers, parents, and students groups (hard to track down over the web, I've done enough Googling) that, regardless of the wording we're talking about, the exam was inconsistent with previous years and didn't cover the material expected. Again, anyone who knows more, would be great.
I thought of a much better analogy that gets to the point I was considering, and fwiw, I'm still sticking by the fact that this wording is too "subjective" or "biased" or whatever. I know some here aren't Americans, but you should understand this Dachs:
Say either of the following questions were asked on a history exam in the US (something like AP or IB, presumably US history course)
A) During the time period of the US Civil War (1861-1865) who do you think was more of a tyrant, Jefferson Davis or Abraham Lincoln?
B) Compare and contrast the leadership of the opposing sides in the Civil War (1861-1865), the United States (Union) and Confederate States of America. How did either government's role and authority develop as the war progressed? Discuss the importance of leadership in the legitimacy of each government in citizens' eyes, the decision of key military conflicts, and relations with foreign nations.
Now, again, I'm not an expert writer of history exams, nor could I say a perfect answer to such questions, but question (B) encourages historical details whether it's the actual powers each President had, the appointment/management of generals, the push in 1864 to win key battles like Atlanta that helped Lincoln's reelection, etc... Also, I know the exams mentioned above in the US tend to give articles/speeches/whatever to discuss in some questions - the above example could, but I have no clue how the "backround reading" or whatever works in the UK, so let's just look at the questions on their own. But I hope it's clear, that while both questions sound like plausible prompts at first glance, the first is poorly written/biased. If question (A) was given on an exam in the US, there would be uproar from students, parents, you name it. Basically, the way I see it, question (A) implies subjectivity in an answer is acceptable or even required. If question (A) was given on the exam, the purpose may have been something more like question (B), but you couldn't honestly expect high school students across the nation (16-17, I don't know the exact age/year equivalent in Britain) to answer those questions the same. Even some students who didn't go off into political/philosophical rants would still not give the same answers they would to prompt B. So, let's look again at the question offered here:
“How far do you agree that Hitler’s role 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?”
So I still maintain, that sure, a large majority would just say that "Hitler was tyrannical" it's inherently bad, and very poor exam writing, to have a question that's so subjective. I'm sure that they meant the question to be like question (B), but the way it's written it's likely many would give a different response, and again, this is entirely apart from whether students "ZOMG don't know what despotic means"!11!
Edit: Being warned about Dachs' propensity to post images/Internet memes as responses to some things, I'll let you know I've already forseen any "Philosoraptor" ruminations on "Tyrannosaurus" so just pre-empting that.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
I thought you said Wikipedia sucked at history?
Icekommander
Colonel
What everyone else said. The question did suck, but I'd like to point out that nobody complained about the question. They complained about the words. We discussed Dictorships in the context of the USSR in Grade 9, and I'm know I've encountered several things discussing tyranny, and atleast a few in class.
Edit: Emphasized something that became relevent during the time I was reading and responding
Edit: Emphasized something that became relevent during the time I was reading and responding
Shylock
Hey smiling strange
Hell, just playing Civ 4 is enough to learn it.
It does, its also not an even spread of suckiness, you'll generally find that the more and better a subject is understood, the better the wikipage.
In fact why don't you just check out the references first, thats what I try to do.
Regardless, the exam question might have sucked but with different schools going over slightly different reading, my teachers always taught us to "twist the question to what we've read", so whilst longer questions are always more specific and thus easier to answer, it also punishes areas that didn't study sufficiently one part of the required answer, shorter questions mean a more widespread amount of background reading can be twisted into answering the question.
In my english exams (limited though they were), I always got a choice in exam questions, and having studied a range of topics and not just one indepth, I could usually choose between 2-4 questions, there were also always questions I could NOT answer simply because we had not studied a particular topic. Several of these questions were indepth, and a few were VERY general.
I revise what I said earlier, I believe I started playing Civ (II) at about 8 and learned the word about 9
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Hilarious students are hilarious. And pathetic.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Yeah, so? Exams always contain horrible questions. It's not like all previous exams in human history have been competently written and assembled.
Get over it, student dudes. You're not the first to be faced with stupidity on an exam. This is life, mofos!
First response: tl;dr
Second response: I basically agree with you. The question was inappropriate for a nationwide examination of high school students, both in terms of wording and to a lesser extent subject.
It does. If I wanted somebody to learn about the archaic Greek tyrannoi, I wouldn't have linked them to Wikipedia. If, however, I wanted somebody to merely learn of their existence, then Wikipedia would be a fine place to go.
A sound recommendation.
gangleri2001
Garbage day!!!
I've looked for this group on Facebook and I've found it... in religion & spirituality
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=91092671869
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=91092671869
fugazi
King
Haha, if you're dyslexic and can't write proper essays my teachers will simply tell you to find another study that doesn't focus on reading and writing. Guess these lads ain't made for winning.
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