You’ll all be shocked to know that my students have yet again done something completely uncouth. Like to hear about it? Here it goes:
They had papers due today, and were taught how to do the proper formatting for the paper, i.e., how to cite sources, where to put page numbers, headers, bibliographies, etc. So when one of my students came up to my desk with a handful of loose papers and asked me for my stapler, and I replied that I didn’t have one and that it would be all right if he had his name on every page, and he said that he didn’t and should he hand-write his name on all of the pages, I seriously had to rein in my impulse to punch him. For one thing, I am teaching a class, not running a damned office supply store. Of course I do not have a fucking stapler for them to use any more than I have extra notebooks, pens, white-out, highlighters, paper clips, or laptop computers. For another thing, he was clearly, according to the formatting guidelines we had thoroughly discussed, supposed to have a header with his name at the top of every page. This is not something special that only I do on some capricious whim. It is standard, and pretty much every other essay they have to write throughout all four years of college will require the same thing. You can imagine my ire when, four seconds later, another student came up to the desk all, "oooh, where’s your stapler?" Bah!
And then, AND THEN. Maybe it’s just me, but I would think that a sense of basic etiquette would be all students need in order to know that it is not appropriate to come to class 30 minutes late, walk into the darkened room where their classmates are staring transfixed at a movie screen, nearly silent but for the quiet film score and the delicate hum of breathing, and then stomp their way through the room, scraping chairs across the floor, rustling and unzipping and ripping open all of the apparently innumerable Velcro closures they seem to have about their bodies, and fall, whump!, into their chairs with a loud sigh. Is it just me? Because I certainly seem to be outnumbered.
Wow. You’re students are amazing.
Please consider my use of the incorrect “you’re” ironic or something, or just kick me in the head.
Thanks.
Yesss, the staplers. I don’t bring one to class with me either. How thoughtless! All y’all have computers (and cell phones, and Ipods, usw etc.), why not a stapler? I think they should issue one to each new student (with staples), along with their computers. They can be in school colors, or carry Domino’s advertising, whatever. Or, remedial classes in origami staples - they seem to be a lost art.
Man, those kids are getting even worse. If you’d like me to hire some goons to punch them out after class, have your people call my people. I think we could work something out.
Pea- Man, I always wish I had the ability to edit comments I post places! I’ll take your “you’re” in the ironic sense, of course.
Barbara- You know, I think the stapler problem (widespread) is because in high school they stapled their papers at the teacher’s desk. I don’t know for sure, but I have some vague memories of walking up to my teacher’s desk and stapling things. Thus, if I’m right, this must be a small part of the larger problem of college students thinking they’re still in high school.
Tim– Goons! Yes! That’s just the thing! Actually, I am hoping they’ll come back from Thanksgiving with their heads on straight. A naive hope, but a hope nonetheless.
Goons, is there any problem they can’t solve?