Hi everyone, today I would like to talk about what has been consuming my life for the past 2 weeks - grading. For any of you who are teachers (I am assuming this is the same for teachers of all varieties, but that assumption might be ill-informed), you know that there are so many parts of the job that are rewarding, fun, and sometimes energizing. Having a great discussion or an activity that goes really well can make your day, or even week. Unfortunately, there are also parts of the job that are the soul-sucking worst. For me, this is grading. I hate it. I hate it so much that part of me wishes that things could simply be pass/ fail. Of course, as a student I would hate it if a paper or test that I did really well on was considered to be on the same level as someone who simply met the minimum requirements. But as a teacher my life would be so much easier if I could simply say - "yes you did this" or "no you did not do this" and move the f**k on with my life. There are several reasons why I hate grading so much. I am going to share these reasons with you now:
The first reason is that it absolutely brings out the worst qualities I have as a human being. I am a horrible procrastinator, and nothing makes me put off working more than a giant stack of papers to grade. I will spend hours thinking about, and then avoiding, grading until it is the very last possible second. This procrastination leads to days of constant anxiety about the fact that I am knowingly avoiding work that absolutely has to be done. When I have to grade a set of papers, I constantly have that tight, nauseous feeling in my stomach until I finish grading. But that anxiety is paralyzing, and I cannot focus and begin grading because I am so distracted by the fact that I have procrastinated so much. It also demonstrates my piss-poor organizational skills and lack of forethought. I never, ever remember to organize my classes in ways that make the grading cycles easier for myself. This is especially true when I am teaching more than one type of class. For example - this week I collected not only midterm exams for my satire class, but also paper #2 in composition (in addition to the in-class work that needs to be graded as well). If I would have actually compared the schedules and planned my classes more efficiently, I could have avoided having 100 major assignments to grade at roughly the same time.
This leads me to the next thing I hate about grading - the fact that I create all this work for myself. Every assignment, work sheet, in-class writing, essay, and test is created by me. I am the cause of this work, and so I have no one to blame but myself. Granted, the department dictates the papers that I assign for composition, but all other assignments are up to my discretion. The problem with that is I like it when my students are actively working in class, and not simply discussing writing in an abstract way. To me, practice is the key to writing, and thus my students complete a lot of assignments in class. Unfortunately, this just makes more grading for me. And the literature courses I teach are wholly designed by me, so I don't even have the convenient scapegoat of the department to blame for all the grading of group projects, in-class writings, and exams. Knowing that I am the only person I can blame just infuriates me more.
The last thing I hate about grading is the aftermath. Grades bring out the raging asshole in some students. Seemingly reasonable, bright individuals become neurotic, irrational, emotional messes when they receive a grade they did not expect. There are two types of students that display this behavior: 1) the student who typically gets good grades but did not excel on this particular assignment and 2) the student who does not do the work in the class but still expects to get a decent grade because apparently they have suffered some sort of rare head injury.
Let's talk about category #1 first. Now, I will freely admit that I have been this student before. As a matter of fact, it has not been that long ago that I was this student (Hey Chris, if by any chance you are reading this, sorry buddy. I was clearly not in my right mind that day). These students are not really that hard to deal with. It mostly takes patience and an explanation that one grade on one paper does not define them a student, and certainly does not define them as a person (I am still working on understanding this myself, so I have a lot of empathy for students who struggle with this). You will have the occasional student in category #1 that is very pushy about you changing their grade, which is super annoying. The idea that a 19 year old is going to convince me to change my mind about anything is pretty laughable, so it takes some self-control to avoid actually laughing when they suggest that they are a better judge of their writing than you are.
Category #2 is far, far worse. A few days ago I made a promise to myself that I would no longer dwell on the students who are irresponsible and do not do their work, and I would instead focus my energy on the students who are actively engaging with the class and are at least trying to improve themselves through education. The students in category #2 make keeping this promise nearly impossible. These students are the ones who never show up to class, are always on their phones or facebook, never participate in discussion, but still think that their 3 pages of writing for a 5-7 page paper guarantees them at least a C. It is hard to avoid sounding like a dick when you have to tell someone that the reason they did not pass the paper is because they are a shitty student, but that is basically what these conversations boil down to. In my experience, I spend 10 minutes telling another person all the reasons they are fucking up, and that is not pleasant for either party. The other problem with this category of students is that they often come into these discussions with a very defensive attitude. This stems from the fact that they are aware that they are sucking as a student, but they don't want to admit it to themselves so they project their shame/ anger with themselves onto you. This is what I have the hardest time dealing with. When someone gives me attitude, I just CANNOT sit there and take that shit. I automatically give it right back, and then some. It is a response that I have not yet learned to control, and it doesn't exactly scream professionalism...
This actually went on longer than I had planned, but I felt like I needed to articulate what it is about grading that makes me such a basket case. This has actually made me feel a little better. If only writing this blog could magically make the stacks of midterms disappear from my desk, my blood pressure might go down and this twitch in my left eye might stop. It has, however, allowed me to put off grading for another hour (and the cycle continues). Thanks for reading friends; until next time.
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