12/1/10-Dumb Dumbs for Smart Smarts

Personally, I believe that brighter students are in fact very desirous of grades. However, I will agree with Phaedrus' belief that the lazy students desire them too. The way I see it, the desire of grades is more like an inverse bell curve. Smart students want to consistently be validated on their brilliance and lazy students want to be kept accountable for passing the class. The students in the middle, though, probably don't care about knowing their grades because they recognize the quality of their work and are content with not being reminded of their mediocre stance. I will however say that there are two different kinds of "good students" that would prove Phaedrus' point. The first group is the group that desires good grades for the sake of having good grades and allowing that part of their personality to define who they are as people. The second group of brilliant students are the ones who don't neccessarily care if they are brilliant or not. They are passionate about learning; being good at it is just a perk, a coincidence if you will. Thus, they don't really care about knowing their grade because they recognize the information that they have gained and are content. In this way, both Phaedrus and the inquirer are correct in their assumptions.