“Failed Academic”?
Someone used that phrase a couple days ago to refer to some faculty at a high school.
Just for your information, I did not fail; I did bail.
I am a bailed academic.
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A Quote, a Taste of Grading Papers in 2009
Item #1: Clarence Thomas sentence: “”I think the confirmation process is both unnecessary, it’s uninformed with respect to what the court actually does and it’s very dangerous.”
Yeah, both of those three things suck.
Item #2: at bark, bugs, leaves and lizards, the college paper read aloud word for mistake for WTMF?. Samples:
Yes, proofreading your peppers is a matter of the the utmosht impotence.
She said I was never going to get into a good colleague.
I need to be challenged, challenged menstrually.
The laughter is painful and with tears because it’s like looking at a bomb site while living in a war zone—worse, yes, but not different.
For to Learnin’ Mo’ Betta
Not having taught high school ever, it mystified me how my college students could have so little knowledge of grammar, sentence formation, etc. but no more–grammar, mechanics, etc. are not on the LEAP test so grammar is barely taught if at all. No wonder my college seniors wanted to argue with me about article usage and subject-verb agreement.
Less Than Failure
A grade I could’ve used: the FD:
Located in British Columbia, Simon Fraser University has just upped the ante, or lowered the bar, or whatever metaphor you have handy when it comes to establishing a new milestone for failure. Not satisfied with handing out “F’s” to their worst-performing students, the school has instituted a new grade that captures a more specific and damning aspect of academic futility, “FD”.
FD stands for “failure with dishonesty” and specifically targets cheaters.
Put away that new iPhone, Junior. That extra D stays on your transcript to let folks know you’re a cheater. No one will know whether you stole an exam or didn’t properly use APA or MLA. So there.
I could have given out at least one FD per semester, occasionally 2 or 4. Too many students expect professors to be upright and perfectly correct but do not see any need for uprightness or correctness in themselves. Try an FD, sucker.
……….
Knowles, David. “Canadian university introduces grade worse than ‘F’.” True/Slant. Aug. 17, 2009. Web.
More Student Errors
See Kweshuns abeut Sillbish on for the first part of this list.
Additions this year, some totally, crazily new to even me:
dinning instead of dining, as in dinning room
threw for through, as in The dog went threw the door.
living for leaving, as in He was living the party early…
lives for leaves, as in When the doctor lives, we’ll talk about the surgery.
taken for taking. She was taken a bath.
martial for marital. She threatened to withhold martial relations.
growing for groin, as in He got hit in the growing with a baseball.
an around for a round, as in They are sitting at an around table.
followers for flowers
corky for, I guess, quirky, as in She has a corky personality. No, they are not referring to a wine as “she,” but a person or character. Half of my class used “corky” this way. Where the mother fuck does THIS come from?
realtions for relations–I mean, look at your work, people.
“you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on”
Easy to say if you’re Samuel Beckett.
I’ve been reluctant to write about work, and especially students, since I’m not even semi-anonymous anymore. I can say that I quit. I get to miss the trickling out of contracts with so many caveats that there’s barely anything to sign. Majors may disappear. And I am in no position to say what I know or think about something so terribly real.
The 3rd week of the Spring semester, I was sure I’d been through a whole academic year and was nearly floored when I saw the other 14 weeks ahead as I planned the next phases of my courses. I thought I could go back, I really did, but that inner voice that’s nagged me for years and that objected to the whole thing in the first place was right. I love to teach but now is not the time to be an English professor with small–okay, infinitesimal–written/published output. 10 years ago it was probable. 20 years ago likely. 30 years ago a golden ticket. Now and for the next 3 years? As I said to Mister, I’d be their bitch and not on my terms but in a really unwanted-fist-up-the-ass way. I’d have to take any job I could get, any job, almost anywhere, dragging him and The Girl along for however long we can take it. Which might not be long. I’m already in my 40s. Long-term prospects with my English degree were grim when I got it and the recession-depression makes them fucking laughable.
And when I have been away from the U, for the Mardi Gras break, for Spring Break, for a weekend, certain things melted away. I didn’t sleep better but my stomach didn’t always hurt, I didn’t feel half the time like I was about to throw up, I could move my neck, and I almost saw what it might feel like to be relaxed and I read for pleasure and study, and enjoyed it all. I saw what it could be like to not be sick all the time. To be engaged and in my own life. And I had forgotten what that felt like. Which is bad.
I clean out my office at the end of May for the final time, not just a summer. It will be sad to leave. I hate to leave the ideal, the promise, but I can’t sacrifice any more to the reality. I loved being with those students, even when they vexed me, made me scream and feel homicidal, and felt part of something noble. Good. Worthy of pride. I loved to see students grow over the years or weeks. To see their mothers and grandfathers so proud and beaming at graduation.
I have a Plan A, a Plan B. If needed, I’ll go to Plans B-2 or C.
