Sorry to rain on everybody’s parade here but my idiotic dean just pushed me over the edge. This semester he increased class size to fifteen - 15! I’ve been teaching for a decade and I was still nervous speaking to such a crowd on the first day of class.
As usual, they all decide to show up, the first two rows of the class packed with wide-eyed students every day. And the mess they make on the whiteboard, working out homework problems before class. Could you please wait until I cover that material in lecture before you start asking me questions about it? Show me a little respect, please.
Two of my students won’t leave me in peace so that I can devote my time to university service and committee work - you know, the reasons I was hired for this job in the first place.
Grade Review Gary: You say that the teaching assistant misgraded your lab results, huh? Highly unlikely. You think I would entrust the evaluation of your report about boiling water to somebody with less than two years postdoc experience at a national lab? I pasted that gold star on your report cover. Let me take a look.
All I see is that I forgot to deduct points for not writing units after your answer. What’s the problem?
Oh, that’s the grading error. I can take off a half point but I really think you are over analyzing this. It’s not that big of a deal. Fine, fine. You’re the customer, after all. 89.5%
(I got my revenge though. He forgot to ask me to remove the gold star. HA!)
Parent problem Pattie: Would tell your mother to answer my phone calls? After every assignment, I try to tell her how you are doing and she ignores me. I called her from my home just so that she wouldn’t recognize my number but she refused to listen. All your mom wanted to talk about was that you shouldn’t sign some dumb form, preventing us from talking about your grades. It’s not fair. You’re only 27, just beginning your last year of graduate school. That’s when parents should be most involved in their child’s life.
I suppose I prefer the silent treatment compared to your father. Sheesh. Look, mister polite, well-meaning gentleman, don’t lecture me about your daughter being responsible and looking after herself. Pattie, I hope he doesn’t say things like that to your face. I can’t imagine growing up in such a dysfunctional family.
The least your parents could do is accept my friend request on Facebook.
are you serious ? you're complaining because you have fifteen students in one class ? you're nervous speaking in front of a group of fifteen ? and your students ask you questions ? this is the source of your misery ? you are really serious ? grow the frak up, or get out of this business, you giant baby.
ReplyDeleteIt's April Fools.
ReplyDeleteOne reason to study literature = recognizing satire.
ReplyDeletePoor Pattie. I bet her parents even converted the basement into a media space, with no room for a bed or desk or mini-refrigerator. Or, worse, they're contemplating a move to a condo with no room for her. Such cruelty.
ReplyDeletegiven all the whining and crying that goes on here, the mere fact of it being the first of april may constitute a necessary but certainly not sufficient condition by which to determine that this is, indeed, satire.
ReplyDeleteHolla dat, FandT
ReplyDeleteOH EM GEE, Beaker! I know EXACTLY what you mean! I had a student stuck in Argentina over Spring Break unable to return to campus for a week due to flight scheduling difficulties. Not only did she email me to inform me of this (how dare she!), but she had the temerity to post her assignments online from an Argentine internet cafe! Can you believe the nerve? Why couldn't she wait until she was on campus and a week behind to come whining to me about how much she'd missed? I ask you--when will they learn to behave as REAL students and act needy?!!
ReplyDeleteI've had students submitting assignments a week EARLY this term. Way to increase my workload, you little twerps! Where's the respect? Where's the whinging? Like you don't know I'm already way behind grading the last assignment!
ReplyDeleteNot to mention how they insist on arriving on time, making me look bad when I'm ONLY 5 minutes late every day.
ReplyDeleteAlright "Neb" I'll call your bluff; for the super misery sh*t sandwich that will smash American academia look at student loan debt. At this moment it's around 900+ BILLION dollars or three or four times the amount of American credit card debt and many of the loan originators are approching a 40% in delinquent accounts, mainly because interest rates are so high. They have to implode, and when they do, most schools will become ghost towns. There are upcoming laws to work around the non-dischargeability of SL debt, but that still doesn't deal with the problem of these usurious loans and the scumbag companies who create them. The only good that will come out of the edu-apocalypse will be that those shitty for-profits (ITT, U of Phoenix, etc.) will disintigrate, but that's like saying that the only silver lining in the "Mad Max" post apocalypse was that leather chaps finally became normal clothing.
ReplyDeleteStrelnikov, are you smoking crack? The silver lining to Mad Max was Tina Turner. Hubba hubba.
ReplyDelete