zorakzoran ([info]zorakzoran) wrote,
@ 2004-02-29 14:06:00
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Current mood: Schadenfreude
Current music:Low-Fidelity All-Stars, "Battle Flag"

I am the God of Hellfire
Being a history professor usually bites.


No, really. I mean, we get less respect than the average drug dealer. We're faced with classrooms of apathetic little faces that somehow think that studying business is useful, studying area studies is cool, and studying history is a dreary bore. Most of the time, the little buggers can barely keep from sleeping.


And then come midterms.


BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!


See, the best part of this is I'm a pretty nice professor. Hell, I don't require people to roll on in to lectures. Attendance? Screw it. If you don't want to show up, don't show up. Heck, I won't snap at people that don't pay attention, that talk in class (as long as they're not bothering others, and so forth).


Because my exams are chiefly based on the lectures.


So I'm highly enjoying scenes like the following:


STUDENT: Zorakzoran, I was reading the textbook.


ZZ: That's good.


STUDENT: And, it's not the same as the lectures.


ZZ: That's right.


STUDENT: Huh?


ZZ: Why would I do that? You can read the book. Why should I lecture on it? Instead, I use the lecture to talk about other things.


STUDENT: (Oh, crap, I haven't been coming to lecture or paying attention.) Well, uh, what books could I read to better understand the lectures?


ZZ: Which lecture? I usually draw on two or three different books per lecture.


STUDENT: The best one.


ZZ: Try Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.


STUDENT: Okay, which chapter.


ZZ: Oh, the first three or four hundred pages gives a good overview.



BWAH HA HA HA HA!



I'm an evil bastard. And I love it.



HRB Index: 64 (-5 from anticipation of evil fucking midterms; -2 from having nice friends).
Current Book: Ian Kershaw's The Nazi Dictatorship


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[info]joekerstef
2004-02-29 11:27 am UTC (link)
I'm an evil bastard. And I love it.

yes indeed. that's why i like you. that and all of the peep stuff. it is that time of year again.....

we got those same student reactions in keith olson's class; we'd put somewhat obscure id things on the exam that they only would know if they were in the lecture. hehehe. fuckers. i don't miss that though.

(Reply to this)

Except...
[info]j_pi3_14159
2004-03-01 08:21 pm UTC (link)
...then you always get some butthead student who complains mightily because they skipped lecture, but feel that you should have provided all the information to them because, well, they just might have had a really good _reason_ for missing lecture....and they either end up pissing all over you in your office, or whining to someone who feels the need to cater to students rather than making them live up to decent standards -- and even if they win somehow, they end up putting "expections too high" or "class way too difficult" on the teaching reviews...and we all know that teaching reviews mean jack shit UNLESS they're negative, in which case some OTHER someone who feels students should be catered to shows up at your office door complaining that you're too difficult and students won't take your classes if you are too hard, and you're chasing students away from our major, and.....

.....and you wonder why professors don't care about their teaching....it can't possibly help your career, it can only hurt it. But I'm bitter :).....and out of stale peeps :(.

(actually, not really -- I still have a few crunchy ones left, I've just been saving those for when I can fit back in a size 10).

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