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“…By testing students’ intellectual agility, normalizing nerves and giving them space to be honest about bold opinions, oral exams treat undergraduates like adults: people who have interesting things to say and can handle being put on the spot. At a time when American universities tend to infantilize students — taking attendance in class, employing fleets of student affairs bureaucrats to tend to their needs — treating students like grown-ups is deeply countercultural.
The most empowering thing a teacher can do for her students has nothing to do with constant surveillance of their academic engagement, fancy classroom technology or a syllabus that caters to the latest trends. It is to simply talk with them, face-to-face, as fellow thinkers.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/opinion/college-oral-exam.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare