Day: September 1, 2011

Language of Love

~ Clarissa ~ 3 Comments

I’m not surprised that to the question “Which group of languages does Spanish belong to?” many students responded “Romantic languages.”

But when a student wrote that it belonged to the group called “Languages of Love”, that was kind of too much.

A Reason to Abolish USPS

~ Clarissa ~ 51 Comments

You know how USPS is often adduced as an example of a service provided by the government that is efficient, reliable, and used by everybody?

Well, I just discovered that Libertarians have a very bizarre argument in support of abolishing the USPS. Their argument – of all the thing in the world – is the environment. USPS, they say, delivers all those annoying ad circulars and commercial promotion packages. FedEx – an example of government-free truly commercial enterprise – doesn’t. This means that abolishing the USPS will not only reduce the government’s control over our lives but will also save the environment.

I have to say that of all the strange, convoluted Libertarian arguments I have had the misfortune of hearing this one is the most outlandish so far. “Let’s abolish the USPS to save the environment” is a very inventive argument. Of course, when you start coming up with something this weird, it’s a sign your position is quite untenable and you realize it.

Learned Patterns of Behavior

~ Clarissa ~ 20 Comments

So I’m reading the Stupid Motivational Tricks Blog where Jonathan describes his system of grading students’ papers. Students send their papers to him by email and he enters corrections as comments in the Word document:

I never print anything. Students never print anything. I never have to struggle with my own handwriting. Students never struggle with my handwriting. I never lose a paper. Students never come late to class because they are still printing the paper due that day. I never struggle with a paper printed with an exhausted toner cartridge. Students get their papers back even if they are absent on the day papers are returned. I have an electronic record of the grades on each paper. The turn-over on papers is faster and more efficient. I never spill coffee on a student paper. Students can revise their papers by accepting my changes and going from there.

I never use this system. To the contrary, I’m a martinet when it comes to the way students hand in their papers. I insist that they never ever ever submit an essay in a file attachment. Essays have to be printed out and handed in to me in paper form. Then, I have to lug a heavy stack of essays around and try to fit my comments in between lines and on the margins.

And do you know why I use this inconvenient system instead of doing what Jonathan does and making my own life easier?

Because when I was a student my professors always insisted that papers be handed in to them in the paper format. I have no idea what the motivation behind this policy was (maybe people were simply uncomfortable with the Internet). I simply heard the exhortations not to send essays to the professor as a file attachment so many times that I started copying this practice in my own teaching.

Just think about how often we do things just because we’ve seen others do them and we simply imitate their actions unquestioningly.