Ten Favorite Books

To Kill a Mockingbird. There’s only one kind of folks: folks. To truly understand someone, you must put yourself in their situation.

• I will open my eyes.

Peter Pan. It is children’s freedom and their belief in the impossible that allows them to fly.

• I will remember what it was like to fly.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Trees can grow up out of cement. Life blooms even in the darkest places.

• I will hope always.

Heckedy-Peg. Never let a witch into your house or she will kidnap you and turn you into egg-pudding.

• I will listen to my mother and beware of cloaked strangers.

Jane Eyre. If you must, pass up every happiness life offers in order to stay true to yourself, and never settle.

• I will hold to my convictions.

Winnie-the-Pooh. We’re all silly and foolish sometimes, but to love and be loved-- that is a wonderful life.

• I will laugh at myself.

Harry Potter. Bravery is just a fancy word for having guts.

• I will be brave and passionate.

A Christmas Carol. Money cannot protect you from suffering; it can only chain you down to a miserable, lonely life.

• I will give freely.

The Tale of Despereaux. Don’t complain about your ears, no matter how large they are; you will need them.

• I will use my head.

Till We Have Faces. The fruits of the King are seen in the land; the King’s power can as easily corrupt as it can save.

• I will lead mindfully.

Batman: the Dark Knight, is a movie that explores the aspects and roles of both the “official Hero, and the “outlaw hero.” It is the story of two “knights,” or heroes of sorts. It is about Batman, the outlaw hero, fighting off a crazy murdering psychopath and how he loses everything in the process because he pushes the criminals into retaliating back  by paying the Joker to kill and terrorize. The other character is Harvey Dent, who is the “official” hero, and he similarly loses everything to the Joker, but instead of pushing forward like Batman, he goes insane and starts killing people.

Harvey Dent from Batman the Dark Knight is, at the beginning of the movie, an official hero. Harvey Dent is in fact, a nearly perfect image of an official hero.  He is the district attorney for Gotham City, and is known by the city as “Gotham’s White Knight.” His job is to do the same thing that The Batman does, which is to catch criminals.  Harvey Dent’s physical appearance even gives off the sense of a bright shining hero with his young healthy person, his blond hair, and even his honest blue eyes. However, he also has some “outlaw hero” in him. He breaks the rules when he lies to the city and he says he is Batman so that the Batman has a chance to catch the Joker, or when he takes one of the Joker’s men and threatens him in an alley, which he does when he finds that the Joker has threatened the love of his life. He says near the beginning of the movie when defending Batman that, ">When their enemies were at the gates, the Romans would suspend democracy and appoint one man to protect the city. It wasn't considered an honor, it was considered a public service.” When Rachel says, “Harvey, the last man who they appointed the Republic was named Caesar and he never gave up his power.” He replies, Okay, fine. you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” Which is a foreshadowing of what is going to happen. Later in the movie, when Harvey Dent loses Rachel, his girlfriend, he lets the Joker convince him that he should have revenge, and so Gotham’s “white Knight,” is turned into a villain. At the end of the movie he dies and they cover up his murders so that Gotham doesn’t lose hope in Harvey Dent’s initial fight against the crime in the city. He does both the things that he says a hero does. In reality he becomes the villain and kills people, but in the eyes of Gotham, when batman covers up for him, he dies a hero and is remembered for his noble cause.

Bruce Wayne, or as he is known by the criminals of Gotham city, Batman, is an “Outlaw” hero. Bruce Wayne is witty, intelligent, and dangerous. He is childish in the fact that he seems to enjoy his little game he plays by pretending to be a snobby, selfish, unintelligent playboy by day and The Batman by night. Robert B. Ray says that an outlaw hero has a distrust of society, which is shown by the fact that Bruce Wayne doesn’t think that Gotham’s police force is adequate enough to take care of Gotham without The Batman. So, just like an outlaw hero does, Bruce Wayne decides to take the law into his own hands to try and stop crime in Gotham city. One thing that suggests that maybe Batman might wish that he was able to fight crime lawfully is when the Joker says, “Don't talk like one of them, you're not. Even if you'd like to be. To them, you're just a freak, like me. They need you right now. But when they don't, they'll cast you out, like a leper. See, their morals, their code... it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you, when the chips are down, these... these civilized people will eat each other. See, I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve.” So it brings up the question of whether or not Batman really wants to fight crime masked and secret, but by the end of the movie he makes the decision of being Batman and taking not glory, but hate, because Bruce Wayne, or Batman, is there for the people, not for himself.

