Sunday, May 8, 2016

I'm Annie from Abelard and My Student Made a Funny


Just wanted to pop in and share something nice what with all the negative bullshit I've been sharing before. Good things sometimes happen to me, I swear. I'm just very good at dealing with emotions like happiness and humor. I have excellent coping mechanisms for those.

Last Friday I just got done reading all my Spring evals when I had to go teach for my condensed intro to mathematics course (mentioned it briefly before; weird, condensed summer course that starts late Spring).

"Alright, everyone, we're going to have a pop quiz."

After all the nervous/anxious sounds had died down, one of my students said, in a *perfect* mock serious tone, "I don't know, Professor, I feel kind of blind-sided by this." I had to support myself on the podium, I laughed so hard. I still smile thinking about it. I found out previously that he's a comedian by trade. I wonder if he'll give me free tickets.


Annie From Abelard

6 comments:

  1. Heh. Good stuff.

    Somewhere, someone was telling us that we don't connect to our students. I offer this as evidence that we do.

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    1. Sometimes our students even make the effort to connect to us. Funny how well things work when everyone is trying (and how badly they work when everyone is saying "someone else's job").

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  2. Heh. I got a good zinger from a student recently. I was unloading--gently--on a student's paper, which was, to be honest, abysmal. But I told it to her straight, adding at the end, "Like Hamlet to Ophelia, I'm only being cruel to be kind." As the student left my office, she turned in the doorway and said with a smirk, "Thank you. You're being VERY kind!"

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  3. A pity the student didn't redeem herself by correcting you on the dramatis personæ.

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    1. From a student looking over her graded essay, "just EXACTLY, what do you mean by "be precise?"

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    2. Doh! Thanks, CDP. My bad, as the kidz say. Old Ham had a Mommie Dearest in his sights, too. With this student, I was struggling to help her understand that an essay in which she cannot understand the difference between "prove" and "proof" indicates she is not ready for the next level in the sequence.

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