the effort debate

the washington post asks whether or not teachers should give points for effort. since i am not a teacher (yet!), i'm not going to weigh in with an opinion. but teaching legend (and one of the school of bloggers' favorite people) Jaime Escalante,

said he also raised grades for effort when he taught at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. "If the kid put in a lot of hard work, I had to recognize that," he said by telephone from Bolivia, where he is semi-retired. "And if you put in a lot of effort, you're going to learn something."

pretty awesome!