Chuck ‘Em Against A Wall

You know how sometimes you get ahold of books in which the author or character does something unforgivable, irredeemable, or just plain stupid?  The natural inclination is to chuck the book at the wall.  Actually, I can’t ever recall having really chucked a book at a wall or any other surface.  If I think something is stupid, I usually just close the book and put it in my bag of trade-ins to take on my next trip to the used bookstore.

Today I have very much been having that emotion of desperately wanting to react and vent about my students.  My work day began with an email from a student requesting (for a lousy reason) that I reopen the quiz for him.  And the entire email was written in lowercase letters, with no punctuation to speak of, in text speak of the “hi how r u?” variety.  Holy F***, who in God’s name thinks that this is an appropriate way to correspond with a teacher or any business contact?  I tersely emailed the student back that professors are not buddies with whom one text messages, that it is formal correspondence, and as such should use correct spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.  That anything less is unprofessional and disrespectful and that that sort of communication will not fly in the real world for any business purpose.  Followed up by a refusal to reopen the quiz.   I am at this moment, no doubt, being labeled a witch with a B up her bonnet.  But for the love of Pete…

And then, then I took the last two and a half hours to grade all the short answer on the midterms.  OMG, where do these people come from?

As an example of what I’m dealing with:

The question: List and describe the phases of the sexual response cycle.

One student’s answer:

The excitment phase is the first phase and it what starts the feeling of being arouse.

The second phase is platue is the when you are almost at your peak.

The third phase is ogamsic phase it when you have reach your peak and when your mucules began to jurk

The last phase is the resultion phase is when your body began to resumes its naturl state.

Seriously…shoot me now.  I have no more faith in humanity.  All I can see is the inevitability of Idiocracy coming to pass.  That movie scared the crap out of me by it’s very possibility.  I just hope that I’m dead first.  I don’t want to live to see the entirety of our world’s decline.

And God help me, in three weeks I’ll have their research papers to grade.  Anybody got a spare Xanex?  I may need to be committed when I finish with those.

In my ideal world, all children would have Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation downloaded into their brains, Matrix style.  Because they sure as heck are not learning correct speech and grammar and punctuation in the home or in school.  And hey, while we’re at it, let’s put in an abbreviated version of Webster’s since their vocabulary is shrinking to minuscule and poorly spelled proportions.

Somebody want to remind me why I’m putting myself through this?  Oh right, because I need an actual paying job while I write.

2 thoughts on “Chuck ‘Em Against A Wall

  1. Kait, thank you for reminding me why I will never be fit for teaching. I might shoot and or really chuck someone’s kid against a wall. 😛

    Seriously? Chat Speak when corresponding with a teacher? And these are college students?? Yeeeesh.

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