The kids, for the most part, appreciated it. As long as everyone else got the same answers wrong, the class as a whole was guaranteed a higher grade. And the majority got the same answers wrong most of the time.
It kinda sucked for me, and for one or two others with the exact opposite results. We'd get the same number of questions wrong (or fewer), but scored worse overall.
For the first half of the semester, I kept trying to study harder, hoping to learn the material flawlessly so that it didn't matter which questions were asked. It seemed like an ideal approach, if a bit more demanding of me. It struck me once or twice that I was doping worse than many students who didn't seem as bright, or who didn't study anywhere near as much, but I brushed away those feelings. "It doesn't matter what everybody else does" was one of my fundamental teachings from childhood.
However, about halfway through the course, after learning the material backwards and forwards, I was still not scoring as well as I should have been. Even though it made me feel like I was rationalizing, I couldn't help noticing that the questions that I nailed were facts, indisputable concrete things...while the questions that I got wrong were nearly always things that had been discussed in class, things that seemed to encourage agreement with the teacher rather than an understanding of the material.
This was in agreement with a theory that one of the other habitual question-missers proposed one day as we lunched at the student union after the test results came in. He was far more vocal in class than I, or almost anyone else in the class, and had questioned the teacher's interpretation of the material more than once. Unfortunately, he was more passionate and verbose than logical, and the teacher would find, sooner or later, some weakness to exploit in the argument. These debates always ended the same way: the student grudgingly conceding defeat (with good humor, so as not to look like a sore loser or an agitator), the teacher graciously complimenting his abilities.
In each of these situations, there was at least one moment when I felt like making myself heard, to bolster a point of which the student had a shaky grasp, or to rebut one of the teacher's previous assumptions that had gone unchallenged and thereby led to the student later holding an indefensible position. In these moments, something always held me back; sometimes it was a lack of self-confidence, sometimes it was a simple wish to stay out of someone else's confrontation, and sometimes it was the sight of a forest of students who were willing to offer their agreement with the teacher...even if it was not in agreement with the truth. It crossed my mind that they really didn't care about the truth as much as they enjoyed participating in the experience of a charismatic leader defeating someone who dared question the canon.
However, despite the fact that I'd been considering that very possibility, I played devil's advocate with the antagonist. I didn't want to believe this -- not of a teacher that seemed both intelligent and down-to-earth, but also because I didn't want to make excuses for my own failures (another of my fundamental teachings from childhood). I also didn't want to consider the implications -- which included the possibility that well-educated, intelligent, seemingly free-thinking adults would prefer to browbeat dissenters and score empty popular points rather than admit that their ideas could be wrong.
I'm afraid that I left the agitator with the wrong impression of me. Looking back, I'm sorry that I wasn't more supportive. We could have become friends; I'm sure we had a lot more to offer each other than many of our fellow students. I probably should have expressed how deeply I agreed with his points, and commiserated about the inequitable class situation. But I was still reluctant to accept that someone who obviously had more knowledge and experience in a subject could be wrong, and that someone who seemed to be such a good person could be so subtly but intentionally cruel.
Such thoughts poisoned my experience in the class. On the next test, I was able to identify the questions that I was most likely to miss (I had plenty of time, as I quickly answered all of the other questions that had been covered in depth by my studying). I knew that my answers would be as accurate and faithful to the material as possible, but I hesitated -- considering different responses, phrased to appeal more to the teacher's stated views.
I felt that it was unjust that I didn't have an impartial teacher. So stubbornly, I answered the questions as faithfully to the material as I could...and, of course, got them wrong. From that point on, I was resigned to getting a mediocre grade in the class (in the interest of objectivity, it wasn't a failing grade or even a bad passing grade...just lower than my usual standards) no matter what I did, so I pragmatically scaled back my studying to reasonable levels, which were more than sufficient for every other class.
The funny thing was, I didn't really notice the teacher changing his approach at all throughout the course. The last test was pretty much the same as the first, as far as the structure and type of questions. So I'm not convinced that his system fulfilled its stated goals. And I'm no longer convinced that his stated goals were the true goals of the system. I have a feeling that, at some point in the past, he'd been discouraged that the students who tended to agree with him also tended to do worse in class. Changing the rules was probably easier than changing his views, and to be fair he may have truly believed that he was doing a better job of teaching because of it.
The oddest thing happened near the end of the term: the agitator started doing much better. He stopped arguing in class (prompting the general understanding that he'd 'gotten serious') and ended up achieving a higher grade than I did. The sheepish looks that we sometimes gave each other in passing seemed to shift subtly; he took over the 'sucks, but what are ya gonna do?' side and I took over the more grimly determined idealistic side. But perhaps it was all in my mind.
It would be nice if I had an anecdote about him telling me the secret, but I actually heard it a little bit later in life in a completely different situation. Of course, the hints had been there all along, though I hadn't been listening.
It was ridiculously simple and effective: it doesn't matter who is right or wrong, you simply have to learn the rules and play to win. Sometimes the facts are on the side of fairness, sometimes they're not...but you should always play on the side that can win, and you should always learn how to meet the goals of the person giving out the grades.
I was wrong because I didn't recognize the rules sooner and adjust my strategy. The other kids in the class were right because knowing the game was more important than knowing the material. The agitator, who turned off his passionate and vocal idealism to embrace practicality, did far better than I, who had quietly (and apologetically, or at least objectively) resisted from start to finish.
I'm still wrong, and still unsuccessful. I don't recommend it.
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