Society: "don't be afraid to fail!"

Also society: actively punishes failure with intricate systems such as admissions, CV screening, and increasing fewer safety nets

The most ironic part of this is, if those kids did understand the basics of Marxism, they'd be able to see this much more clearly.

I agree, the biggest thing that stood out to me here is that they were afraid to fail. If students were focused on creating the work that appeals to them, rather than just the work that will get the highest grade, think of the creativity that could be explored. Instead students are just focused on saying the "right answers" and dont get to think critically about the material. Sad

My undergraduate school didn't assign grades below a C. If you did piss-poorly, the class just didn't show up on your transcript. This encouraged me to take classes I might otherwise have avoided, if I was worried about my GPA.

I fully agree. This was decades in the making. Good grades became the only important thing, we told students every day they won't amount to anything if they don't have straight As and then act surprised when they panic and use any tool to make it.

But we also leave them alone with a bunch of technology way too young which fosters a mentality of "Why do it myself when I've so many ways to have it done by a computer".

Yeah. Afraid to fail is bullshit, just like a college degree has become bullshit. Right down to actually needing to take prerequisite base classes to get your degree in something. Almost no one goes to college because they have a general thirst for knowledge. They go so they can get a job, or because mommy and daddy told them to go.

Listening to a guy talk in a 200 person class you're paying six figures to attend while in the age of the internet is stupid.

The only problem I have with the whole “Don’t be afraid to fail” thing, is that so much rides on the grades a student receives it makes it very difficult to not treat every assignment as a highly critical task which must be as close to perfect as possible.

I get what you're saying in general, but I don't think most profs actually want their students to fail when they're actively trying. I assume that the assignment where he asked them to "read and reflect" on an essay that it was probably something ungraded. I know there are some courses (especially large lecture ones where there could be hundreds of students in one class) where you don't have a lot of signposts other than tests telling you how you're doing in a class, but there really should be something outside graded assignments for you to get feedback on.

When failure means having to pay another thousand or more to retake the subject and spending another year at uni, I can understand why some people would take the easy route