School is stupid. I have to do extra work because a majority of everyone else continued talking after the teacher repeatedly told them to stop and to listen. This is ridiculous.
This made me nearly bite a pencil in half in enraged memory.
@ THE REST OF MY ANCIENT HISTORY CLASS; Y’ALL ARE WELCOME FOR THAT FUCKIN A THE REST OF YOU DID NO GODDAMN WORK FOR
Oh man, so I know everyone hates group projects with ample good reason, but lemme just tell you something that happened to me in my final year of uni. My dad got real sick and was in and out of hospital numerous times, one time with a suspected heart attack. Which meant my mum ended up caring for my dad, and I wound up caring for my disabled brother, on top of working a part time job and going to university full time.
My grades slid dramatically. I was having to appeal nearly all my results with my professors, and was mercifully granted extensions by all but one of them. (Which, if you’re out there Ronald: stub your toe and step on lego for the rest of eternity.) And then our Revolutionary Cultures prof. assigned a group project, and paired us at random with our classmates. And I knew, I knew I was just going to be a dead weight so I went to my new buddy and told them we should go to the profs office and ask for her to be switched to someone else who wasn’t just going to drag them down. And my new best buddy for the rest of the semester looked at me, looked at our assigned project, and very gently started to cry as she told me “I was just about to say the same thing to you,” and then tearfully told me her mum was dying, and the only reason she hadn’t dropped out to take care of her was because her mum wanted to see her graduate. She’d been given six months and we graduated in five. Provided we finished this class. And we were both out of appeals and leniency time.
It’s probably one of my most vivid memories from the whole college experience, just sitting on the floor of the Renaissance Lit corridor hugging someone who until a moment ago had been a relative stranger known only in passing, and trying to tell them it would be okay, we’d get the paper done. And we did. We scraped a C- together between the two of us and we managed to coast over the passing mark for the class and were allowed to graduate with abysmal but passing marks.
And I still think about her all the time. Especially when I wind up in group projects for work, and it feels like no one else is shouldering any of the burden, I make a note to reach out and say “hey, you don’t seem to be engaging with this much, are you okay?”
And a lot of the time it shocks people. They’re not expecting earnest concern for their lack of interest, and you find out things like their kid is sick, their dog just died, they’ve got health issues going on, or sometimes they just don’t know where to begin with the project and didn’t want to tell you that because they were frightened of being judged or perceived as lazy when they’re just overwhelmed.
And I honestly wish things like this were taught in team building exercises, cause that’s what group projects in school are. They’re supposed to be teaching you how to work well with others and achieve a common goal, while at the same time totally skipping over the fundamentals of human interaction and how to engage socially with others, and it’s fucking bullshit.
This made me nearly bite a pencil in half in enraged memory.
@ THE REST OF MY ANCIENT HISTORY CLASS; Y’ALL ARE WELCOME FOR THAT FUCKIN A THE REST OF YOU DID NO GODDAMN WORK FOR
Oh man, so I know everyone hates group projects with ample good reason, but lemme just tell you something that happened to me in my final year of uni. My dad got real sick and was in and out of hospital numerous times, one time with a suspected heart attack. Which meant my mum ended up caring for my dad, and I wound up caring for my disabled brother, on top of working a part time job and going to university full time.
My grades slid dramatically. I was having to appeal nearly all my results with my professors, and was mercifully granted extensions by all but one of them. (Which, if you’re out there Ronald: stub your toe and step on lego for the rest of eternity.) And then our Revolutionary Cultures prof. assigned a group project, and paired us at random with our classmates. And I knew, I knew I was just going to be a dead weight so I went to my new buddy and told them we should go to the profs office and ask for her to be switched to someone else who wasn’t just going to drag them down. And my new best buddy for the rest of the semester looked at me, looked at our assigned project, and very gently started to cry as she told me “I was just about to say the same thing to you,” and then tearfully told me her mum was dying, and the only reason she hadn’t dropped out to take care of her was because her mum wanted to see her graduate. She’d been given six months and we graduated in five. Provided we finished this class. And we were both out of appeals and leniency time.
