I’ve been grading. Grading grading grading. I’ve been crankily making illegible red scrawls with lots of exclamation points on lab reports, and it’s been a stressful couple of days. The pile is cleared now, though, but much as it would be appropriate to immediately down a couple of pints of whisky, I still have a lecture to give, and two lab sections to crack a whip over, before I am free of immediate obligations.
I have brilliantly managed to clear the deck before I fly off to Skepticon tomorrow, at least. And I shall return these bloodily reddened reports to the students today, and they will spend their weekend making corrections while I mingle happily with a crowd of interesting people for a few days.
And then they get their revenge when I return and they re-inflict their papers on me next week for re-grading. But they will be perfect papers then, after all of my suggestions/demands are implemented, and instead of red slashes I’ll be drawing little green happy faces on their papers, and we shall all be full of joy and contentment.
Maybe I should stock up on heart and smiley face stickers for the next round. We can still give those out in college, right?
Now do you finally see why so many “science” teachers teach creationism? It’s so much easier to grade tests where the only answer is “goddidit”.
In Canada, today is a holiday.
PZ:
Sure. Might be silly, but stickers give people a warm fuzzy.
Chigau:
It’s Veteran’s Day here, but I don’t think it counts as a holiday.
I’ve been tempted towards stickers. College students are old enough that I think they can view it as ‘neat!’ and not me treating them like they are babies.
(It is a holiday here, but I’m using the lack of class to catch up on my own grading and planning.)
Oh my gosh, stickers are more than appropriate. Or maybe a stamp with a smiley face or a rainbow or something! I wholly endorse this proposal.
Stickers? Stamps? Fiddlesticks and poppycock. Why, when I was a kid they never gave us stickers. All I got was an endless string of teachers telling me ‘You are capable of doing better work and you know it. Do it again.’ Thank you to each and every one of them.
Also, as a veteran, I would like to say thank you to all who served their respective countries. Welcome home.
The best teachers give scratch-and-sniff stickers.
The A papers smell like roses, failing papers smell like poop?
Stars. You need gold stars. That’s old school.
And they have to be lick-and-stick, none of this newfangled self-adhesive nonsense.
Man, I just had a flashback to the taste of those old lickable stickers. Yum.
Heart and smiley face stickers?
WHERE IS PZ AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM!?
These stickers would be ample reward for any
obedient miniondiligent scholar:http://rlv.zcache.com/cthulhu_classic_round_sticker-r14aeee8bf0c34998a5731e370c6afd33_v9waf_8byvr_324.jpg
The stickers will be more appreciated if, after licking / dissolving & injesting them, you see Giant Plaid Kraken Eating ___(Insert item of choice (default: Thugs; not recommended: Mildly deranged penguin)___. Preferably with, at least initially, lots of screaming and bright lights / fireworks.
However, please be careful of the dose. Having to be strapped / nailed to the bed until all the spiders stop crawling over the insides of ones eyes is slightly off-putting, although it does tend to reduce the number of
subjectsstudents who return next term.How do you do it? No matter how hard I try to kick my brain about, I always end up procrastinating, and then I have two sets of papers to read – from two or three classes. And then life loses all meaning.