           

What is the difference between Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent? In the movie, they are almost partners of sorts. Harvey Dent is the “White Knight,” and Bruce Wayne is the “Dark Knight. They help each other when Harvey protects Batman from Gotham by telling Gotham that he is Batman, and then Batman saves him from the Joker after that. Even their appearance is symbolic, in that Harvey has blond hair, blue eyes, and Bruce Wayne has dark hair and green eyes. Also the same thing is dearest to both of them, and that is that is that they are both in love with Rachael Dawes. When she dies however the two men have very different reactions. At the end of the movie, Harvey Dent’s statement, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” comes true when it happens to both him and Batman at the end of the movie. Harvey sees himself become the villain at the end of the story by threating and killing people, but in the same breath, when he dies by falling off a building, The police commissioner Gordon, and Batman decide to cover up Harvey’s crimes so that all the good work he did doesn’t get erased, therefore, Harvey dies a hero in the peoples’ eyes. Batman makes a choice and decides to take the blame because as he puts it, “I can do those things because I'm not a hero, not like Dent. I killed those people. That's what I can be. I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be. You'll hunt me. You'll condemn me. Set the dogs on me. Because that's what needs to happen. Because sometimes the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.” Batman decides to take the heroic blow because he is the not the “official white,” knight, but the “outlawed dark knight.” One interesting thing is that Batman also has the both of Harvey’s said possible ending for a hero, he dies a hero, “he stops being Gotham’s secret hero Batman by taking the blame for Harvey’s actions, and he lives long enough to see himself become the villain in the eyes of the people. This gives an interesting spin on the “official” and the “outlaw” hero.

You Talk Good, Mr. President

If you want people to trust you, talk to them, and talk to them good. Ronald Reagan, as a former movie actor, knew full well that the key is communication, earning himself the nickname “The Great Communicator.” Interestingly, Reagan, hailed as one of America’s best-loved presidents, took on the White House equipped not with outstanding political experience, but with storytelling experience. Some people suggest that Ronald Reagan was not one of our smartest presidents, and, in fact, he did not have one of the top IQ scores, especially compared to presidents such as Eisenhower, Clinton, or Wilson. Perhaps Reagan wasn’t as book smart as some of his predecessors, yet he was certainly one of our wisest and cleverest presidents, because he knew how to play his strengths and how to be honest with the country he was running.

Known as a highly committed conservative, Reagan’s politics broke the stride of the moderates that had served for the last several years. His plans, which came to be known as Supply Side economics, were to raise taxes in order to promote economic growth. Surprising many left-wingers, Reagan seized on issues that Democrats had long regarded as their own, including the issues of economic growth and personal consumption, but taking a different strategy to achieving it. He proposed to lower taxes immensely. Some people scoffed at this idea, predicting that it bring an economic heart attack rather than expansion. For the first couple of years after these policies were adhered to, there was a sharp economic downturn. Thankfully, things were merely getting worse before they got better. In 1983, the U.S. economy experienced a dramatic rebound, producing 17 million new jobs and causing inflation to drop about ten percent, landing at about two percent. Although these policies later proved controversial because the large expenses that were built up by the government, including huge expenses for the military, it is certain that Reagan got the U.S. out of a deep economic slump and that the military expenses surely had a lasting effect for America in regards to the Soviet Union.

