University professor to allow students to pick their own grades to reduce stress

  We all understand that college can be stressful on students. According to this story a professor at the University of Georgia has come up with a unique way to help his students cope with the stress of getting a bad grade–the student simply tells the professor what their grade should have been and he will change it without question. Here is more:

A University of Georgia professor has adopted a “stress reduction policy” that will allow students to select their own grades if they “feel unduly stressed” by the ones they earned.

According to online course syllabi for two of Dr. Richard Watson’s fall business courses, he has introduced the policy because “emotional reactions to stressful situations can have profound consequences for all involved.”

As such, if students feel “unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course,” they can “email the instructor indicating what grade [they] think is appropriate, and it will be so changed” with “no explanation” being required.

  Okay, it is quite clear how this will help a student reduce stress but I fail to see how this will help the student in the long run. This is not teaching the student anything other than he or she has no responsibility for learning what the professor is teaching.

  Perhaps the professor believes the mere shock of the initial bad grade will be enough to stir the student to try harder the next time around but how will this be an incentive to work harder when the student realizes they can be lazy and still get whatever grade they want? 

 The professor even admits this policy will hinder a student’s development: 

Watson, notably, does concede that “while this policy might hinder the development of group skills and mastery of the class material,” those outcomes are ultimately a student’s “responsibility,”

  Of course the final grade is ultimately the student’s responsibility because they are responsible for picking the grade! What happens when the student passes with high honors, gets a job based on these fake grades, and is ultimately fired when their employer realizes they do not know anything? Who will help relieve the stress then? I guess that is when the “professional cuddling expert” will be called in.

  All this is doing is pushing the stress down the road and making it harder for students to adapt to the real world when they leave this institute of “higher learning.” 

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium