In Praise of the F Word: How to Use It to Get What You Want

Mary Sherry explores whether educators and learners focus more on grades at the expense of learning. She creates the need to understand whether grades are seen as essential or not. According to Sherry, the problem with education system is that there is no healthy fear of failure. All students want to graduate, making them feel that they won. Sherry indicates that the number of students graduating with meaningless diplomas is large. The problem happens annually, and these individuals cannot handle work in the real world as they are not prepared enough (Sherry, (n.d). Therefore, passing students to graduate is a problem for the entire society. Some people are advantaged by enrolling in the educational repair ships. There are adult-literacy programs aimed at assisting high school graduates and drop-outs to gain skills they should have acquired in schools. Sherry supports the implementation of flunking to improve the education system. Flunking is a positive teaching tool, where the teachers and students will be learning from the materials presented to them, instead of passing students, which Sherry considered a long-term doom to illiteracy. The tool would promote parents, teachers, and students working together to promote the best interests of students (Sherry, (n.d). Threats such as failing the students so that they do not graduate should be used and supported. It will encourage the students to work hard and read all materials to be prepared for exams so that they do not fail. The approach will also benefit the society at large since school will be producing literate students who can handle and solve the existing problems. According to the argument provided by Sherry, both grades and learning are essential to reflect the performance of students, finish all course materials, and determine which skills should be instilled to prepare students for the future. 

Reference 

Sherry, M. (n.d). In Praise of the F Word; 553-555.