Herewith I cause my Latin teacher of yore to spin in his grave as I create a bit of Latin doggerel that I think expresses a mood that overtakes one when an exam has been a disaster. I do not recall if this came from the subterranean vaults of my deep (yea! now very, very deep) mind or if it was a byword of my mates at Roxbury Latin School (where I spent six very long years), whose motto is “Mortui Vivos Docent.” “The Dead Teach the Living.” (Now there’s a slogan for you!)
Lacrimosa. Another fitting word from the Romans. Yes—tears are threatening to overflow the dam that males have at the shores of their eyes. Lacrimossissima.
I gave a midterm yesterday and 90% of the class FLUNKED!
Incredible mishmash of clichéd concepts from mushy minds. If I had hair to spare I would sacrifice some to assuage my grief.
Any professor knows that a failure of that magnitude is a failure of the teacher as well.
I must consult my never-failing books of Helpful Advice. Two volumes in this set—What to Do and Don’t Do It.
Looking up What to Do I find an entry that says berate them roundly and apply the heat of public humiliation. Don’t Do It warns against rash remedies designed to merely make the teacher feel better. Hmm….
WTD suggests making them all come in the evening and re-sit the exam. DDI mentions that doing the same thing again expecting different results is the first step toward insanity. Hmm….
These volumes of advice are not going anywhere. As a sagacious philosopher, I can grasp that the two volumes are designed to negate one another on every point.
Thrown upon my own devises, then.
I know, I will tear down my exam morgue and build a bigger one, then say to myself, "Well done, you now have a superfluity of exam questions. Sit back, lay it on them again, and take your ease."
Yipes! That means I’ll have to grade another set of exams. Who am I punishing here?
Time for some deeper thinking….
Aha! I will cancel the second reading report (it tends to be meaningless copying of ideas from the textbook) and have them research answers to the mid-term and hand that in instead. That way they will correct their own mistakes, prepare themselves for the final exam, and make it easy for me see improvements. I will tell them that at least two of the questions will re-appear on the final. That should motivate them with a carrot instead of a stick.
Meanwhile, I will give a lecture on how to write ideas that form a logical argument, thereby helping to drain the mush from their swampy minds and harden some dialectical bedrock as they climb the hills of higher learning.
I am smiling now, wiping the tears away, and looking for better things.
As Gilbert and Sullivan once put it in an operetta: A Professor’s Lot Is Not a Happy One.
This marathon (a whole course in 12 days) is approaching Heart-break Hill. Take courage, my soul. There are many more tears ready to overflow the brim and wash your optimism away.
I’d give anything to stop that conjugation that keeps tormenting me….
Flunko, flunkere, flunki, flunktus….
1 comment:
hilarious and brilliant (except of course, for the cause of your angst and thus, your blog) but your sweet wife steered me toward this page and i have to say: what an awesome writer you are. i'm blushing here and may now renig on my promise to send her my book. (ok, i'll send it if *you* promise not to read it LOL)
Ellie is such an inspiration to me - and what a charming couple you must make - though i wonder if you run out of friends you can actually converse with?? (that's my excuse for self-imposed isolation, anyway)
well, i do hope the students pass the final exam. love the WTD and DDI :D too funny! yep, the carrot always seems to work a bit better than the stick, esp for the hungry.
ok signing off now, but will come back as i very much enjoyed this fluno, flunkere, etc blog. oh and now i need to save up to buy your book, sounds wonderful. also btw, i love that your greatest production is your family, how dear is that??! ....carlynn
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