My Grade A Blog, Self-Grading, Self-Elimination

My blog is Grade A. It has nice multimedia features and will probably be updated even when I'm not taking a math methods course anymore as I make mathematical discoveries and reflect on student thinking. Where else can you find ants? I also point out the underlying connections between math and everything else in the universe.

Along those lines, any assessment that asks you to grade or rate yourself is quite flawed. The honest self-critical people - such as my natural self - will mark themselves down, while those wanting the A will just go for it. The only people that suffer are the self-critical ones. Assuming the instructor actually takes their self-criticism or self-grade of a B or a C seriously, they don't get their fair share of the A's and so on.

And along those lines, we need to keep people from eliminating themselves. Again, the honest well-intentioned people eliminate themselves. Ask 3rd graders "Who can hit this ball over the fence?" and most of them will raise their hand, even if they can't hit a ball. Meanwhile self-reflective Jonny or Brant eliminates himself. If it were up to me, only the 2-3 people that could actually do the task would raise their hands. But it's not.

Take this into math where there is the traditional trap of females thinking they are not as good at math and then they don't attempt as many problems (and teachers don't hold them to the same standard). Take the special ed kids who don't even try problems. If people could accurately discriminate things would be fine, but they can't. It's always better to go for as many opportunities as you can. Take risks. Get shot down, learn, move on, and so on. Not that I find what I just expressed that easy, but I know it's a better approach.

People who think "I could never work there." or "I'm not ready for the promotion. A leader has so much more initiative and speaks so well." are going to find those positions filled with incompetent people who didn't eliminate themselves and seldom deprecate themselves or their efforts. RISE UP AND DEMAND MORE FOR YOURSELF!
My brain is kind of mush right now.