The true measure of learning is not the time and energy you put in. It’s the knowledge and skills you take out.

At the same time, it’s our responsibility to tell students who burn the midnight oil that although their B– might not have fully reflected their dedication, it speaks volumes about their sleep deprivation.

With students, a textbook example is pulling all-nighters rather than spacing out their studying over a few days. If they don’t get an A, they often protest.

If there wasn’t a time limit, the higher people scored on grit, the more likely they were to keep banging away at a task they were never going to accomplish.

We’ve taught a generation of kids that their worth is defined primarily by their work ethic.

Psychologists have long found that rewarding effort cultivates a strong work ethic and reinforces learning.

In surveys, two-thirds of college students say that “trying hard” should be a factor in their grades, and a third think they should get at least a B just for showing up at (most) classes.

“My grade doesn’t reflect the effort I put into this course.”

No, You Don’t Get an A for Effort

it should be that many black leaders, including Dr. King, use two different modes of discourse when addressing white vs. black audiences, an ignorance that has led to some of the hysteria over some of Rev. Wright's comments.

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union,"

'My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty of thee I sing.  Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.'"

The effectiveness of Obama's speech rests upon four related rhetorical strategies: 1.  The power of allusion and its patriotic associations. 2.  The oratorical resonance of parallel constructions. 3.  The "two-ness" of the texture, to use DuBois's useful term. 4.  His ability to include himself as a character in a narrative about race.

But the approach that Democrats are contemplating is largely misdirected and risks further undermining public confidence in elections without achieving much of practical significance.

With their legislative agenda stymied for now, Democrats reportedly are hoping to take another crack at election reform. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and President Biden have both identified voting rights legislation as a top priority.

He’s tired of everything, most of all the loggers skating around on that stupid frying pan. Don’t they realize that shit gets old after a while? I mean, it was kind of funny the first few times, but never exactly hygienic after all. God knows what kind of bacteria he picked up last time he ate flapjacks out of that pan. He got so sick he passed out, and toppled right over onto a family playing Frisbee. It was terrible. They had to peel the dad off of his left shoulder, and his shirt was all covered in bloodstains and ruined. And it’s not cheap to get a custom-made flannel shirt the size of a football field.

This is what I am thinking of, years later, standing in front of my classroom when the alarms go off. My students ask What do we do. I want to say, I do not know. I say Get away from the windows.

When the neighbor boy showed us his gun, holding it out as if it were a bird, cupped in the palm of his hand, we might have looked like any crowd of children gathered around some fragile animal lifted from the grass.

One of my favorite Dillard essays, “Schedules,” focuses upon the importance of writers working on a regular schedule rather than writing only intermittently. In “Schedules,” she discusses, among many other subjects, Hasidism, chess, baseball, warblers, pine trees, june bugs, writers’ studios and potted plants – not to mention her own schedule and writing habits and that of Wallace Stevens and Jack London.