Pushkin.

Hi, this is Steve Martin.

You might know me from among other things.

My TV show Only Murders in the Building, where I play a guy who records podcasts.

In real life, I'm a guy that made an audiobook.

It's called So Many Steves, afternoons with Steve Martin.

I created it with my friend, New Yorker writer, Adam Gopnik, and you can find it at pushkin.fm

and wherever audiobooks are sold.

I want you to think back to your school days for a second.

What was the worst grade you ever got?

How did it make you feel?

And now think about the best grade.

How is that?

Grades.

Even decades after graduation, we can still remember what those marks felt like.

And it makes sense that grades affect us so deeply, because they're important.

I mean, they're kind of synonymous with education.

Aren't they?

Well, it turns out, not really.

In fact, grades are a relatively new invention.

For almost seven centuries, schools got by without them.

As a professor myself, I find that incomprehensible.

...