Davidson Professor To Allow Students To Pick Their Own Grades After No One Signs Up For Her Class

The College Fix-A literature class at Davidson College this fall will use “contract grading,” allowing students to pick ahead of time their grade for the class and the workload they need to complete to earn it.

Not to take the common joke from the Sex Scandal Teacher blogs by Jerry, but where the hell were these teachers when all of us were in college?

The offer is posed by Professor Melissa Gonzalez for her Introduction to Spanish Literatures and Cultures course, SPA 270, at the private liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina.

Private liberal arts colleges exist below the Mason Dixon Line?

Gonzalez is a Hispanic Studies professor who also teaches in the Gender and Sexuality Studies department.

Shocked a professor that came up with this “select your own grades” ideas is in the Gender and Sexuality Studies department. Grades were created by the patriarchy. Everybody knows that.

“It can help students focus on learning more than on grades, and therefore make more progress in their learning, with less anxiety.”

This is what we call postmodernism nonsense. In a perfect world, yes, this would work. But you know what we don’t live in? A perfect world. Want to know the big reason for that? College kids.

“I aim to foster classroom environments that are radically democratic and empower intellectual risk-taking,”

….

In her email, Gonzalez urged her former students to sign up for SPA 270, indicating that only two students have enrolled thus far and the class is in danger of being canceled.

“I want to make sure you know about some important innovations I am introducing in the course [contract grading] so that you can decide today or as soon as possible whether you want to take SPA 270 in Fall 2018. If you do, please use ADD/DROP as soon as possible to add it, or the course will have to be cancelled,” she wrote.

Ohhhhhhh, so no one would sign up for your class and you decided to increase your class numbers by allowing students to pick their own grades in the upcoming semester?! Gotcha. I respect it. Although the virtue signaling is obvious with the “I am to foster classroom environments that….empower intellectual risk-taking,” I appreciate the creativity here. A hustlers mindset. Plus, this story, I’m sure will piss off a bunch of old “THESE DAMN MILLENIALS!” men. That’s always fun.

Keep cashing them checks, Mrs. Gonzalez. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.