High schools and colleges are flooded with students who confuse busyness with performance. They have been misled to believe that they deserve A’s for turning in anything, and that the burden of proof is on the professor to defend why a student has not been “given” an A.

This group of teens and 20-somethings is known as the Entitlement Generation, “who believe they are owed certain rights and benefits without further justification,” according to Dictionary.com. Unfortunately for teachers, this entitlement includes the expectation of A’s without having to prove that one’s work warrants it, which introduces interesting frustrations in education today.

First, students assume that if, for example, they do not receive an “A” on a paper, then points must have been “taken off” for something done incorrectly. I’ve had to explain to students repeatedly, ad nauseam, at every level in my teaching career—high school, seminary, and now college—that they did not earn an A because their papers were not impressive. I would tell them, “You did nothing wrong; the paper simply wasn’t stellar.” What kind of world do we live in where students are nurtured to believe that if they did not receive an A it was only because of an error? Why would students expect an A in the first place unless it was warranted? Staying up late and working hard, at the last minute, does not mean you are owed anything.

Second, students confuse memorizing with understanding. Many students have been nurtured to memorize and regurgitate data as a demonstration of acumen.