After I returned to school, we received a large manila envelope filled with letters written back to several of our students. I hope it is the beginning of an ongoing pen-pal relationship.

They take pride in the way their school looks. There is no graffiti.

I have 65 letters here and a petition with 50 names on it. This doesn't count all of the letters and petitions that have already been sent to the Transportation Cabinet.

They took the time to write about themselves, their families, their school. All of the letters were done so willingly by the students. They weren't told what to write. They did it on their own.

None of them are confirmed and, as a precaution, we asked the school district to send the letters to parents as an alert to the symptoms of mumps of their children.

Grades are a problem. On the most general level, they're an explicit acknowledgment that what you're doing is insufficiently interesting or rewarding for you to do it on your own. Nobody ever gave you a grade for learning how to play, how to ride a bicycle, or how to kiss. One of the best ways to destroy love for any of these activities would be through the use of grades, and the coercion and judgment they represent. Grades are a cudgel to bludgeon the unwilling into doing what they don't want to do, an important instrument in inculcating children into a lifelong subservience to whatever authority happens to be thrust over them.