 One thing that Reagan had in common with his all of the presidents from the thirty years prior to his presidency was that he was strongly anti-communist, stating that, “The Soviet Union is an Evil Empire, and Soviet communism is the focus of evil in the modern world.” Unlike Johnson, Nixon, Kennedy, and Eisenhower, though, he sought different methods to defeat communism. When talking about America and specifically the Republican Party Reagan said, “All of a sudden, Republicans were not defenders of the status quo, but creators of the future. They were looking at tomorrow with all the single-mindedness of an inventor.” The words from Reagan’s own mouth also apply well to himself. Reagan’s approach against communism was far more aggressive than his predecessors in this sense: Reagan was not always on the defensive, attempting to “roll back” communism—containment. Instead he focused mainly on challenging the Soviet Union with the U.S.’s military buildup, whose budget increased nearly thirty percent in four years. Yet, for all these expenses, it was not Johnson, Nixon, Kennedy, or Eisenhower who saw the end of the Cold War in their White House years, but Ronald Reagan, who achieved it at the tail end of his second term.

One advantage Reagan had was that, as America’s oldest president he had acquired a different kind of wisdom. Just as he knew his strengths, Reagan knew what he could not do. He understood that he could not, and should not, run the country single handedly, kinging every area independently. He learned to delegate, a skill completely underrated and regarded as an incompetent man’s safety blanket. Some people thought because of this that Reagan was only posing and wasn’t really in charge. They thought he really had no clue what was going on. However, I feel that his ability to delegate was Reagan’s greatest asset, which dovetailed perfectly with one of his major priorities which was to reduce the governmental regulation structure. Reagan himself said frankly, “Government is the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

In everything he did, Reagan brought hope to America, spreading his message, “It’s morning in America.” In this, he was very similar to FDR, who was one of his heroes as a child, yet Reagan was far more honest than FDR. People trusted Reagan, and they still do. Even in his professional life he hid little and openly laughed at himself and the government. He didn’t take himself too seriously, commenting once, when talking about his C-average grades, “But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.” People also trusted Reagan because he wasn’t afraid of America or what they could do to him, and most importantly he had faith in the American people. He believed that the American people were good, full of brilliant ideas that could change the way America was run.

Paradox of The Dark Knight

I’ve never been able to keep up with Hollywood’s constant stream of movies releases, preferring instead to wait three months until the movie is released on video. I distinctly remember my friends going to the midnight opening of The Dark Knight when it was released in 2008 and the continuous raving for the next couple of weeks. Even so, it was three years until I finally got around to watching this movie, which I’d heard so much about. Cynical because it was an action flick, and a super-hero film to boot (I’d seen the Spider Man movie and was less than impressed), I sat down hopeful to be surprised, yet prepared to be disappointed. As I watched The Dark Knight, I was entranced, my stomach in knots and my blanket up to my eyes. I kept thinking to myself, “I know this story. I know this story!”

There are particular stories out there that, for some reason, pull at human heart strings in very singular ways. Specifically, these stories play, whether consciously or unconsciously, on the fact that every human being lives the same story, that we the human race are fundamentally made up of the same stuff, that there are some things that hold true for us all. These stories are myths.

Recently reading Robert Ray’s essay “The Thematic Paradigm,” in which he explores the idea that American films do not merely entertain, but reflect “fundamental patterns and contradictions in our society’s myths and values,” I wondered what a movie like The Dark Knight about our society. Ray says that there are two kinds of heroes in our movies. Firstly, there is the official hero, who is an outstanding citizen, upright, wise, and just. He is accepted in his community and usually has a stable professional and personal life. The second is the outlaw hero, who does not abide by the law, but instead makes his own rules for the good of others or himself. He is often daring, unreliable, and almost childlike. However, Ray points out, we usually cannot seem to choose between these two heroes, and instead merge them together into one character. He suggests that this is because America has always been ambivalent of the value of civilization. This ambivalence is revealed by the heroes of our movies, as, at the cinema, we play The King’s Speech in theatre 7 and Pirates of the Caribbean next door in theatre 8. We simply cannot choose whether to root for the “official hero”, such as King George VI or to root for the “outlaw hero,” such as Captain Jack Sparrow. The outlaw hero: brave, independent, and totally free, and the official hero: decent, just, and full of wisdom are in a continual tug-of-war with each other. On the one hand, the glamour and freedom of the outlaw hero are alluring to us. There’s a reason they’ve made four Pirates of the Caribbean movies; there is something so wonderfully tempting about Captain Jack Sparrow—he is friend to no one, feels indebted to no one, and considers only himself in every choice he makes. At the other extreme, however, what could be more heroic than George Bailey’s choice in It’s a Wonderful Life to stay home and run the Building and Loan to keep the town from going to ruins in the hands of Mr. Potter. And so the tugging rages on. In The Dark Knight this paradox of the official hero and the outlaw hero is evident in the characters of Batman and Harvey Dent, and the movie reveals a much about the ambivalence and yet absolute faith that our society has in civilization.

