On Student Entitlement

As I prepare to grade a batch of exams that I just received, and a pile of papers that I should have finished more than a week ago, I cannot stop thinking about this Michelle Cottle post at The Plank , which she develops from this New York Times article, both of which take on the entitlement that many college students feel when it comes to grades. Their attitude can be summed up thusly: "I come to class and do all the work, I deserve an A." Which is to say that they believe that simply fulfilling the basic expectations of the class warrants an A. Read both pieces, and shake your head in a combination of disbelief and exasperation at both the sense of entitlement and the absence of the idea of quality in the minds of too many of these students, who have grown up in the academic equivalent of Lake Woebegone and who, upon coming to college, are stunned, but more to the point, outraged, that they are not all above average.