Teaching Rant

My first post back from spring break was actually going to be about the Oscars, but I just have to put in a little rant about the labs I'm teaching. So, here goes.

I'm catching up on my grading because I was out of town on a conference for a week and then there was spring break. So, I had three labs to grade during spring break, which I didn't quite get done because I wanted to enjoy my break a little bit. Anyway, while I was gone, my labs had two assignments to do, and I was being nice and giving them until I got back to do them and turn them in. At least I thought I was being nice to them. They, however, proceeded to punish me by either not doing the labs and still handing them in, or by doing them so convolutedly that I can't tell what the hell they're thinking.

I realize that all humans beings are natural procrastinators. I wouldn't have the Procrastinator's Creed on the wall above my computer if I didn't know that. However, I would have thought that by the time people reach the college level, they'd at least be able to realize how much time they're going to need to spend on any given assignment and devote that much of their lives to getting it done well. Of course, this is a general education course I'm talking about, so most of the students are just taking it to fulfill university requirements and therefore don't give a flying rat's ass about how well they do in it, so long as they pass the course. So, I guess I'm not completely surprised that many people didn't finish their assignments.

I think the thing that irritates me the most is that people didn't even ask for help. I told them that lab was optional the week I was gone, and they probably stopped listening to me list the times and places the lecturer was going to be there, thus not even knowing that there was going to be help available. And, from what he told me, two people showed up to each of the three available times. I also told them I'd be checking my email regularly while I was away, and I hardly heard anything from anyone. So, the opportunity to have questions answered passed by and they ended up screwing themselves, and pissing me off in the process. And there, they are screwing themselves even more because when I get irritated by what I'm grading, I tend to become less impartial and less forgiving of mistakes. I know I shouldn't be like that, but I can't help it. I'm a hard grader to begin with. I know this well, because I always get students complaining on the evaluations about how tough I grade (and some even grudgingly admit that they learned from it, even though that was only in the dynamics class.... the kids I teach this semester probably don't care if they learn from my grading). But, they're just making it harder for themselves.

Anyway, I just had to rant about that. I told my lab today that I was pretty disappointed with them and their performance. And my labs during the next two days are going to be hearing the same thing because I am disappointed. I realize the labs that they had to do while I was gone aren't exactly using easy to understand concepts, but they still could have made better use of their numerous resources instead of waiting until the last minute to do the lab.

Well, after all that, I'm heading to bed and hoping tomorrow brings a better round of grading. I don't have a lot of hope, but I do have some, which is good, I guess.