I Fear for the Future
Perhaps my private schooling insulated me from the cold, hard truth: society is brimming with idiots. And they ain't just dumb, they're lazy to boot.
I am teaching intro to political science, and the essays I've received are so awful, they're not even laughable. They were told to include 6 to 8 academic cites; in their works cited, a few of my students have cited the same work three times, with different page numbers for each of the three cites...that's a strategy, I guess.
Wikipedia. Let's talk about it, shall we? It's not an academic cite! Not only am I telling all of you this (who probably don't care), I've told them this. Several times. With emphasis. And conviction. I told them, "Do not cite this anywhere in this paper, nor any paper you ever write here in your college career. It is akin to citing your Grandpa; and may, in fact, be citing your Grandpa. It is open source--this means you have no idea if a professor wrote the entry, or your drunken roommate on a dare."
And yet, my students are citing Wikipedia like it's a guaranteed A.
I had to give a student an F today. I hate failing students. I mean, this person put in effort to paraphrase a book, type up this paraphrasing, and approximate a works cited page (which includes several cites which are just titles...that's it--no author, no publication date). But when the amount of effort put into the paper is less than the amount of effort I have to put into grading and attempting to correct his/her grammar, then I feel I have no choice. (Don't worry, it was not only sloppy, it was mostly wrong, too).
I think this angers me so much because I struggled so hard throughout high school to try to win scholarships and financial aid to attend a good school--and once there, I worked my ass off to earn my education. I value education--in terms of both its intrinsic value, and the value I've assigned to it through my own efforts and struggles. And it seems that most of my students are here because they wanted to live near the beach, their parents were willing to pay the full tuition, and going to college seemed like the *cool* thing to "do." But they're not doing it! They're barely even faking it!
I'm also pissed because I know I'm going to see these failed students in my office later, where they will expend more effort whining for a better grade than they put into their papers originally.
I am teaching intro to political science, and the essays I've received are so awful, they're not even laughable. They were told to include 6 to 8 academic cites; in their works cited, a few of my students have cited the same work three times, with different page numbers for each of the three cites...that's a strategy, I guess.
Wikipedia. Let's talk about it, shall we? It's not an academic cite! Not only am I telling all of you this (who probably don't care), I've told them this. Several times. With emphasis. And conviction. I told them, "Do not cite this anywhere in this paper, nor any paper you ever write here in your college career. It is akin to citing your Grandpa; and may, in fact, be citing your Grandpa. It is open source--this means you have no idea if a professor wrote the entry, or your drunken roommate on a dare."
And yet, my students are citing Wikipedia like it's a guaranteed A.
I had to give a student an F today. I hate failing students. I mean, this person put in effort to paraphrase a book, type up this paraphrasing, and approximate a works cited page (which includes several cites which are just titles...that's it--no author, no publication date). But when the amount of effort put into the paper is less than the amount of effort I have to put into grading and attempting to correct his/her grammar, then I feel I have no choice. (Don't worry, it was not only sloppy, it was mostly wrong, too).
I think this angers me so much because I struggled so hard throughout high school to try to win scholarships and financial aid to attend a good school--and once there, I worked my ass off to earn my education. I value education--in terms of both its intrinsic value, and the value I've assigned to it through my own efforts and struggles. And it seems that most of my students are here because they wanted to live near the beach, their parents were willing to pay the full tuition, and going to college seemed like the *cool* thing to "do." But they're not doing it! They're barely even faking it!
I'm also pissed because I know I'm going to see these failed students in my office later, where they will expend more effort whining for a better grade than they put into their papers originally.
Labels: Ranting
posted by slickaphonic at 3:04 AM
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