The Dark Knight joins this tug-of-war too, but what stopped me in my tracks, was that this duality is found not only within the film, but within the main characters. Bruce Wayne, as Batman, takes on this duality, which is the basis for entire movie. He is, in essence, both the official hero and the outlaw hero. By day, he is Bruce Wayne, Gotham City’s richest, most influential businessman, who owns close to half the city’s businesses. Like every businessman, Bruce Wayne wears a suit and tie, goes to meetings, and has his own secretary. He is highly regarded in the eyes of the city officials and is known for his philanthropy. After a fundraiser with Bruce Wayne, any politician won’t need another cent for his campaign. Fitting the bill of the official hero, Bruce Wayne is in a place of power in the city and is extremely smart with his resources and position. By night, though, this man dons the mask and armor of Batman, a secreted vigilante, who single-handedly put Gotham’s criminals behind bars, without aid or connection to Gotham’s police force. Truly, Batman himself is a lawbreaker, operating outside the rules of the common people. Even so, Gotham’s police force does not try to stop Batman, because, with crime flourishing in the city, they need Batman desperately. The incredible strength in Batman is not that he is lawless—he is not—but that he replaced Gotham’s laws with a law of his own. Because Gotham’s laws hold Batman back from bringing justice to the city, he must ignore them. Batman only has one rule: he will not kill. He must uphold this rule because he knows that when he breaks it, Batman loses his power. As his butler, Alfred, says, “He can make the choice that no one else can make—the right choice.” By holding to this law Batman makes himself more than a man. In the words of Henri Ducard, “But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely—a legend.” Batman inspires people; he brings them hope of justice. Gotham depends on Batman. It does not love him and it is not loyal to him, but it does depend on him. The genius of The Dark Knight is that the duality of the official hero and the outlaw hero in one is so blatant. Bruce Wayne struggles throughout the entire movie. On one side of the coin, Bruce Wayne wants nothing more than to be done with Batman and he does everything in his power, including helping to lock up the entire mob, to prepare Gotham to no longer need Batman. On the flip side, however, Bruce Wayne cannot give up Batman because Batman is his true identity, and it is Bruce Wayne that is the mask. Rachel sees this struggle in him when she writes in her letter, “When I told you that if Gotham no longer needed Batman we could be together, I meant it. But I'm not sure the day will come when you will no longer need Batman.” Batman holds a mythical position of this strange dichotomy of the melding of the official and outlaw hero.

