The Five A’s
I listened to an old interview of George Carlin this morning by a very young looking John Stewart, about a range of topics relating to George’s success as an artist. While listening, I was really taken aback by one of his observations. As a child, George attended an experimental catholic school near his home, without the usual grading and disciplinary systems. He says that because of this, the only A’s he got from his teachers were their:
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Attention
- Approval
- Admiration
- Approbation
- Applause
In graduate school, having completed all of my required classes and now done with pretty much everything that I can actually be graded on, I have sometimes felt slightly rudderless when it comes to evaluating my own performance. Papers are ultimately the notches in the professional belt of an academic, but so much work and time must go into each one that it sometimes feels like I am not moving forward at all. It makes sense to me, then, to start evaluating myself by what ultimately might be a MORE stringent set of criterion, based on George’s five A’s. If I can manage to get the attention, approval, admiration, approbation, and applause of my supervisors, mentors, family, and friends, I can at least rest assured that I did something right along the way in the great paper chase!
-n
I hear you on that, Brother! It is tough to evaluate where you are once the artifice of grades are gone.