Finals week... some totals are in

I was in my office this AM grading my first set of exams. While the exams themselves were mostly more than adequate, and some of them were quite good, as I began computing my students semester grades, a very disturbing trend emerged.

Many of my students will fail the class earning stunningly low percentages. We're talking so bottom-of-the-barrel that most people don't even know it's humanly possible to earn such a low score in a college course. Many average students have failed exams or classes by earning at least 50%; and if not 50%, then at least somewhere below it that is still in a positive percentage range.

Today's semester grades were so low that you have to admire the choices one must make to fail so greatly. Failure, at this level, is a deliberate choice, a mode of being, an essence of the individual... where the person is tied so closely to his/her failure-success that it becomes an integral part of who he/she is-- it defines the identity, completes it, even. You have to be a very inventive person to come up with all sorts of things to do OTHER than go to class and study. You have to be a creative problem-solver, developing alternative options in any type of situation. Such failure-success is the result of extreme dedication to a task. You have to be focused, driven, and aware of yourself.

Some people might call it failure, but I say underachieving is the key to ultimate happiness: no expectations + no rules = complete freedom to be you and me.