Armored

This is the time of year when we shore up our stores of peace, tranquility and creativity against the spring semester students. They will almost all be retreads in Comp. 1 courses, and some aren't really prepared for their Comp and Developmental 2 courses. We try to remember why we do this, try not to fantasize too much about summer, and try not to wish we could watch our new Futurama DVDs all day on our new flat screen TVs. Spring semester is almost always rough - freshmen are jaded, retreads are jaded, teachers and administrators and counselors are jaded. Fortunately, we have the growing warmth, and (hopefully) soon to be blossoming world to look forward to.

It begins in a week. May we all be armed enough against the growing apathy and stupidity of our students that we make it to spring break. Or at least, let us be armed with strong livers for grading.

Calm down.

I knew this email was coming. I just did not know it would be so... stupid.
Rough translation:
Ms. RainyKate,
You gave me a grade I did not deserve and I'm going to the dean. Something incoherent about another student's grade. My classmates will back me up. I have talked to them.
Pissed Off.

My response, again, roughly translated:
Dear pissed off,
Go to the dean, but be sure you're prepared to tell her why you cheated. Because I'll be there too, with proof, and she'll laugh you out of her office. Oh and the other student's grade is none of your beeswax.
Ms. RainyKate

I mean, honestly.

Oh yeah, and PO'd is 45 years old.

Irony

I have a student who could barely write coherently. So he turns in a perfectly written rough draft. Well, duh. I found it at Prospect Magazine's web site, emailed it to him and told him to do it over or get a zero.

He turns in the same plagiarized paragraphs in his final draft, supplemented with two paragraphs using the "bible" (apparently holy books don't actually deserve to be capitalized or underline) as a source supporting his argument, and misspells "Genesis" as "Geniuses".

He claims to be a preacher, but apparently his faith does not give him any moral prohibition against cheating.

Cheaters never win, nor learn, apparently

Dear Cheater,
After getting a zero on your paper that you plagiarized, and barely avoiding getting kicked out of my class solely on the basis of your apology, why why why would you think you could get away with what you have done? Why would you announce, in class, before a quiz that you did not read the material, and then, somehow, miraculously, get answers to questions like "what is the author's name" and "what sport is the essay about" correct? Do you think I'm stupid, or is your capacity to learn from your mistakes so small that you will keep repeating them, like some kind of Britney Spears imitator, only instead of flashing your vagina and refusing to shower, you make idiotic comments and try to get away with cheating?

Wait, don't answer that. I've already made up my mind.

RK.

Smartest Thing I've Ever Read

I received a email this morning that can be summarized as follows:

There's a chance I may not be able to pay my school bill, so I stopped coming to class and doing work. I've now realized, 2 essays later, that this was probably a bad idea. If I can pay my bill, will you take my work?

I want to know what was going through this person's mind: "Mrs. RainyKate does not accept any late work, so if I tell her that I made the conscious choice to not come to class or do my work, surely she'll make an exception for me."

Um.... not so much.

Are you dead or are you sleeping?

It becomes increasingly difficult to do my job effectively when students are so ready to demonstrate to me that they do not care by ignoring basic grammar rules, sleeping in class, failing to proofread, failing to turn in papers, blatantly cheating, and take all the kindness I've shown them and throw it in my face. I've dealt with every single one of those things within the last 24 hours. I need some positive teaching reinforcement.

(An explanation of the last item: Cell phone girl (or CPG as she will now be called) has been warned both verbally and via email - an email that was CC'd to the head of the department - that her classroom behavior was unacceptable and that if she caused a disturbance again, she would be counted absent. She'd racked up so many at that point that another absence would cause her to fail, something I thought would serve as motivation until I looked up from helping her classmate last night to find her phone pressed to her ear. Her excuse: it was her mother.)

Pointless observations

Did you know that the setting of "Story of an Hour" is important because it is in the springtime, and seasons often change?

Oh yes.

They also drew names in "The Lottery."

I'm not entirely sure how that would have worked.

Also, apparently, when you give students the outline for their paper and all the ideas and information they need to write it, as well as having a freewrite or inclass writing activity for every single paragraph in their paper, they take all that to mean there's no need to pay attention. Even fill in the blank theses statements written on the board were far too complicated to even begin to comphrehend.

I'm not an educator. I'm an expensive babysitter.