Honda is a pretty little city that town leaders have labeled “God’s Country.”
Hondo school administrators used a pure Bell Curve system of grading. This meant that grades were based on a percentage: if four or five students had a 90 average, only two would earn an A. Then, a larger percentage, perhaps four or five, would make a B; larger a C and then the equivalent percentages would make a D and an F. Students didn’t seem to mind the system, and evidently neither did parents.
But I hated grading this way. In my mind, if everyone in the class earned an A they should receive that grade. That's an idealistic and naive way of looking at grades, I suppose. But I've never been a big supporter of "grades."
One day I had a disagreement with another English teacher. She stormed into my classroom during a class in progress and chided me for allowing a student to read a book not on the department's published and time-honored reading list. I invited her into the hall and told her that it was none of her business what my students read. The student had read a book titled "Hot Rod," which was on the level he could handle. Granted, it wasn't on the list, but it was that or nothing.
She never bothered me again, and the young man whose poor reading choice caused the brouhaha earned a law degree and later ran for and won the office of Medina County Attorney.
