One of my main tasks each day is to adopt a mindset of being guaranteed an A so I can cut out of the noise, be my most creative and productive self.

I'm fairly certain I am one of these people. I have an extremely high internal drive and struggle at times when the outside noise of life starts affecting my ability to do my best work.

These kind of people are so hard on themselves and demand so much from themselves that external pressures like a grade are counterproductive. I think this group of people often need someone to release them from their stress so they can relax enough to perform.

By removing the external stress, the student has done the work to earn an A. I think there is a group of people for whom this kind of circumstance is the greatest gift.

At the end of the course, the teacher asked the student if they wanted to know how they would have done if they hadn't been guaranteed an A. The student, curious, said yes. The teacher informed the student they had earned the A.

The student was deeply relieved and returned to their course work. Over the course of the semester, the teacher continued to grade the student's work in secret, but never told the student the result.

The story goes like this. There once was a student who was feeling stressed about their grade in a class. The student's stress was hurting their ability to perform. The wise teacher seeing this said, "Don't worry about your grade. I'll give you an A."

When I was an undergrad student, one of my profs told me a story while helping me process some stress I was feeling about my grades.

I'm not sure if this story is true or not, but it's resonated with me since.

www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67979

I'm super surprised that this hasn't been made into a film yet.