In strong parallel to Batman, Harvey Dent is the secondary hero of The Dark Knight. Much more so than Batman, Harvey Dent is an official hero. He is the district attorney of Gotham city, has neatly combed blonde hair, and is going steady with the beautiful Rachel Dawes. He is known by the people as Gotham’s White Knight. Harvey Dent is a very likeable man who is smart, clever, good, and decent. Unlike Batman, he works with the police openly to fight crime, but is also very adept at it. Harvey Dent is, in many ways, similar to Batman, sharing a passion to fight crime, a symbolic image of justice in Gotham, and even feelings for the same woman. He is a brave man, explaining to Rachel, in one scene, that he’s far less scared of the mob than of the members of the Fire Brigade at his campaign fundraiser. In his first scene, during a court session, the criminal on trial pulls out a gun and points it at Harvey’s face. Without hesitation, Harvey knocks the gun out of the criminal’s hand and punches him in the nose. Totally unfazed, Harvey retorts that, “If you want to kill a public servant, I recommend you buy American.” From the start, we learn that there is a rebellious side to Harvey Dent. In this scene, he did not do the “responsible” thing and let the criminal escape, but instead, risks his own life and takes matters into his own hands. It isn’t until later in the movie that we discover Harvey’s reputation for having two different sides to his personality. Here comes that inescapable dichotomy. In addition to his nickname Gotham’s White Knight, Harvey has another nickname, which is far less pristine—Two Face. Suddenly, the official outlaw hero dichotomy is revealed. Although we never knew the exact reason Harvey earned himself this nickname, we know that he, just like Batman, has two very different sides. He is both the official hero and the outlaw hero.

To further entangle this hero paradox, it is interesting to examine the character of Batman and Harvey Dent a bit further. Ray says in “The Thematic Paradigm” that although America cannot choose between the official hero and the outlaw hero, we have a tendency to lean towards the outlaw hero. There is something completely enticing about the freedom and courage the outlaw hero brings, which are values that America itself is built on. Batman’s existence, this ideal of Bruce Wayne’s creation, fundamentally depends on Batman’s lawlessness, or in other words, on his outlaw-ish heroism. Just as Alfred reminds Bruce Wayne, as soon as Batman cows to the demands and laws of the society, Batman ceases to exist. Diametrically, Harvey Dent is the exact opposite; he cannot exist without the law. The moment he sets foot outside the law, he is corrupted. As Harvey Dent says at the start of the movie, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Fulfilling his own words when he tries to take justice into his own hands, he turns to murder and betrayal. Harvey kidnaps Gordon’s, his former partner, family and threatens to kill his them in the name of justice. Blaming Gordon for Rachel’s death, he claims that is only fair that Gordon share his pain. Without the law, Harvey Dent becomes another villain. That is why, at the end of the story, Batman is the true hero—the outlaw hero.

The zenith of the paradox is that after all is said and done, Harvey dead and the city on the brink of disaster, Batman too must fulfill Harvey Dent’s words. Batman shoulders the blame of Harvey Dent’s villainy and give up his title as Gotham’s hero. He becomes Gotham’s scapegoat and by “dying a hero”, saves the city. He receives no glory, no love, no admiration, yet that is not his place. Gotham depends on him. It is this story’s mythically paradoxical nature that makes me, every time since my first viewing, think to myself every time I watch The Dark Knight, “I know this story! I know this story!” I know it because I’ve heard the story many times before and because I know these heroes well. The Dark Knight is a blatant and brilliant picture of the tug-of-war between the official hero and the outlaw hero, between glory and humility, and between the dying and rising of a hero.

Grades Prevent Education

From the moment a child enters kindergarten, he is told that if he performs well, he will receive a gold star. The school system keeps on giving “gold stars” all through grade school, high school, college, but the gold stars become grades. Ironically, grades destroy children’s innate love of learning, which is the very opposite of what they’re supposed to do. By giving grades, adults communicate to children that since they must get a bribe for learning, it must be something that they don’t want to do. Although this love of learning is natural to all children, it takes only a year or two for the grading system to be drilled into a child’s mind. It is embedded in students’ minds, from the time they are children that the goal of learning is to gain a good grade, not to learn. Education should be a way of exploring what a person feels about the things he sees and experiences, so that he can form ideas about what he believes. The purpose of education is to teach students to think for themselves, not so they can earn a good grade, but so that they can understand, discuss with, and love others better. Giving grades in school completely prevents true education. With a system of education that is so strongly set in our society, many people assume that grading is the best or only option available today. The two most common questions people have about reforming this system are, firstly, why are grades unnecessary and detrimental to students’ motivation and, secondly, what would a reformed system look like, and more specifically, how would teachers track students’ progress and how would colleges conduct admissions.

