Let’s have a little story. Think you are part of a bridge building community, where everyone has a job of building a bridge over a river in set amount of time. Most people will succeed doing it. Those people who are great at bridge building, will have theirs built in time, their bridge is well formed and all the hardwood of planks are well painted up.

Some people aren’t that great at building bridges, but they end up reaching the other side in time. They notice that time is about to run out and start to panic a little bit. Their bridge starts of nicely, the beginning is well painted up, but the closer you get towards the other side, the more gaps will start to show up and more planks end up not being painted.

And then there are the ones who aren’t great at building bridges at all. They suffer from the beginning doing them. They don’t know how to hit nails, they don’t know how paint the bridge and they can’t find time to work on the bridge. In the end when time runs out, they haven’t reached the other side of the river. Their bridge comes out short and their bridge, while looking a lot like the ones who were also under panic, can’t make the last jump across.

What’s the solution of getting everyone across?

Right now, what our community has agreed upon, is that these people will be brought over, but it will cost them money and they need to pay right now. They need to pay up to get across, but they don’t just get to forget about that bridge that didn’t make it in time. They are still required to finish the bridge eventually.

What if instead of making people pay up to get across, we as a community instead would make sure to help these people to make it across. We could show them how to hammer the nails, how to paint up the planks and we could agree upon times, when everyone will work on their bridge. We could make sure that smaller parties of builders, would make up a schedule for working their bridges.

I have a feeling that when our time runs out on building, every single bridge would be done in time and not a single one of them would have nails poking out, gaps to jump over or planks that still needed to be painted. And we could be proud of those bridges, about every single one of them.

Well what does this story refer to?

Well the community is our Proakatemia community. The bridge we’re building is a reference to the essay points needed to be achieved. Planks are the essays and having gaps between them shows that some essays aren’t done properly. They have been finished, but the writer isn’t happy about them. Painting and nails refer to how mindfully the essays have been done.

Those people needing to pay to get across? They are the ones who need to pay 1000e if they don’t get the essay points in time. These people will end up having to finish the essay points eventually; to graduate. You think that’s not motivating enough? Well I guess not for all of us, but at least for most?

And the last part is just an idea. What if in place of having a fee to pay, we would from the start help the ones who need help. Not after they ask for it, but already from the beginning we could have specific times when the teams would write their essays, to make sure people will get them done in time and not procrastinate them. If we need to make the teams do something, make them work out a schedule for when they are working the essays, not to pay a penalty fee.