I would like to focus on the necessity of a grading system in education. While Gatto seems to feel as though grading is just a means for society to cultivate obedience and sort people into categories, I look at it as a necessary evil rather than something that should be eliminated. It certainly isn’t perfect, but without incentive, especially in a world filled with mindless distraction, I feel as though there would not be a meaningful desire for most people to educate themselves. Without material incentive, people tend to do the minimum, the economy of the former Soviet Union speaks well to this. While the education system may not be making students into “their best selves,” everything learned in K-12 education isn’t entirely worthless. And grading systems, when they become more important in middle and high school, do play on the self-interested part of human nature to “fool” students into learning things in some capacity, even if it’s just for the grade. It’s hard to convince children that learning is important, and I think the grading system is more successful at encouraging education if the alternative is anarchy. Of course, there’s a middle ground somewhere, grading systems should be encouraging intellectual accomplishment rather than blind obedience to monotonous daily tasks which the grading systems of today all too often reward in excess. We just need to find it.