D is for Dumbass

A regular reader asked me, "what do you think about this?"  And Lars is taking about it right now, too.  So here's my $0.02:

I think it's great.  Public schools are already a joke.  If you show up and breathe, you pass.  Getting a D isn't an indication of "passing" a subject.  It is an indication that you are taking up space so the school can get money.

Keep in mind, when I was young, I was one of those students who sometimes did the bare minimum to pass.  If the bare minimum bar had been raised, I would have risen to meet it.  I didn't get bad grades in some classes because it was the best I could do.  I got them because it was the best I would do.

If you are truly doing the absolute best you can, and still the best you can manage is a D, then you need help.  And you won't get that help if you are passing and moving up to the next grade.  Instead, you will continue to meander up the ladder, never learning, and graduating without the basic skills in language, reasoning, math, science, and history to function in our competitive society.

It doesn't stop at high school, either.

I have had the pleasure of attending a variety of institutions of higher learning.  I spent one year at Lane Community College.  It's considered one of the best community colleges in the nation.  Most of the students there were unable to write a complete sentence.  But it's not just the podunk two-year schools.  When I was getting my degree in political science at SIU, I discovered that the average upper-division student also couldn't write a complete sentence.  You might think I just went to a crappy college.  Well, now I am in a tier-1 law school, and guess what?  In first year legal writing, it became painfully clear that the average college graduate couldn't write a complete sentence.  Actually, I should have said the "above-average" college graduate: after all, I came in with a number of "cream of the crop" law school applicants at at time when many people couldn't get jobs fresh out of undergrad due to the sagging economy.  Most of my classmates were among the top of their undergraduate class, attended prestigious colleges, and got high LSAT scores.  But none of that translates to fluency with the English language.

Are these people all stupid?  No.  They are bright.  But it isn't human nature to always do the best at everything.  It is human nature to follow the path of least resistance which still leads to the desired goal.  If you tell a student he needs 90% for an A grade, he is more likely to aim for 90% than 100%.  That means there are opportunities to learn and grow that students just won't seize, because they aren't needed to graduate and move on.  So when you tell a student whose only goal is to get out of school with a diploma that he only needs 60% to pass, what incentive does he have to shoot for 70%?

We have been dumbing down our society for decades.  The time has come to reverse this process.  We should push the underachievers to learn and accomplish more.  And once our education system has fully adjusted, we should raise the bar again.  And again.  And again.  Each generation should be better educated than the one before it.  Eliminating the D grade is a first step.

Comments

[Eugene teacher]

Forget about D grades. We need to do away with those triangles! Or is it squares? I forget.

[RomeoDelta]

This reminds me of a "joke" the emergency room doctor told me as I got stitches for a cut...

Do you know what they call the person who graduates with the lowest grades at medical school?

Doctor.

[Rivrdog]

Those are fine sentiments for individuals to consider when they look at their individual futures.

Where our society, compared to say, Japan's, breaks down, is that we have no SOCIETAL way of passing those lofty sentiments along.

[The Lurker]

Remeber the old saying, "C's get the degrees," it was often repeated while at college. Anymore, I agree that the schools are afraid to challenge students, probably because we don't want to harm their fragile little egos.

[foxtrot13]

We as a society pay to much attention to grades. How many times have you seen someone not put in the work and complain that they get a C instead of a higher grade?

Go back to the curve where C means you mastered the material at the mean average for the class. Then if you get an A or B it was earned.