Are gold stars necessary? Can students be motivated to learn without the promise of a reward? In Tom Sawyer, Tom tricks the other children into doing his chores for him by making them believe that the chore is an honor and demanding payment for doing it. The children assume that if they must pay to do it, it must be what they want to do. This concept goes the other direction, too. If a person is being paid for doing something, then he doesn’t want to do it. If we must give a student a reward—a grade—they must be doing something they wouldn’t without the reward. This discussion is one of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. Simon A. Lei describes these two temperaments as follows, “Intrinsically motivated individuals have been able to develop high regards for learning various types of course information without the inclusion of external rewards of reinforcements. In contrast, extrinsically motivated individuals rely solely on rewards and desirable results to act as a catalyst for their motivation” (153). In his essay, Lei maintains that intrinsically motivated students work on academic tasks because they enjoy them, and not explicitly because of a promised reward, but that extrinsically motivated students will often not complete an academic task, regardless of their competency, if there are no incentives present (154). Many experiments have been performed to explore the differences between these two motivations. One of these experiments, done by Susan Harter, tested the hypothesis that children receive the most pleasure from optimally challenging tasks by giving a group of sixth graders were given four difficulty problems of differing complexity. Half of the group was instructed that the task was a school assignment which would receive a letter grade and half or the group was instructed that the task was a game. The children who viewed the task as a game chose and showed a preference for optimally challenging problem. On the other hand, the group who viewed the task as an academic assignment chose significantly easier problems. These children respond below their optimal level, and also exhibited less pleasure and verbalized more anxiety. Harter states that the findings within the study can be interpreted within the cognitive-evaluation theory, which argues that extrinsic rewards can negatively affect intrinsic motivation by decreasing a student’s sense of self-determination and competence (788). Clearly, grades are not only unnecessary for motivating students, but detrimental to students’ educations.

If grades were not given out in school, how would teachers track the progress of their students? In schools today, grades are the scale which students are measured by. Without grades, determining if a student should continue on to the next course would become a more difficult matter and would put much more pressure on teachers to know their students, their students’ work, and their students’ progress in the class. Many concerns would arise such as would a student pass a class only if they had a theoretically ‘A’ involvement in the class and wouldn’t every teacher regard a persons’ work differently? With much concern, people argue that students who were completely unqualified to pass courses could be passing left and right. Let us consider two things, however. First, with our present grading system, there are multitudes of unqualified students passing courses, which either have not effectively tested their mastery of a subject or have allowed them to cheat the system in many ways. Illustrating this point to perfection, hundreds of high school students enter college composition classes every year without the basic knowledge of how to use commas correctly, regardless of the fact that they have taken twelve years of English and grammar courses. The second essential consideration is to ask why a student should be allowed to pass a course with anything less than an ‘A’ grade or complete mastery of the skill.

If the student has not accomplished the course work to the teacher’s satisfaction—if a student can further improve, why should they continue? The point of education is not ability compared to others, but mastery of a skill. There are ways for teachers to keep track of their students other than grades. These ways are much more time-consuming and more complicated, yet altogether more effective. Demanding much greater commitment from teachers, marking progress without grades would consist of teachers knowing their students personally, letting go of control over grading students’ performance, and spending time giving constructive criticism in the form of notes or a conference on how a student is doing. Necessarily, is would demand that students care about the subjects they are learning—not care about the grade they would be receiving, but the knowledge they take in. This reformed system would mean a reconstruction of the school system from kindergarten forward. The truth is that true education is not easy because it necessitates the care and commitment of all involved.

