Saturday, June 04, 2016

The Flowers Become Ever More Delicate

This is what happens when you let the inmates run the asylum:
Students at Johns Hopkins University are protesting the school’s plan to start giving actual letter grades to first-semester students — claiming that freshmen having to receive letter grades would create a mental-health crisis on campus far too severe for the school’s resources to handle. 
 
For decades, Johns Hopkins has concealed students’ first-semester letter grades — marking their performance in these classes as simply having been either “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” — from potential employers and graduate schools. According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, however, the school has since decided that this policy might be encouraging too many students to take their first semester less than seriously (um, ya think?!) and that it therefore plans to change it beginning in 2017. 
 
Now, you might think that giving grades for schoolwork seems like a reasonable thing for this school to do . . . but many of its students don’t see it that way. In fact, the Sun reports that more than 20 student groups are protesting the change — arguing that not only would it cause widespread mental breakdowns, but also that, according to some groups such as the Black Student Union, it would be particularly unfair to minority students, because they often “must experience racial discrimination combined with difficult classes that some of their previous schools might not have properly prepared them for.”
These are some of the most privileged people on the planet--and no doubt want to lecture me about my so-called privilege.  They want and they want.  Are there any adults left to counter this craziness?

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