Sublime

It revealed the bait and switch at the heart of standardized tests—the exact thing that made them unfair: She was teaching test-taking form for standardized exams that purportedly measured intellectual strength. My classmates and I would get higher scores—two hundred points, as promised—than poorer students, who might be equivalent in intellectual

Most would recognize at core that the main purpose of grades is to compare one student against another. Most people are also aware that competition puts a strain on friendships and too often consigns students to a solitary journey.

a GPA of 3.87.

I thought I was a subpar student and was bombarded by messages—from Black people, White people, the media—that told me that the reason was rooted in my race…which made me more discouraged and less motivated as a student…which only further reinforced for me the racist idea that Black people just weren’t very studious…which made me feel even more des

The central fact of your education is this: You’ve been taught to believe that what you discover by thinking, By examining your own thoughts and perceptions, Is unimportant and unauthorized. As a result, you fear thinking, And you don’t believe your thoughts are interesting, Because you haven’t learned to be interested in them.

Ask any Black student at Princeton or Black students at any peer institution the same, and the odds are quite good that the celebration of their admission was diminished by a claim of unearned benefit. “Affirmative action” is said with a sneer. It is a straw man of the right wing. Because of course college admissions are not an exercise in fairness

this: How do we make itmore likely—by our design—that more students really understand what they areasked to learn?

Education should awaken the capacity to be self-aware and not merely indulge in gratifying self-expression.