![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I just wandered outside to discover that our super-efficient gardener started the morning by spontaneously washing my car. The filthy post-colonial existence has its perks.
'Tis the end of the academic year, the season of desperate students, late work and the absolute abandonment of actual critical quality in favour of handing in something that'll hopefully pass and thus allow them to graduate and shake the dust of the institution from their Nikes. Moments like these, I fear for the pedagogic principle. Too many of my students are not actually interested in developing skills, they are utterly focused on obtaining marks: if all else fails, they will attempt to do so by chicanery, misdirection, whinging and outright lies. This week's preferred technique: not actually reading my e-mails setting out the absolute limits of extensions on essays, and innocently asking for further leeway beyond those limits. In sharp defiance of the laws of physics, students appear to feel that time, space and cause and effect can obviously be suspended in their own particular case. I don't remember being that narcissistic when I was an adolescent, but maybe my adult self has blanked it in shame.
Also, hasn't studentdom progressed beyond the hoary, ancient, obvious excuse of "Oh, but I put it in your box!"?1 Do they honestly think lecturers are that absent-minded?3 I have watched with some fascination as one particular student has ramified this old chestnut thusly over a two-month period:
In thirteen years of teaching, I have lost a submitted student essay precisely twice, both under extenuating circumstances4. I am polishing up a string of zeroes while awaiting in some curiosity her next move in this little minuet.
Oh, and profound gratitude to all the nice geeky types who suggested what to do for my internet problem. I am gratified that no-one thought it necessary to take it out back and shoot it. The non-loading issue is considerably improved, if not entirely addressed, and I live in hope of further amelioration as more anti-spy-ware joins the ranks.
'Tis the end of the academic year, the season of desperate students, late work and the absolute abandonment of actual critical quality in favour of handing in something that'll hopefully pass and thus allow them to graduate and shake the dust of the institution from their Nikes. Moments like these, I fear for the pedagogic principle. Too many of my students are not actually interested in developing skills, they are utterly focused on obtaining marks: if all else fails, they will attempt to do so by chicanery, misdirection, whinging and outright lies. This week's preferred technique: not actually reading my e-mails setting out the absolute limits of extensions on essays, and innocently asking for further leeway beyond those limits. In sharp defiance of the laws of physics, students appear to feel that time, space and cause and effect can obviously be suspended in their own particular case. I don't remember being that narcissistic when I was an adolescent, but maybe my adult self has blanked it in shame.
Also, hasn't studentdom progressed beyond the hoary, ancient, obvious excuse of "Oh, but I put it in your box!"?1 Do they honestly think lecturers are that absent-minded?3 I have watched with some fascination as one particular student has ramified this old chestnut thusly over a two-month period:
- Oh, but I put it in your box. (Me: no, I didn't receive it, please submit another copy).
- But you said you had it! (Me: I mixed you up with another student. I have never seen it. Please send me the file as an e-mail attachment).
- But I've sent you an e-mail attachment! (Me: No, that has never arrived, please re-send).
- Can I collect my marked essay from you? (Me: I have never received it. Please see 1-3, above).
- Actually, I deleted it off my flash drive. (Me: oh, yeah?)
In thirteen years of teaching, I have lost a submitted student essay precisely twice, both under extenuating circumstances4. I am polishing up a string of zeroes while awaiting in some curiosity her next move in this little minuet.
Oh, and profound gratitude to all the nice geeky types who suggested what to do for my internet problem. I am gratified that no-one thought it necessary to take it out back and shoot it. The non-loading issue is considerably improved, if not entirely addressed, and I live in hope of further amelioration as more anti-spy-ware joins the ranks.
1 I like stv's alternative excuse: "I'm sorry, I would have done it but the dog ate my brain!"2
2 he's also reading way too much Scary-Go-Round.
3 don't answer that question.
4 Eddies in the space-time continuum, and drink.
