2011-03-10
Explanation
This comic shows a student typing an impassioned essay arguing that students shouldn't be "bound by a ludicrous, arbitrary, insulting grading system, in which we're reduced to a single letter with a plus or minus sign." In the next panel, the teacher praises her work: "Great essay, Susie." Susie looks down at her paper and sees she received an A+.
The final panel shows Susie smugly clutching her A+ paper and asking a classmate, "So what did you get, Bobby?" -- revealing that her anti-grading principles evaporate the instant she receives a top grade. The comic satirizes the common human tendency to rail against systems of evaluation and hierarchy only when we expect to fare poorly in them. The moment the system validates us, we become its biggest champions. Susie's hypocrisy is instantly and completely exposed: she doesn't actually object to being reduced to a letter grade; she only would have objected to a bad letter grade.