This morning, after he sang the line, I argued that in fact, there is no right or wrong to most questions.
Most questions? Jonathan was skeptical. Maybe some questions. But most?
How would you determine whether there is a right or wrong to most questions? We started making up questions.
*What should I wear today?
*What do you want for breakfast?
Then we started keeping track of the questions that naturally came up in conversation.
*Will you please clear your dishes? (There was a right answer to that question.)
*Did you finish?
*What?
*Seven?
*Why?
*Were you going to put that away?
After I got to work, I was able to spend a huge chunk of the day dealing with grading, or rather, assigning grades. Right or wrong to every question? No.
*Is the common grading scale fair?
*Is that cutoff too strict?
*Can I give more A's without giving more C's?
*What should the average GPA our low level service classes be?
This evening, I got to grade my students' finals. There was a right to every question, but fewer wrongs. More questions were of the form:
*How much partial credit is this worth?
I stand by my original statement. Most questions have no right and wrong.
1 comment:
That's because you're a mathematician.
In English, I say yea, verily to that conundrum. Is this a run-on or is this merely an extended thought that lost its way? Is this reasoning sound, or are they messing with my Englishy teacher mind? The reason I know this is because after I mark the "right/wrong" answer on their papers, the students take up with me, challenging me. You ought to try English some time. You can really develop your debating skills with morons.
But bottom line is that the songwriter was probably looking for a solid rhyme/meter and in those days, before our extensive use of knowledge-that-substitutes-for-wisdom, there probably was a right and wrong answer for every question.
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