20151118.0623

Work continues now. I expect to be going to work soon; I had meant to do so on Monday before being stopped by my body just before I would have walked out from Sherwood Cottage to go to the office. I do not know that I look forward to the day, though, as I know students are lining up to complain about the scores received on their most recently graded assignments. The scores were not good, and they were not good in most cases because of a failure to attend to simple, explicit directions. I asked for a word-count range that many of them flatly did not meet--and word counts are not merely academic shenanigans; my freelance work imposes them, as well, such that the platform through which I do much of it refuses to accept submissions that do not meet the required minimum length. If college is supposed to be professional preparation (which I do not think it is, but I know many do), then its practices should reflect professional practices, and adherence to word counts is an expected professional practice. So is addressing the topic and thesis assigned, which no few failed to do. (Seriously, I framed the assignment such that only two options were available for their thesis statements--and I explicitly said as much to them. Many did not comply.)

Did I think it would do any good, I would rage at them for their perfidy. But I know it will not; I know that many of my students have been conditioned to react in specific ways to writing tasks and to the classroom environment. Their conditioning has taken place across more than a decade; nothing I can do in a single term will overturn it for those not willing to have it overturned, and few are. They are, for the most part, teenagers, and I know that I was intractable at that age--and I was a good student, valuing learning for the sake of learning. (I still do.) I know also that that valuation is not something that plays well in the outside world; many of my students do not share that value orientation. It is sad, to be sure, but it is certain, and while I try to show my students the joy and happiness that comes from the ongoing uncover and mastery of knowledge, I know many of them think it more chimerical than it is, and I know many others see it as a delusion utterly--at least at this point in their lives. Things may change for them later, but I doubt I will learn of it when they do. And, truly, my opening up the vessel full of hate that I have long nurtured inside myself, the wizened and bitter kernel steeped in vitriol for decades, and assailing them with it will not help. It will only prompt (more) comments about how much an asshole I am.

They would have to give a damn what I think (other than the grades) for my anger or annoyance to matter at all. And, in the main, they do not.