If grades were not distributed, there would be a completely different system for college admissions. The system could conceivably consist of three different things. First off, it would consist of an extremely detailed portfolio of essays written by various teachers commenting on the particular student’s abilities, strengths, and weaknesses, which would resemble a letter of recommendation, except far more honest and revealing. The student would also write an essay about himself and his educational experience explaining such things as what subjects were most important to him and why he wants to attend college. The third section of the college admission would be an interview between a college representative and the student that would give time for any remaining questions the college might have for the student and allow the college to get a feel for the kind of person they’re admitting. Alfie Kohn elaborates on grades by explaining that “Contrary to popular belief, however, admissions officers at the best universities are not eighty-year-old fuddy-duddies, peering over their spectacles and muttering about “highly irregular” applications.” He elaborates that often these people are just a few years out of college themselves, and, after hundreds of identical applications from average good students, they’re refreshed to look at something unconventional (110). Today, the most renowned schools, including Harvard and Yale, applications demand not only a high ACT or SAT score, but also a testimony from two teachers and an essay written by the student. These colleges know that a grade point average is not enough. Harvard’s admissions page states:

Applicants can distinguish themselves for admission in a number of ways. Some show unusual academic promise through experience or achievements in study or research. Many are “well rounded” and have contributed in various ways to the lives of their schools or communities. Others are “well lopsided” with demonstrated excellence in a particular endeavor—academic extracurricular or otherwise. Still others bring perspectives formed by unusual personal circumstances or experiences. Academic accomplishment in high school is important, but we also seek people with enthusiasm, creativity and strength of character. Most admitted students rank in the top 10–15 percent of their graduating classes, having taken the most rigorous secondary school curriculum available to them (“Applying to Harvard”).

Certain students today do have “highly irregular” applications, most specifically homeschooled students. Commenting on this phenomenon, Kohn says, “Given that the most selective colleges have been known to accept home-schooled children who have applicants would be rejected if, instead of the usual transcript, their schools sent along several thoughtful qualitative assessments from some of the students’ teachers, together with a form letter explaining cultivate intrinsic motivation rather than a performance orientation. Indeed, admission officers for two of the country’s most prestigious universities confirm that they do receive, and seriously consider, applications that contain no grades” (110). This individual reformed and grade-detox system for college admissions would succeed in determining the brilliant students suited to each school.

In schools across the nation today, grades are thwarting true education, which has been diminished to a counterfeit puppet show of true education. Contrary to widespread belief, education does not depend on grades. Students can be motivated without grades, teachers can track progress without grades, and colleges can accept applicants without grades. So why do grades still exist? Because, ridding the education system of grades would not be a systematic piece-meal restructuring, but a radical reformation in which everything that people take for granted in schools—grades, extra credit, pop quizzes—all of these which contradict education, would be banished in one fell swoop. It would utterly change the mindset of students and professors, by creating an environment that encourages a love of learning and exploring, rather than a system that promotes performing and accomplishing the minimum. This reformation would change this country’s culture more than almost any other decision possible, and that is a terrifying though. Change is always terrifying, especially when the change calls for exchange of easily followed rules for more ephemeral and subjective methods, as is the case with the exchange of grades for specific feedback and intrinsic motivation. Yet this change would benefit the school system incomparably. Most importantly, without grades students would learn to think for themselves, would learn to learn for the sake of learning, and would learn to become self-motivated people, who are determined to discover the world around them for themselves. Grades keep students in chains, but with reform they can be free.

Works Cited
“Applying to Harvard.” Harvard.edu. Harvard College. Web. 7 Nov. 2011.

Boggiano, Ann K., and Diane N. Ruble.
“Competence and the Over Justification Effect: A Developmental Study.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37.9 (1979): 1462-1468. PsycARTICLES. EBSCO. Web 16 Oct. 2011.

Harter, Susan. “Pleasure Derived from Challenge and the Effects of Receiving Grades on Children’s Difficulty Level Choices.” Child Development 49 (1978): 788-799. EBSCO MegaFILE. Web. 16 Oct. 2011.

Kohn, Alfie. Punished by Rewards. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print.

Lei, Simon A. “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: Evaluation Benefits and Drawbacks from College Instructors’ Perspectives.” Journal of Instructional Psychology 37.2 (2010): 153-160. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 16 Oct. 2011.