The Big A

The other day I was given an assignment where I needed to write a blog on education. I was searching for almost an hour and couldn’t find anything. I was just about to give up and write about anything till a discussion came up in my class. It was about Mr. Krause’s blog, "The Possibility of More”(part 1, part 2, part 3). It sounded more interesting than any of the other blogs so I decided to check it out. I started reading it and thought it was really good. It was about how a high school American Literature teacher decided one day to give his class an A for the semester. He had several thoughts on this idea and wasn’t really sure if it would work. But with the support of his wife and fellow colleges, he decided to go through with it. When he told his class his brilliant idea, they all just gave him the look. (You know, the look when you have no clue what is going on, or when you’re totally confused.) Eventually they took in his exiting new idea and understood what it meant. The only thing that bothered him was the final project due at the end of the semester. Were they going to take advantage of this grade, not learn anything, and fail their final? Or would the grade encourage them to take their learning to it’s fullest and do amazing on their there final?

One thing Mr. Krause said really caught my attention. “I think I’ll have a difficult time giving an A to someone who I see as taking advantage of the system- do I still give that A then? Will the parents and the administration demand the A that was promised on the first day of class? This statement put me in his shoes for a moment as I got to feel the same torturing question as him. Yes or No? I was really not sure if that was such a good idea anymore. I mean, if a student is trying his/her best then they should get the A. However, if they are slacking off and not taking in what they learned, then they don’t deserve the A. If I were him, I would do what he promised and give the A fairly to the students. But it is not up to him to feel like he made the mistake. It should be the student who knows they did not deserve the grade. It’s up to them to try harder next time and prove to the teacher that they really do deserve that big A.