When a child goes to school, especially in the primary years, usually considered kindergarten through third grade, that person is too young and immature to be much of a judge of the quality of the education received. Even college students are generally just getting into life and often focus only on "getting a job", preferably one that is reasonably acceptable to perform and one that pays well. Even college students may have trouble seeing life as a whole and developing a feeling for learning that may pay off in all the periods of life.
What are the periods of life? The author of one of the best selling books on college and good living afterward, Richard Bolles, author of the famous "What Color is Your Parachute?" divides life into "The Three Boxes of Life", early, work and retirement. I often think it is pretty difficult to see the relevance of some art, music, literature and history courses when you are just entering your hormonal peak and looking to really get into life.
I taught grading approaches to pre-teachers for more than 30 years. The expense of college is a major hit for many people, even those who are quite wealthy. Some numbers of dollars get involved that are big enough to get attention, maybe even to frighten or damage a person's future. I purposely titled this blog post "Paying for a grade of A" since I guess many people react quite negatively to any idea of paying for grades. However, I want to think that is exactly what happens. Daddy or Mommy or rich Uncle Avery writes a check to cover tuition, room and board and then asks anxiously and repeatedly whether the student is "doing well", by which is meant "how are your grades?"
I advocate structuring a course in a way that maximizes the chance of a student getting and deserving the highest grade. Some people think that grades should be a stand-in for heavenly judgment or evaluation of natural ability. I don't. I advocate teachers deciding or obtaining a valuable version of the course content and testing their students for good knowledge and application of that content. When evaluating students, I like an approach that checks the student for grasp of, and facility with, the content and skills I have taught, not for my best estimate of how God feels about the student's life record.
