Normally during office hours there are no visitors. I sit at my desk thinking over aspects of one problem or another, or doing my own homework. Today was different. The students in class got their homework back last Thursday, one student emailed me Thursday night asking for me to meet him on Friday. I emailed him back asking him to come in during my office hours, and he came.
The encounter starts normally with me asking what questions I can answer for him. He began stereotypically by exclaiming how well he knows this material, that he should "be at Yale or something". I was the same way when I was young. The truth of the matter is that there isn't a lot of difference between succeeding at Oklahoma State or at Yale, except that people esteem Yale more. There are more opportunities at a larger, wealthier campus like Yale, offering something in the way of a reason why these schools are esteemed as they are. The science, however, is the same.
I explained to the student that his answers were not correct, and if given my way I wouldn't have given partial credit. Relentlessly he continues trying to convince me that what he meant by what he wrote was correct. I disagree. Then he changes tactics. He says that I didn't give him enough partial credit for his other problems. He claims I should have seen that he understood the major concepts in spite of his errors and given him more partial credit. Meanwhile, I continue trying to explain to him that he didn't state his assumptions plainly enough and therefore his answers are wrong. To no avail, he still believes he's correct. He will likely go on believing he is right until someone that he respects fully confirms that he isn't. It is one thing to understand something inside of your own mind, and it is another to understand it to the degree necessary to demonstrate competency to others; the later is the nature of education.
Students, or how my TA office hours were consumed in fruitlessness.
