Giving an A

At the University of Southern California, a leadership course was taught each year to fifty of the most outstanding students out of twenty-seven thousand in the school, hand-picked by each department. At the end of the semester, the grader for the course was introduced to give one-third of the student A's, one-third B's and one-third C's--even though the work of any member of this class was likely to surpass that any other student in the university. Imagine the blow to the morale of the eager and hard-working student who received the requisite C.

Not just in this case, but in most case, grades say little about the work done. When you reflect to a student that he has misconstrued a concept or has taken a false step in a math problem, you are indicating something real about his performance, but when you give him B+, you are saying nothing at all about his mastery of the material, you are only matching him up against other students. Most would recognize at core that the main purpose of grades is to compare one student against another. Most people are also aware the competition puts a strain on friendships and too often consigns students to a solitary journey.

Michelangelo is often quoted as having said the inside every block of stone or marble dwells a beautiful statue;one need only remove the excess material to reveal the work of art within. If we were to apply this visionary concept to education, it would be pointless to compare one child to another. Instead all the energy would be focused on chipping away at the stone, getting rid of whatever is in the way of each child's developing skills, mastery, and self-expression.

We call this practice giving an A. It is an enlivening way of approaching people that promises to transform you as well as them. It is a shift in attitude that makes it possible for you to speak freely about your own thoughts and feeling while, at the same time, you support others to be all they dream of being. The practice of giving an A transports your relationships from the world of measurement into the universe of possibility.

An A can be given to anyone in any walk of life--to a waitress, to your employer, to your mother-in-law, to the members of the apposite team, and to the other drivers in traffic. When you give an A, you find yourself speaking to people not from a place of measuring how they stack up against your standards, but from a place of respect that gives them room to realize themselves. Your eye is on the statue within the roughness of the uncut stone.

This A is not an expectation to live up, but a possibility to live into.