“Calculus III was one of the best-and hardest-classes I’ve ever taken. Although its lecherous name and four day per week consistency threatened one’s sanity, the professor managed to subdue the torturous subject with expert teaching, extreme dedication and continuous encouragement.”
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Calculus III was one of the best-and hardest-classes I’ve ever taken. Although its lecherous name and four day per week consistency threatened one’s sanity, the professor managed to subdue the torturous subject with expert teaching, extreme dedication and continuous encouragement. We did, however, find one thing he wasn’t so optimistic about.

When we noticed that his practice tests only went back until about 1996-long after he had begun teaching-we asked questions. He explained, with a slightly sad demeanor, that the tests that he gave in the ’80s and early ’90s wouldn’t be indicative of the level of difficulty that would appear in our test-those tests, he said, were much harder.

A few of us left the class with his words still on our minds-we even speculated that even though math and science have gone through massive progressions since the ’70s and ’80s, the quality of students hadn’t.

An article in the New York Times that ran yesterday quoted professors from high ranking schools-like Vanderbilt-whose words brought me back to that day. And sure enough, they gave the same diagnosis that we did-that the problem was the students’ excellence in education.

I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C, Professor Marshall Grossman, an English professor at University of Maryland said. That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.

Well. Don’t we? After all, we went to class. And that was probably hard enough to do.

I noticed an increased sense of entitlement in my students, Professor Ellen Greenburger of the University of California Urvine added. Bingo.

It’s true; this is what we are-it’s just not at the University of Akron. We feel entitled to a grade, not because we actually understand the subject, not because we have actually done everything we can to receive the grade, but just because we just know that the other kid went out the night before the test. Well, he got a B, ergo, we should get an A.

And this, my friends, is the link between education and its downturn. Actually, it’s the link between our country and everything that’s wrong with it.

Let’s take the example of the terrible cartoon that graced the presence of the New York Post yesterday. For everyone who doesn’t know, a woman with a pet chimpanzee called 911 because the animal was attacking her friend-ripped her face off, in her words. The cops had no choice but to shoot the creature.

The cartoon captured this moment-only, the cartoonist had the words, They’ll have to find someone else to write the new stimulus bill, billowing from one of the policemen’s mouth.

On top of the obvious portrayal of racism, this cartoon also sends the message, We’re the New York Post, and we can do anything we want.

Sense of entitlement creates bad decisions. Check.

Or how about A-Rod urging all the reporters at the press conference to just accept the fact that he didn’t know what his cousin was injecting him with and that at the age of 28 he was just too na’ve. And how about all of them actually accepting that explanation?

Entitlement.

Burris and Blagojevich refusing to give up and give Illinois and Obama a break? Entitlement. Dashle thinking he didn’t have to pay taxes? Entitlement. Wagoner? Entitlement. Don’t try to tell me now that crushing all the EV1’s was a mistake.

Jefferson is sweet. He defined what we actually are entitled to-life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What’s not included in those: slacking in a class and then begging your professor for an A, publishing racist and offensive material, selling senate seats, taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs, not paying taxes, and, I don’t know, screwing the American automotive industry.

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