Discovering Theseus: Another Destination in my Reckoning with Grades

The following is the transcript of an email I sent to my professors who co-taught a class during the infamous covid semester (Spring 2020). What was supposed to be a simple request turned into a cathartic exercise for my soul:

Saturday, April 4, 2020 at 2:30pm CST

Profe and Profa,

I hope that this email receives you well and that your loved ones are also in good health. I came into this class with the expectation of getting an A. It became evident to me on the first day of class that I would only receive an A through much sacrifice — sleepless nights, less social time with friends, devoting less time to extracurriculars and other classes. All for the golden shining A. But why do I care so much? Who cares about getting an A? I should be satisfied with what I get.

That’s exactly it — when it comes to my academics, I refuse to settle. I refuse to settle because for my entire life, me and my family have had to settle. “We are Mexicans, and Mexicans in America can’t be picky,” say my Mom and Dad. Beggars can’t be choosers.

That’s why, for my entire academic life, I have strived for the best grades and did not stop until I got the best grades. It was the one thing I had control over in my life, and I derived my happiness from it. The easiest A’s for me to get were in STEM, especially Chemistry. It came easy to me, even until I decided to drop the major for Latin American Studies. I wanted to better develop my skills in writing and communication and I wanted to learn it in a subject area that I love (history) and have a personal connection with (soy Latinx).

After thoughtful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I don’t even think I will be able to secure a B in this class. Every day is a struggle with anxiety, depression, and past trauma from my entire childhood. One day I am extremely motivated, and the next day it disappears into thin air. I have other classes to worry about. Family members are starting to get sick. I don’t have my support network to lean on. I doubt my abilities to be a successful student and major in Latin American Studies. I am capable of showing and manifesting my strong and positive qualities, but after a lifetime of putting up a façade of machista strength, nothing sounds better to me than allowing my inner child to grieve.

All of this has been exacerbated 100 fold because of the circumstances surrounding coronavirus.

“Alfredo, maybe your expectations of yourself are too high,” thank you, I realized that a long time ago. I realized it a long time ago when I could no longer find solace in being a high academic achiever. In deriving joy from learning because my grades no longer affirm me all the time.

I want to edit that sentence, I want to add that historical nuance, I want to have a clearer structure, but I want nothing more in my life right now than to find my joy. I want to find what makes me happy and I want to cherish that part of my life, to let it flourish so that I can nurture my inner child. And that’s why I can no longer read constructive criticism on my assignments objectively — I take it too personally because it feels like an attack on who I am essentially as a person. I cannot bear another “bad grade.” At least for the time being.

I don’t ask for pity. I am an adult. I realize I have my quirks.

I only pray that, the next time I have a class with y’all, I will have the strength to be a better student. One that can meet you where you are with your page requirements, your reading deadlines, your negative and positive incentives.

In conclusion, it breaks my heart to request a PNC for this class.

Never giving up, always staying true to myself,

AEM

Thus Spoke Alfredo.

In the preceding time of this email, a contentious debate stirred among students and faculty at Pomona College as it pertained to grading. We would reckon with the question of how grades would be handled in the semester that the global pandemic broke out. In retrospect, the subtext of my email confirmed that I was obsessed with more primordial questions, such as how do we reckon with grades… period.

Recently, while reflecting deeply, I came across a tale which once again affirmed the amicable relationship that I have with serendipity. The tale goes as follows (summarized using some artistic license, of course): In Ancient Greece, the ruthless Procrustes waited for his next victim. With an intention to commit senseless violence, he looked for a victim whom he could compel to lay on his iron bed. If the victim outsized the bed, then Procrustes would maim their body to fit the bed’s dimensions; A victim with a body too small necessitated that he stretch their limbs like taffy. Either way, each victim would be fit to the dimensions of the proverbial bed and would die as a result. Then came the legendary being who would submit Procrustes to his own violent machinations: Theseus, mythic King of Athens and slayer of the Minotaur. (Ouch, Theseus — I’m a Taurus!)

Thus, the word “procrustean” was born. After recounting that tale, I’ll leave Merriam Webster to do the defining: “marked by arbitrary often ruthless disregard of individual differences or special circumstances.” Encyclopedia Britannica states the following in its entry for Procrustes: “The ‘bed of Procrustes’ or ‘Procrustean bed,’ has become proverbial for arbitrarily — and perhaps ruthlessly — forcing someone or something to fit into an unnatural scheme or pattern.”

By now, you are anticipating that I label grades a procrustean system, and your instincts would be correct because, yes, I do think grades are an awfully procrustean system.

By virtue of its origin story, the procrustean system is a violent one. It is a system that mutilates, perhaps less in a physical manner than in a metaphorical manner. Yes, grades are procrustean, and thus they are violent. I need no other evidence than to look back at my email, which clearly showed myself at my most emotionally and spiritually mutilated, reckoning with the violence of years of submission to the “ideal grade.”

On the day that I sent that email, I had once again embraced my recalcitrant alter ego. He has early roots forged in the fires and fits of grammar school teachers who typecasted me as intractable. And they were right: I was intractable… but only to the point that I refused to submit to the iron bed. Fearlessly, I saw Procrustes in the eyes and embraced my inner bull. I fought back, rearing the horns with which I was born. Perhaps I wasn’t typecasted as intractable as much as I compelled myself to bring out that side of me.

Then, after recalcitrance, came embitterment. Embitterment at the fact that I was at the behest of the grade system’s machinations. Perhaps, I thought, I had no other choice but to submit to the iron bed. Perhaps, I truly have no other choice. The iron bed is my destiny. Procrustes snickers. In my misery, I await Theseus.

Finally, came synthesis. Currently, I am of the belief that I have no other choice but to submit to the system. I do not want to drop out of academia, and even if I do drop out, then I would encounter the machinations of the iron beds that are woven into every inch of our society’s fabric.

I have no desire whatsoever to violently burn or tear that fabric — I would be no better than Procrustes. My only hope is that I can turn the fabric in on itself, submit it to its own iron beds. Yet, I have many destinations ahead of me before I can do that. Thus, for the moment, I submit to the iron bed.

I realize that there are two of myself. The physical me is submitted to the iron bed. He is maimed. He is stretched like taffy. With a Homer Simpson smile, I lay on the iron bed and tell myself, “Oh well.”

And there is the other me. He is inside of me, an immaterial girl (#StreamSOPHIE) whose immense gravity has enough strength to transcend the violence. He can connect my parts together after the maim, he can reconfigure me after the stretch (#StreamArca).

I do not allow the procrustean to have access to my inner gravity, my inner machinations. I fearlessly submit knowing that there is no iron bed calamitous enough to fatally maim or stretch my inner gravity. Only I have access to my inner machinations, and I would be but a ghost in the shell if I were to iron bed my inner self.

My point, then, is that the struggle is real, but there is no struggle difficult enough that will break my soul. Know this to be true, reader. But also know that you are the one in control of your own machinations. Let the iron bed be your memento mori.

Yet so far my point of view has been overly cynical. Violence abounds in this life, but so does healing. I have had countless experiences in which teachers have broken the procrustean bounds of the grading system. To those teachers who try their best within the violent limits of such a system, thank you and keep trying. To the future teachers among you readers, be brave. We believe in you to be a force of healing.

If you feel inspired to learn more, then watch the following video, “Grading is a Scam (and Motivation is a Myth),” by Zoe Bee.

Alfredo Eladio Moreno is inspired by everything around us. He believes that we can reckon with the grander patterns of the universe, so long as we practice being immobile and observant.