It’s probably one of my most vivid memories from the whole college experience, just sitting on the floor of the Renaissance Lit corridor hugging someone who until a moment ago had been a relative stranger known only in passing, and trying to tell them it would be okay, we’d get the paper done. And we did. We scraped a C- together between the two of us and we managed to coast over the passing mark for the class and were allowed to graduate with abysmal but passing marks.
And I still think about her all the time. Especially when I wind up in group projects for work, and it feels like no one else is shouldering any of the burden, I make a note to reach out and say “hey, you don’t seem to be engaging with this much, are you okay?”
And a lot of the time it shocks people. They’re not expecting earnest concern for their lack of interest, and you find out things like their kid is sick, their dog just died, they’ve got health issues going on, or sometimes they just don’t know where to begin with the project and didn’t want to tell you that because they were frightened of being judged or perceived as lazy when they’re just overwhelmed.
And I honestly wish things like this were taught in team building exercises, cause that’s what group projects in school are. They’re supposed to be teaching you how to work well with others and achieve a common goal, while at the same time totally skipping over the fundamentals of human interaction and how to engage socially with others, and it’s fucking bullshit.
know what I hate? how uni’s have all of these “de-stress events” and preaching about mental health around exams but don’t actual want to fucking do anything about the shitty system of education they’ve created that literally makes kids have anxiety attacks and suicidal thoughts. yes education should be challenging, but it should not compromise your wellbeing for it. it’s like saying “yeah we realize the system is horrible, but here have free hot chocolate, it’ll make everything better”. the education system is flawed and broken and they know it, but they could care less.
know what I hate? how uni’s have all of these “de-stress events” and preaching about mental health around exams but don’t actual want to fucking do anything about the shitty system of education they’ve created that literally makes kids have anxiety attacks and suicidal thoughts. yes education should be challenging, but it should not compromise your wellbeing for it. it’s like saying “yeah we realize the system is horrible, but here have free hot chocolate, it’ll make everything better”. the education system is flawed and broken and they know it, but they could care less.
“I’ve wanted to go into construction since high school. I used to help my dad out all the time. Everything in our house we built ourselves. But my teachers tried to steer me down a different path. They’d encourage me to ‘figure things out.’ They’d say: ‘Why don’t you do this?’ or ‘Why don’t you do that?’ But I chose construction because it’s what I like to do. I got my union card at eighteen. The pay isn’t bad. I get benefits. It feels good to be young and working every day. But I see all these advertisements on the subway, and they basically say: ‘If you want to be successful, you have to go to college.’ All my friends went to college. Some of them have liberal arts degrees that I didn’t even know existed. A couple more dropped out. The ones who graduated can’t find jobs and have a lot of student debt. But they still look at me like I’m on the wrong path. When I tell them I can help them get a job in construction, they always say the same thing: ‘Why would we want to do that?’”
“I’ve wanted to go into construction since high school. I used to help my dad out all the time. Everything in our house we built ourselves. But my teachers tried to steer me down a different path. They’d encourage me to ‘figure things out.’ They’d say: ‘Why don’t you do this?’ or ‘Why don’t you do that?’ But I chose construction because it’s what I like to do. I got my union card at eighteen. The pay isn’t bad. I get benefits. It feels good to be young and working every day. But I see all these advertisements on the subway, and they basically say: ‘If you want to be successful, you have to go to college.’ All my friends went to college. Some of them have liberal arts degrees that I didn’t even know existed. A couple more dropped out. The ones who graduated can’t find jobs and have a lot of student debt. But they still look at me like I’m on the wrong path. When I tell them I can help them get a job in construction, they always say the same thing: ‘Why would we want to do that?’”
i am absolutely dragging myself through grading my last 6 papers, it is 9:30pm, and one of my favorite students has just used the phrase “Satan and his Gucci gang” in his milton essay
i am absolutely dragging myself through grading my last 6 papers, it is 9:30pm, and one of my favorite students has just used the phrase “Satan and his Gucci gang” in his milton essay
i am absolutely dragging myself through grading my last 6 papers, it is 9:30pm, and one of my favorite students has just used the phrase “Satan and his Gucci gang” in his milton essay
ifesbob 