I missed class. I was wondering if I missed anything important in lecture.
There's never another chance to make a good first impression, is there? I replied thusly:
No, you didn't miss anything important in lecture. There's never anything important in my lectures. We pretty much ate cereal, read comic books, and then watched some cartoons. It's good that you stayed home and masturbated.
Well, I wish I'd said that. Maybe when I get tenure.
What's the right question to ask you, devil?
ReplyDeleteI finally found a politic way to answer that question that still gets the point across.
ReplyDelete"If you've missed class, you've missed something important. I try not to cover unimportant material in class."
Or maybe it's not as politic as I think, and that's why the 'flake I responded to with that dropped my class. I think I'll keep using it.
I want to teach a class where all we do is eat cereal and read comic books. Or watch the Simpsons, season 1-10?
ReplyDelete"Thusly, dating from the 19th century, seemingly coined by educated writers to make fun of uneducated persons trying to sound genteel, with a false inference that thus is not an adverb."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thusly
Did I Miss Anything?
ReplyDeleteQuestion frequently asked by
students after missing a class
Nothing. When we realized you weren't here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours
Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 per cent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I'm about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 per cent
Ah, I love me some Tom Wayman. The rest of the poem is here: http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/wayman/poem5.htm.
The Devil Himself, I would lie. Tell the kid that you had a pop quiz and he can't make it up. Stick with it, and deduct the points he "lost", even if the little mofo got an "A" in the course.
ReplyDeleteCruel? But you are The Devil Himself.
Except for "...and masturbated," that's pretty much exactly what I say, and I have tenure!
ReplyDeleteI also like:
"If you've missed class, you've missed something important. I try not to cover unimportant material in class."
Say, Mestopholita and the Devil himself: are you from the same team?
@aemilia--I keep 20 copies of that fine poem around, and I hand it to kids who ask me that question. It is always, unfailingly, revelatory to each and every one...despite the fact that THERE IS A FUCKING 18" X 30" LAMINATE OF IT POSTED IN MY CLASSROOM. Dear effing God. (no disrespect intended to the OP)
ReplyDeleteWell, if I say anything that encourages students to drop the class, I make less money for teaching the class and my retention statistics go down, making me the subject of unwanted attention by the administration. Our students might not consciously know this, but they don't learn the same limits as they might elsewhere. So, when they transfer to your schools, they expect you to post your lecture notes on Blackboard and tell them all about the class session during your office hours.
ReplyDeleteHee hee hee.
@aemilia & Mrs. C: as I'm sure you realize, that poem used to be widely posted on office doors. Worked pretty well when students actually came to office hours to ask what they had missed. I'm not sure what the virtual equivalent is. An email auto-reply?
ReplyDelete