Your System Sucks?
Yes, I'm well aware that I'll get no credit for this, but I need to vent somewhere where it makes sense to vent about this.
I received a final exam reflective letter from one of my students. Incidentally, said student is a rather outstanding writer, whose major is creative writing. However, said student, in his talent, seems to believe he is above my class.
Anonymously, here is the end of his letter:
"Amd again, that doesn't has much to do with you. That doesn't has a thing to do with you. And I'm not trying to be an ass, but the fact is (the very definition of your class is): you are a prerequisite for 90% of the people in there; the only reason people take that class is because someone else forced them to. And no one in there cares about the words they are writing; everyone in there writes the papers just to get the grade that they want, and I know that no one—not a soul in there—really gives a shit about the thoughts and the feelings that they were supposed to create.
So I don't really blame you. The fact that you were the head of a complete waste of time is hardly your fault. Just becaiuse you were comissioned an apathetic and disingenuise excercise on a tri-weekly basis should not be blamed on you. It's a natural result of MSU's prerequsite process, and you weren't much more than a lamb placed up for the slaughter. That's probably the shared fate of most graduate students elected to teach ENG-110.
But honestly, you have to understand how frustarting it is to pay hundreds of dollars to take a college course, and the only exercise we do in this class is a Round Robin or a Grammar Exercise.
I don't blame you. But your system sucks."
I honestly believe that my students will get as much out of the class as they want to get. And honestly, I would be able to laugh this off had this not been the very last paper I read from this semester (besides the final exam letters that are *ahem* supposed to be brought to the final exam rather than emailed to me). I just got off of a high from reading two very, very well-written short stories from two of my strongest writers in my other class. I felt like the semester had not been a waste. Then... this.
Friends, if you're still checking up on this, tell me how you would react. I'll be honest... it infuriated me. I'm still trying to cool off.
posted by Unknown @ 7:13 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Yeah, I can understand why you're ticked off at this kid. It's pretty irritating to spend your whole semester spending time with someone in class, grading their papers and hearing their thoughts, only to have them give you a big middle finger at the very end. I didn't teach the kid and even I felt ticked reading it. I think that part of the reason I felt that way is that, to an extent, he mentions some things that all of us have worried about in the course of teaching ENG 110: that no one wants to be there, that the students have no real investment in their writing, that we're just teaching these classes because no one else wants to, etc. The other, bigger reason I find this kid infuriating is that it's really obvious that when he says "no one" or "everyone," he's really just referring to himself. Sure, there might be a few people in your class that agree with him, but for the most part he's imagining a mob of supporters to back up his views. At any rate, this contradicts his statements that no one cared about your class. Granted, the only way you could know for sure is if you went around and asked everyone, but I'm sure that there were other students in your class whose views didn't fall in like with this bozo's. Heck, you mention reading two awesome short stories written by your students. There's a strong possibility that they were immensely invested in their writing and got a lot out of it. As a final note, if he asks you for a recommendation for a creative writing teacher, send him my way. It wouldn't be long before he found out whether his arrogance was well-deserved or not.
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