Recently I've found myself chafing under the one fallacy many art professors are stricken with. It's the whole conception that an A is unattainable, the holy grail of grades, and more endangered than pandas. To use a quote heard through the grapevine, "I'll only give you an A if you paint a Rembrandt."
After encountering so many professors that hold to the unattainable A I have to wonder where did this idea come from? Is it extrapolated from the fact that A= 100%= perfect? Last I knew 90% to 99% was also an A and none of those numbers are perfection. Why even bother having an A at all if it represents such godlike presicion?
I can see being sparing with the As in junior level and higher studio classes, but it just becomes a crime in the intro level classes. How can an intro level student create a perfect project, or "go above and beyond" while learning the concepts and making mistakes at the same time? Why would I even need to go to school at all if I could create perfect art every time and never made errors to learn from?
It's rather a self defeating idea here and leads me to two possible conclusions:
1. I suck at art.
2. The department guidelines need another rewrite.
So the only solutions I have at the moment are to resign myself to my fate of the dreaded B or work myself into the ground and burnout trying to get an A. And we all now how successful quests for the holy grail are not.
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