Once upon a time in a classroom

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Penny. Penny was a good student who studied hard and made good grades.

One day Penny got a new teacher. The new teacher, Ms. Handout, didn’t like that some of the students in her class were making failing grades. Ms. Handout starting asking these kids, “Why do you get poor grades?” The answers were varied but many of them confessed to not studying.

Ms. Handout considered the answers. She really wanted all students to get good grades. Perhaps the failing students just needed someone to help them study, she thought. She set up study sessions. A few of the students attended these free sessions including Penny and other students who had been studying all along. However, those students who needed the extra help the most didn’t show up or just came to a couple of sessions before deciding not to return.

Ms. Handout was still dismayed. She once again went to those failing students to see why they didn’t take the offer of free help with studying. Student after student offered up such excuses as “studying is hard” or “I wanted to study but my friends wanted me to go to the mall” or “I really don’t like to study” and even “I tried it once but it wasn’t my thing.”

Ms. Handout was a good person with a good heart who didn’t want to see any of her students fail. To that end she did what she felt she had to do. She took some of extra points Penny and the other hard working students had earned by studying and doing extra work and gave them those failing students. Now all the students in Ms. Handout’s class were going to receive mediocre passing grades and everyone was happy.

Well, maybe not everyone. Penny (and the other students who had studied) really didn’t feel very happy about having something she had earned taken away from her and given to someone else. She also was starting to question why she put so much work into studying when she would not personally benefit from that hard work. So Penny decided to take a break from studying because the outcome was going to be the same regardless of her efforts.

And that, my friends, is a simple explanation of Socialism.

~ Patty