One. I teach grammar lessons based on students’ essay grammar errors, but the students repeat the mistakes over and over so that I feel as though I am living out the Myth of Sisyphus.
Two. I have to be a full-time plagiarism sleuth and when I catch plagiarism I must document it on triplicate and embark upon a bureaucratic rigmarole that takes time away from helping the honest students.
Three. Students don’t read the assigned texts even when threatened with four reading exams a semester (the only solution would be to quiz them every day and use Scantrons)
Four. Students are surreptitiously on their smartphones and completely disengaged from the class activities.
Five. Students leave the classroom under the ostensible need to go to the bathroom when in reality they are “taking a call.”
Six. Students are sleeping in the classroom, a spectacle, complete with drool on the desk, that makes the other students laugh them out of their somnambulistic state. During this time, my lecture has been rendered irrelevant.
Seven. I find myself grading essays in which the students are repeating the same errors from the first paragraph to the very last and I’m wondering when can I just stop correcting mistakes and give the essay the F it deserves. I’m thinking two pages of corrections is sufficient, but then part of me is concerned the student won’t accept the F unless I justify it by marking every page.
Eight. I’ll often fall in love with a book and want to impart that passion to the class, but soon enough I’ll find that students remain recalcitrant in their literary ennui.
Nine. I’m trying to keep the students engaged during a two-hour class, but the students, often low in blood sugar, are chomping at the bit to get out of class early and feed themselves at Chipotle or some other tantalizing eatery.
Ten. Students with profound gaps in their literary acquisition and the ability to write basic sentences will come up to me with their F paper and ask me what they need to do in order to improve, and I don’t want to tell them the truth: They are three years away from being where they need to be in order to pass this class.
a sad profile of what is propably an average college class.
Posted by: sara and bob matulich | 09/23/2014 at 04:59 PM
I'm a teacher (though I have never taught at the college level) and I feel your pain. You have a tough job.
Posted by: Keith Beesley | 09/23/2014 at 10:55 PM