20141212.0715

It is good to write once again at a reasonable time.

Today is the last day I have to be in the classroom for the term, and I am commemorating it by proctoring two exams. One is at ten this morning, the other at four this afternoon. I openly and freely admit to jealousy of my coworkers and broader colleagues who are already done with their work; I very much look forward to joining them in a couple of days. For while it is the case that my in-class work wraps up today, I do not think I will be able to get done the grading that in-class work will require today. It would perhaps not look good if I were to do so; if I can get a stack of exams handled in a day, there is a strong implication that I do not read closely what my students write, and that opens my assessment practices up to substantial challenge.

It is a curious conundrum. I am under explicit deadlines in my grading throughout the semester, and I am under particularly tight deadlines in my grading at this point; final submission is expected before next Wednesday. Students complain about turnaround even when I am within the institutionally imposed deadlines--as if I have nothing else to do or better to do than sit and grace stacks of papers, many of them written the night before or morning that they are due--yet I know, I know that if I were to actually offer a one-day turnaround on exams, even on the kind of exam I am requiring today (a two-page memorandum that answers a number of specific prompts), that celerity would be used to argue against the results provided.

What I have often seen among students as an attitude toward the school is befuddling. They (or those who actually pay for them) claim (and how accurate the claim is is a discussion for another time) to be paying for a service, for access to education, yet students frequently agitate to be dismissed early--if they do not outright leave. They commonly arrive to class late, and while a few minutes can perhaps be forgiven as a result of factors beyond student control, "a few" is a slippery distinction. My "few" and theirs routinely fail to coincide. And the readings and assignments through which understanding is built are more frequently tasks to be avoided or hurdles to be cleared at the last possible moment than paths up the mountain that is competence, proficiency, and mastery. It is, as I have heard remarked (and I apologize that I do not recall where), "the only field where people are happy to get less than they paid for."

But I probably have it wrong here and right here, noting that it is not so much a service that is sought as a product--a degree. It explains much, although I could still hope that students would like a higher-quality product than they seem to want to get.