The New Republic has an article entitled “An A for Effort? Talk About a Lousy Idea.”
I’m thinking that would be an interesting post to read in class.
It refers to this New York Times piece, which begins “Prof. Marshall Grossman has come to expect complaints whenever he returns graded papers in his English classes…”
The blog post says of the article “But the tastiest bits are the too-entitled-to-be-believed quotes from real, live college students.” The authors’ response is pretty up front.
What would be wrong is if a university trained its students to believe that they were excellent simply for getting up off their futons and doing what was expected of them. Did the reading? Attended class? Stayed up late working on a paper? Good for you, puppy! Sure, you did a craptastic job on that paper–not to mention the final–suggesting that you have no more than a fourth-grader’s grasp of the material. But what the hell!? You worked hard. You showed up–even when you had that reallllly bad hangover. You may not have learned much, but you sure did try. Have a nice fat A. And here’s hoping it comes in handy when your first employer fires you for not being able to tell your ass from your elbow when it comes to doing your job.