The subjective goal of receiving “good grades” is one that’s seemingly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
The idea of “good grades” is already creating a problem when discussing their importance due to it’s stagnant definition that society has adapted, while this term should be that of one in constant state of changes. To elaborate, a good effort for one student may be a C and for others it may be an A. However, the term is more generically used to just mean straight A’s. This narrow thinking can negatively affect students and even lead to many students giving up and not trying at all.
Though the idea of “good grades” is arguably more controllable internally. You can control the outlook you have on your grades and whether or not you’ll choose to allow them to affect your effort in class. You can also decide what would be a good grade for you personally and not let other people’s standards for themselves affect you.
David Foster Wallace made a speech about the art of choice and the empowerment of being able to decide your outlook on every element of you life.
In said speech, This is Water, Wallace states, “You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. This is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think.” This elucidates the point that this idea of “good grades” can be precepted differently by different individuals as it should be.
In the American education system, you have the freedom to determine what grades are acceptable for yourself. You get to decide how much you let your grades mean to you. This empowers students to use the advice from Wallace and utilize their education in whatever way they seem fit.
Students are so fixated on getting As that they become too stressed to even do the work at all. However, Wallace offers a solution with this and advises them to think about what goals they personally should have instead of one collective goal assigned to every student.
In Wallace’s words, “The capital-T truth is about life BEFORE death. It’s about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over…”.
If education is important to you and your best produces As, then you can continue to thrive to get As. On the other hand, if your best produces Cs, then Cs are perfectly acceptable. You decide what “good grades” are and you decide whether you want them or not.
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This es sew tru.
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Hello dear fan! Thank you so much for reaching out! Glad you enjoyed the content <3. Love, C.
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Love this Caro. You are so smart!!
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You are hilarious.
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This is a really great first blog post. You have chosen a perfect, meaningful and manageable problem to tackle through the lens of DFW’s speech, and you have really pointed out a lot of great and thoughtful points. I especially like your point about the conflict between reality and perception regarding “good grades.” However, as you probably could explain as well as I, the problem seems to reach further than just perception–if you don’t get A’s, you might not get into college, no matter how much you work and learn. Of course, this shifts the focus of the argument away from the points that DFW makes, unless perhaps you could suggest that we ALL (collectively) need to adjust our focus, so that we are “grading” learning, rather than intellect? (If you were to expand it this way, it almost seems like you could use Sagan as well).
Your writing is pretty clear, and you have a great vocabulary–be careful not to use big words for the sake of big words. I like to say, don’t say “utilize” when the better word is “use.” In your essay, you say “elucidate” quite often, which is a good enough word, but can come off sounding pretentious if you use it (and words like it) too often.
As far as structure goes, I really like how you BUILD toward meaning. I might give a bit more context/summary on the DFW speech before you quote him, and I might better integrate the LONG quote at the end (it’s a fantastic quote, but it doesn’t quite fit yet.)
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