Marilyn and Excellence

I remember anxiously taking out my blue pen and furiously writing my
first essay for this professor, whom I had recently met. Having little
self-confidence concerning my academic prowess, I was enthralled by
the fact that this professor treated me like I was the most important
student in the world, and she made me feel so important that there
seemed to be no end to the amount of words that came out of that blue
pen. It was the catharsis of my life, with the years of deep thoughts and
passions suddenly finding an escape in blue ink on a piece of white
paper.

When the essay returned, it had undergone what appeared to be a
complete transformation. The blue ink had practically disappeared
under the red ink that stood out so prominently that one might have
though that the essay was written in red ink. Moreover, there was no
grade on the paper. When I humbly approached Professor Maxwell
after class with "my" essay, and before I could even ask what I did
wrong, Dr. Maxwell, exclaimed "Bill, I loved your essay. It was so full
of passion and ideas. It just really impressed me!" Now, I was really
confused. She went on to say "It does need some work on organization,
grammar and syntax, but it was a great first effort."

For many days, I remained in a state of bewilderment trying to
understand the experience. Certainly, this professor was just being very
nice and saying nice things to pacify a poor struggling student. On the
other hand, I could not escape a feeling of guilt, for she had spent much,
much more time correcting my essay than I did writing it. Could I be
that important?

I rewrote that essay with the guilt of Marilyn's effort as my motivation
no less than eight times, going through that same process with a little
improvement each time, before she finally put an A grade on the paper.
The celebration we both shared that day was one of the most magical
experiences of my life. However, for a time I still believed that she was
just being kind, until the second essay came back with a D grade.
Ironically, I felt great because she clearly was a giving me the message
that she was not being kind, but in fact, she did believe in me.

That semester, I worked harder at learning to write than anything else
that I had ever done in my life. When my last essay of the semester
returned for the first and only time, an A grade appeared at the top of
the paper, but the grade was no longer important. We spent the next
twenty years celebrating life and the pursuit of excellence.

Bill AuCoin