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Looking Sideways at Your World Since October 2001
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June 7, 2009

A professor’s prayer

By Thoreau

Lord, grant me the courage to fail the students I cannot pass, the strength to grade 100+ finals and 20+ lab reports, and the cockroach-level survival skills needed if a mentally unstable grade grubber gets an A-.

Posted by Thoreau @ 10:17 pm, Filed under: Main

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6 Responses to “A professor’s prayer”

  1. Comment by B —
    June 8, 2009 @ 1:18 pm

    Ha!

    I was just commenting to my wife this weekend as I graded my most recent exam that I fully expect to get much more grief from the A student who got an 85 than the several students who scored in the 50’s or lower.

  2. Comment by WeedOut —
    June 8, 2009 @ 3:49 pm

    How to handle 85 guy:

    “Sir, I’m here to talk about -”
    “Smith! Good to see you! Congratulations on your B! Didn’t expect you to pull it off.”
    “Um, but my average going into the final was an – ”
    “Say no more, of course you were really below my cutoff, but I felt you deserved it. Don’t tell anyone, or they’ll all be in here asking for a B.”
    “Couldn’t I do some extra – ”
    “Thanks for offering, that’s a great attitude. I did the right thing curving you up.”
    “But sir the medical schools – ”
    “They don’t need to know you got a freebie if you don’t tell them, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, eh?”

  3. Comment by Barry —
    June 8, 2009 @ 10:02 pm

    “…and the cockroach-level survival skills”

    Meaning being one of a 100 in a batch of eggs, and quickly laying/fertilizing 100 of your own eggs. Your own actual life, of course, will last a few months, even if you beat the 90-odd percent chances of dying immediately.

  4. Comment by Thoreau —
    June 8, 2009 @ 10:19 pm

    All I know is that the day after the nuclear holocaust, the cockroaches will be the ones busy re-colonizing the world while our remains smolder.

    Anyway, my problem child earned an A in the end, so I won’t have to deal with any clusterfucks from him.

  5. Comment by dhex —
    June 9, 2009 @ 9:18 am

    i saw this and i thought of you, thoreau:

    I Don’t Follow…

    Student giving presentation: The angel statue on his grave actually had male genitalia on it, but the cemetery keepers broke it off and used it as a paperweight.
    Dumb student: Where on the statue was the genitalia?
    Student giving presentation, after long pause: In the same place as male genitalia on a body?

    –Classroom, NYU

    Overheard by: You’ve got to be kidding me

  6. Comment by B —
    June 9, 2009 @ 9:30 am

    WO–thanks for the tip! Consider it filed away for future deployment.

    Turns out I was wrong. The one that gave me grief scored a 55. He wanted to know what his chances were of pulling out an ‘A’.

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