This weekend was a whirlwind 48-hour grading extravaganza. My university demands that we grading all exams and calculate final grades within 48 hours of the end of the exam time slot. Since my students' exam was on Friday, I get a slight extension, having until tomorrow morning technically. (This all stems from when we were still using hand-written, scantron bubble sheets to submit final grades. Obviously you couldn't physically hand in grades on the weekend, since all of the university offices are closed. This was, oh, two academic years ago? Yeah, not really in the 21st century yet.)
A few times I broke out into song, thanks to Lerner and Loewe - "Why can't the English teach their children how to speak? Norwegians speak Norwegian, and Greeks are taught their Greek. In France, every Frenchman knows his language from 'A' to 'Zed'.... Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning. And Hebrews learn it backwards which is absolutely frightening. But use proper English you're regarded as a freak. Oh why can't the English, why can't the English learn to speak?"
So, in honor of 'Enry 'Iggins and his lamentations regarding the non-usage of the English language among native speakers, here are some funnies gleaned from my 2 days of marathon grading:
Maps
Students know absolutely no geography. Here are some of my favorite labels from their map quiz.
1. The Black Sea - labeled variously as Montenegro, Slovakia, Lithuania, Macedonia, and Serbia. In my sleepy head, I can only assume that these sea-based states are either the mythical Atlantians or else are canoe-based societies.
2. The Adriatic Sea - labeled as Croatia and Serbia
3. The North Sea - is the Czech Republic
4. Germany - is actually Montenegro
5. France - is either Bosnia or Macedonia, depending on who you ask. These just make me sad. :-(
6. Ukraine - is Bosnia, Serbia, or Macedonia
7. Belgium - is actually Lithuania
8. Denmark - is Croatia
9. Poland - is either Czech Republic, Lithuania, or Slovakia
10. Switzerland - is either Estonia or the Czech Republic
11. My favorite - Austria as the Czech Republic and Belarus as Slovakia - which would have meant a fascinating history of the unified state from 1919-1989, since they were separated a few states...
Essays
1. “The Ottoman Empire was defeated by the Japanese in the early 18th century.”
2. “Another imperial problem that Europe faced was the Boxers Rebellion. This conflict started because the Harmoneous and Rhitious fists of China wanted to stop British and western influences on their country. There were also the Indian Muntainy, in which the Indian people fought for their own indepences from European influences. After WWII Europe as a whole was mixed and manggled.”
3. “The rivalry between France & Great Britain since 1789 is like the great college football rivaly of UofA & ASU." ... “The Ottoman Empire was the big man on campus.”
4. In the First World War, the United States “teamed up with France, Germany went with Britain. Prussia even got involved because they were already upset at France.”
5. “The Austrian-Hungarian empire was originally the Ottoman Empire.”
6. Bismarck forced France to give up “Asslance Lorean and sign the Treaty of Versali.”
7. “Tsarist Russia fought on Britian’s side during World War Two, but Russia became a communist country shortly thereafter. Britian strongly disliked communism, and Britian and Russia ended up fighting each other in the Cold War.”
8. Because the French lost the 7 Years’ War, Spain got Canada.
9. Russian imperialism spread to the East, and they conquered the Netherlands.
10. German unification was “done by a genius man named Bismark.”
11. “Imperealism had been a new concept to all the empires but World War II put an end to this.”
12. “The Ottoman Empire rained supreme for nearly 500 years.”
13. “Germany had difficult times in war, because of their lack of embracy of technology.”
14. Russia tried to “go through Afghanistan in order to get to India at the Black Sea.”
15. “From the begging of history, the French and the British have had their differences.”
16. Britain and France signed the “Entente Contical, which in simple terms meant they wouldn’t fight.”
17. “The unification of Germany and Italy was a major event in history. The Germans with Hitler and the Italians with Mussolini. These two powers united seemed undestructrable.”
18. “The American Revolution was not long, in fact once Britain found out that France had funded the American troops and helped them fight, they backed out.”
19. “In 1948 Otto Von Bismarck passed a new constitution, and became unified.” Germany wasn’t Germany until 1948? Dude…
20. “It doesn’t seem Russia ever got their warm water. Poor, cold Russia.”
21. “Europe has had a very long history within itself and outside.”
So many students, so many completely wrong statements! I'm sure the Austrians and Turks would be interested in knowing that they are, in fact, the same people - and so all that fighting they did for 500 years was actually just fighting themselves. And the fact that Bismarck unified Germany in 1948? Wow... I'm especially excited to learn that Britain simply ran back to England - all it took was the basic knowledge that the French were involved to make them run home! As for geography... *sigh* I can't even begin with that. As for their spelling, well, these aren't all that bad, except, perhaps, for Asslance Lorean (Alsace-Lorraine), Rhitious fists (Righteous Fists), manggled (mangled), and whatever the heck "embracy" is. Ha.