Wednesday
A graduate student we’re hosting this semester wanted to buy a book from me and had to catch me right before a class–she gave me a $20 and we agreed to meet after my class for her to get the book and her $5 change. I was wearing, uncharacteristically for late spring semester, a dress, had no pockets, and I never bring a purse to class. I folded up the $20 and put it in my bra, mentally crossing my fingers. It was right before Easter; only 5 students were there. I sat for a minute, waiting for more students to show up, then told them all: Y’know, when I was growing up, I so admired those women who put their money in their bras. I was so impressed by that. And the women I knew had [appropriate big-breasted hand gesture]. So I was all excited when I grew up and I had my chance to put my money in my bra…and it went straight through. So if you see a $20 on the floor, please tell me.
Ugh
Where to start?
- William Jefferson-Helena Moreno runoff
Huh? I would say, How? but I think I can guess that much. I’ve heard people say that Jefferson got votes because he has the “experience” to push our local interests in the House. Have they been under rocks all this time? As Mister says, they’re thinking of 5 years ago. Since Jefferson has been under indictment–even before, with the $90K in the freezer–he has lost what influence he had and couldn’t push a free prostitute through the House these days. Moreno has media-honed polish but like Gov. Sarah Palin, there isn’t much past the practiced veneer. She may care but I believe she has the capability to be my representative in the House as much as i believe she’s a Democrat.
- The Joys of Teaching
We are supposed to warn freshmen and their advisors if students are in danger of failing a course before midterm. That system not only got fucked up as usual–3 weeks after they were due, a random administrator made a stink–but I decided to post grades on Blackboard rather than warn anyone. If you haven’t turned in any work for the first 6 weeks of classes, why would you think you were passing the course? If you’ve never logged on to Blackboard and gotten no emails from your instructor all semester, why would you think you’re in the swing?
Two of my students started classes after the 4th week. Neither has turned in a thing yet. One, a senior, I figure I shouldn’t have to remind or chase–if he wants to graduate, he’ll get shit done. He’s had me before and knows that 0 + 0 = 0/F. The other I gave a detailed list with due dates, including an office hour visit, almost 3 weeks ago. Nothing. Not even a hint that she understood the instructions or found them do-able. Not an email, note, call, submission, plea for extension, anything. And came to class Monday unprepared and left early. The senior will be told today to make up the work by the end of this week or keep it. The other, the freshwoman, if she makes her conference tomorrow, which I wonder about, will hear that the only possible grade she’ll get for midterm is an F and that the makeup work I assigned last month will not be accepted after midterms, which are this week. I am sick and fucking tired, and I’ve spent 6+ years at this shit, of wading over to their mucky side and dragging their asses by the hair to the halfway point with my fingers crossed that they won’t ooze back over to the muck and then try to report me to a chair, dean and college president for giving them a well-deserved and fully-earned F. (I wish there were a lower grade, like a Q for Quit Now Before I Kick Your Ass.)
- Waiting for my Obama paraphernalia
I just want a big poster in my office that says HOPE. I need some. More than some. I need more than my fair share plus yours and yours.
- New Orleans
It’s getting to me. The schools are a mess now and will be so for the foreseeable future. The bright spot of hope is that Robert Cerasoli will get the funding he needs.
My mother’s house has remained in limbo. 3+ years out and it’s still not done. Needs paint, floors, AC, plumbing, fixtures, appliances. The first contractor is still holed up out of state, her money gone. She’s suing. And still living in my house, sharing a bedroom with The Girl.
And our insurance policies are about to price us out of our house.
- Work
I’ve never really taken to working for other people. I can do it, I’m often valued as an employee but I find work an intrusion into my life. I don’t need it to fill my time or provide “structure.” And I was born to the wrong parents and condemned to lifelong wage slavery.
My current job drains my creative energy as I scheme how to get college students to read and write, how to negotiate around deficient or absent systems and processes, how to manage the stress of a 15-minute activity taking 2 hours because of ___ (other people, a server, a meeting, an email failure, other people, students, meetings, institutional panic, a server), and how to not take any of that shit home. I can’t take it home anyway–once I get done with what I have to do after work, I’m done. Completely. Only recently have I been able to read for pleasure at all, much less after work. I’m not even factoring in the chronic insomnia or my other health issues. Pain is damn tiring. So are knuckleheaded students.
I’m months behind on blogs and news and see no catch up time in the near future. Good thing no one’s depending on me…….
Choke
I went back to work yesterday.
Whoa.
Lots to be done. And I haven’t even laid hand on all the textbooks yet. Or even thought for 5 minutes about teaching.
Whoa squared.
What Will Be Day 1029 and Counting
I have “decided” to go back to the University. I made a big stink about never, ever, ever fucking going back to everyone I knew, met, saw, bumped into or got a contract offer from. But then I looked in the refrigerator, at the growing Girl, at the price of gas, at the 5th flat tire in __ weeks.
It will not be easy. The things that drove me nuts are still there. And it will still be hard, and largely thankless, and even with a raise nowhere near the proper compensation. Teaching can really suck. NOTSD aside, I’ve never had much in the way of reserves and need a squadron of household and spa staff to get through much of anything. Mental toughness only takes you so far.
But the best take on it I heard and that has been a great balm and sustainer for me came from Gentilly Girl—Good, you’ll go back as the cause rather than the effect.
