Earning the Grade

Today, in conflict management, we had to turn in a paper on forgiveness. I had been thinking about how I was going to write this paper for roughly a week. This morning, after finding all of my resources and information, I sat down at my computer and wrote what I considered to be a paper of good quality. I put a lot of thought into what I was writing. I was hoping that this would be my way to show my teacher how much I had learned this semester.

After finalizing my ideas I printed my paper and went to class. My teacher asked us to get into groups and talk about our papers for 10 minutes. After this was done I waited for the "now pass your papers to the side" cue. But it did not come. No, class continued on as normal and the cue never came. A friend of mine, with whom I had discussed this paper in detail, went up and asked if we were to ever turn the paper in or not. The answer was no.

At first I was frustrated. Why have us write a final paper that would never be graded. Then I realized, while I spent the time searching out quotes and facts, I learned many things I had not known previously about forgiveness. I became acquainted with many new examples of how to forgive in my own life. I am, now, grateful for the chance I had to write this paper. I believe that my teacher wanted us to write it in order to teach our selves. In retrospect, that is much more important than earning a grade.