r/todayilearned • u/Ill_Definition8074 • 14h ago

TIL In 2019 a Japanese University student studying ninja history turned in an essay written in invisible ink. The words only became visible when the paper was heated over a gas stove. Her professor without even revealing the whole essay gave her an A.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49996166
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u/SaintUlvemann 13h ago

It's how the real world can be.

The real world is sometimes oppressive, but class ideally should not be...

...and the reason why not is because kids learn more when they feel like their efforts are being respected.

So whether the teacher was in the right, would depend a lot on what the rubric item was that was forgotten. What was the teaching value of that rubric item? Was it met in an alternative way by what the student did?

I'm not above giving a motivated student a B or worse if they missed the point, but I'm also not above giving a student who broke the rules an A if they understand the material.

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u/DeviantDragon 12h ago

It's not like the student got failed. They got a B and a very specific reason for the grade was given.

Getting discouraged and deciding not to try is an unreasonable reaction when you could instead think "Shoot, next time I really need to read the instructions carefully." I'd feel differently if the teacher gave a B and gave no reason or faulted the creativity specifically.

Here's a real world example. Say a creative agency is making a pitch to the client who is a musician launching a new product. They decide to make their pitch as a music video to show that they're committed to understanding the client and the image being sold. As great as that effort is, if they forget to include a requested element in the pitch (say, the client requested a socal media campaign and it wasn't included), they may miss out on the job.

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u/DeengisKhan 11h ago

I’m sorry, saying it’s unreasonable to be upset when you’ve gone way above and beyond the basic assignment in school, but missed some arbitrary detail the teacher originally intended, that teacher has a stick up their ass and doesn’t remember the true core goal of school, to make learning accessible and enjoyable to cultivate a lifetime of knowledge and learning. As soon as we lose sight of that and dock kids for going outside of the box because that outside of the box thinking didn’t tick a box the teacher just up and decided they needed to tick, that is horse shit and that student becoming discouraged is absolutely the most obvious outcome.

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u/ffddb1d9a7 10h ago

Sometimes going "way above and beyond" the assignment translates directly to not doing the assignment.

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u/DeengisKhan 8h ago

The situation being discussed is about writing a poem for a writing assignment about poetry, that sort of creativity absolutely needs to be cultivated, neither of us were actually there in this scenario, and the whole thing could be made up for all we know, but the idea that you would be here erring to side of yep fuck em he didn’t do the things he was supposed to is the exact kind of person who was also grading him, which is the problem, because being creative at school of all places, which is decidedly nothing like adulthood so pretending it needs to be arbitrarily hard in fucked up and unhealthy ways because it’s “how the world works” is also a terrible argument. We need kids to be happy while they learn, and should commend student who turn in three pages of metered poetry for a recurring short essay assignment.

I read this back and it’s got terrible grammar and spelling mistakes but I’m on my phone and can’t be assed to fix it on my phone, apologies for the shit English.

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u/Unique_Brilliant2243 5h ago

It also not above and beyond, it’s sideways.