Giving an “A”

This is a start to a poor confession, as I am about to justify my actions, by inferring they came from Ken Blanchard. At a conference several years ago Ken Blanchard illustrated some point or another, and challenged, inspired, shocked me into action by affirming a deep-seated belief I held in just a few minutes of dialogue.

And what could he have possibly have said? Ken spoke of how he taught his business courses at Cornell University. You see on the first day of class Blanchard would hand out the final exam. Not to take, but for the purpose of informing the students what they would be required to know in advance.

The result was two-fold. Everyone gets an “A”; or at least they do if they use the exam in preparation and learn the answers. My understanding is that Blanchard is often in hot-water with other professors in his department. The other more important outcome…the students with the anxiety of “will this be tested” out of the way could actually learn something and begin to actively participate in the class discussions.

I took his practice to heart and during the last five years of my teaching middle-school geography and history basically gave the tests out ahead of time. I accomplished this by emailing a PowerPoint program consisting of 50 – 70 questions in an interactive format complete with background photos of the place, person, or event being quizzed.

Anyone who wanted to ace the exam simply needed to review the questions as many times as they needed. With that out of the way we were free to actually learn and enjoy our subject matter.

Oh, and if your wondering if I too got in hot water I nee to mention that I was also the headmaster of the school. So I was covered, if you know what I mean.

Actually, I think this was a very Christ-like thing to do. In Sunday school as I remember we were told to be like Jesus in everything we did. Or at least that is how I remember it. OK, I’m over reaching but stick with me.

Hasn’t God through Jesus given all of us an “A” already? It’s called grace. We have nothing to prove no test to pass; we are already given a passing grade. This does not mean we can live as we please any more than my students could.

But how about giving an A to everyone you meet. Face it, many if not all the people I’ve come into contact with make you prove your worth before you are accepted.

As I understand the culture several of Jesus followers, had been passed over by other rabbis, they were not deemed the best of the best. Jesus comes along and gives them an A to start with and they turned the world upside down. How about Matthew, Jesus gave him an A. The A was freeing and Matthew gave back to the people what he had extorted. Read through the encounters Jesus had in the gospels with the lens of giving an A. It’s sort of what he was about.