Engagement

Being engaged in a class throughout the entire semester is something that does not happen very often, but when it does the results can be sensational. However, after reading the blog post about Engagement vs. Grades I'm surprised to hear that engagement doesn't always lead to good grades. The more I think about it the more it makes sense. Just because you enjoy learning about something does not necessarily mean that you will get the perfect grade. I learned this last semester in my CORE class. I hadn't been extremely interested in most of the book and my engagement level was relatively low. When we finally got to a book that I was excited about and enjoyed discussing during class it was such a relief. I no longer had to be bored in class. When it came time to write the paper on this book I was excited to finally be writing about something that interested me. When I got my paper back though, that ended up being my worst grade for the semester. How could this be? I was involved in the class discussion, understood what was going on, but it just didn't end up being my best work. If someone just looked at my grades they would have thought that was the time that I was least engaged when thats was not reality. I'm still glad I got involved in class though and realize that grades really aren't everything.