Hope these were enjoyable. :-)
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Debating
Just a quick thought: In watching the presidential debates, I wonder if listening to political crap-speak is where my students learned the art of writing entire essays that say absolutely nothing.
The only problem is that they admit to me that they don't watch debates, don't read or watch the news, and don't pay attention to what's going on in the world (outside of facebook, myspace, and twitter, at least).
After the debate, I need to get back to my students' papers. I'm almost done reading and commenting on one of my three classes' papers. So far, I am not impressed.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Listening
A note to all students:
If you want a surefire way to confound, annoy, and generally anger your professors, there is only one thing to do: don't listen.
I am constantly perplexed by my students. Three weeks ago, I had to announce a major change on an assignment to my students. The professor's syllabus was quite vague and ambiguous, and so the TAs decided to make the assignment much more focused. We narrowed down their choice to one particular primary source and created a specific question they should answer for their essay (rather than trying to formulate an essay based on random discussion questions in their book). I announced this change. I wrote it on the board. I reminded them the following week.
Their paper is due in 48 hours, and I have received no less than twelve emails from students in the last 20 hours asking what they are supposed to be doing.
Perhaps this is my own fatigue coming out, or my frustration that I am spending at least two days per week trying to figure out how to teach them what they need to know, but I do not want to answer these emails. Here's how I see it:
1) I gave them all the information they needed weeks ago. I write it out on the board, explained the entire thing, and specifically told them they should write this down.
2) They have had 19 days to ask about the paper if they did not do #1.
3) Whether or not they act like it, they are adults. It is their responsibility to obtain the information they need, and asking the instructor 48 hours before the paper is due - especially when I *know* that every one of these students was in class when I gave them the question - seems irresponsible. How do I know that they were in class? Because the day that I explained all of this was the day they took their first quiz, and only 1 student still enrolled in my classes did not take the quiz.
All of these combine with my own exhaustion to make me a not terribly accommodating professor this week. They need to learn some responsibility, and they need to learn it fast.
Speaking of these emails, I really wish someone would teach their kids how to write formal emails. Did no one ever teach them that you should probably not write your professors using the same (bad) grammar as when you text your friends? Some key faux pas in these latest emails:
1) No salutation and no signature - which implies, respectively, that the student does not know either who I am or who they, themselves, are. I actually told one student that I generally will not answer an email if I do not know to whom I am writing.
2) The use of all lowercase letters
3) Confusing "your" and "you're"; "there" and "their"; and "cite" and "site"
Argh. So my suggestions to students: Listen. Pay attention. Proofread. Stop writing to me as if you are writing a text message or instant message. And if you find yourself a day before a major assignment is due and you have not paid one bit of attention to me all semester, do not expect me to bend over backwards to tell you everything you need to know. Be an adult; be responsible!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Usefulness of History
Why study history? What's the point?
This question seems to be asked more often these days, as we all face national economic crises, state budget crises, and university budget cuts. My own university has to cut between 6 and 10% of its overall budget and is proposing a massive "restructuring" to try to make the university more efficient, cost-effective, and of higher quality. As part of this whole process, our department needs to submit a white paper to the administration that justifies our existence, explains our importance, and offers proposals that we could live with.
So we have the question: why study history? The department does not get huge federal grants like the sciences, or corporate grants like many of the engineering departments. Many of our professors are quite well known in their fields, but the nature of historical research is such that we rarely receive large federal grants or work on nationally-recognized projects. So why history?
I came up with a few simple answers for my students this summer, when I was teaching a European history course. My basic answer is this:
- History is, at its heart, the stories we tell about human beings - their thoughts, their actions, their words, their creations. These stories can appear in a thousand different forms - stories of businesses, economics, literature, music, ideology, politicians and kings, men, women, children, religions, battles, etc. But ultimately, we tell these stories in the hopes of understanding the people who came before us. As we tell more and more stories, as we understand more about these people, we understand, ultimately, who we ourselves are. Because no matter whether you "learn" from history, or even remember it, every individual lives in context. Your values, your experiences, your family, everything helps shape who you are, for good or ill, and those were, in turn, shaped by what came before them.
So to those who question the need to have history departments, or who propose cutting funding/positions/courses in those departments, I offer this: We historians are dedicated to the past because it is fundamental to understanding the present. We endeavor to teach students not just to recite, but to truly analyze and understand the world. For us, regurgitation is not the goal. The goal is to think and to understand.
In the temple at Delphi the words "Know Thyself" were inscribed. Socrates argued that self-knowledge was the key to wisdom. I'll stick with Socrates and the Oracle at Delphi, but I'll add that knowing the past is one of the keys to knowing yourself.
So know the past. Know yourself.
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