I hate grading. I’d rather do laundry than grade, and I hate doing laundry. Empty the cat box. Clean windows. Shovel after a blizzard.
Did I mention that I hate grading?
It is, alas, necessary in the corporate academic complex. (I almost managed to write that with a straight face.) No, I actually do see the point of it, I just hate doing it.
What would happen if I were to tell my students, on the first day of class, that they would all get B-‘s or C+’s, no questions asked. If they wanted a better grade, they’d have to do the work—and still no guarantees of a A. How many would would show up for class? How many would do the reading?
How many would actually care to learn about the subject?
Ha. I know. Perhaps I lay on one condition: You get a C+ if you show up regularly, a B- if you participate. If the class isn’t too early or too late in the day, I’d probably get a decent turnout.
And almost no grading. ‘Almost no’ because there would always be those few students who want the A and/or would feel too guilty not to do any work.
Of course, there’d also be those students who would be so offended by my mockery of the Purpose of Education that they’d narc on me. ‘How dare she not force us through flaming hoops for meaningless letters on a transcript no one will ever look at?’
Don’t worry, I lack the guts/foolishness to try this. Gotta pay the rent.
AbsurdBeats 
I worked with a teacher once who took all of her students’ research papers to the top of her stair case and shoved them down the stairs. The ones that hit the bottom got an A. The ones that stayed at the top got an F with the rest falling into B C and D zones respectively. She admitted it. Bragged about it. The kids never knew.
http://bandnerdtx.wordpress.com
I’ve heard variations of this story over the years—I’d always assumed it was an urban legend.
When I was in grad school, I’d heard that a fellow grad student in my department had an ingenious way of discouraging students from complaining about their grades: In a multi-part exam, he would intentionally err in adding up the various parts, such that the total score was higher than it ‘should’ be. He allegedly would determine that a student should get, say, an 81, then add 19+35+24 to equal 81. A student who was smart enough to figure out that this should total 78 would, presumably, be dissuaded from showing her exam to the TA, for fear of the ‘error’s’ discovery.
I don’t know if this was true or not, but if so, genius. Evil, sure, but genius.
LOL! That is pure evil.
My story might have originated as an urban legend. Perhaps the teacher in question heard of it and decided it sounded like as good a plan as any… She certainly wasn’t very smart or creative, so I could see her “stealing” the idea.
My dad (adjunct) told all his programming classes,”You all got an A. But you have to show up.” Then he’d ask them about their projects in class. No one wants to look stupid, so fear of being called on (good old Socrates) guilted them into the work.
Oh, if only that would work, if only I could make that work. If only I had the guts to make it work.
[And as an aside, the one bugger of reading these old posts is that I catch the typos I didn’t catch the first time around. “You all get a A.” Aaaarrrgggh! “An A! An A!”]