I'm good, good, good, and oh-so-smart

I posted my final final grade of my (current) UNCW career yesterday, which means I’m largely unhinged from UNCW now, but it also means I’ve been thinking about grades a lot lately and, more specifically, reactions to grades.

I don’t mind grades; I actually love evaluating things and stuff and even people. Our lives are overrun with major, minor, and even more minor evaluative decisions, and I typically don’t shy away from those. What I don’t like, two things: (1) the temporal vacuum cleaner that is the process of grading and (2) reactions to grading.

Typically, I have three types of students: those who care way too much about their grades, those who don’t care about their grades, and those who don’t care about their grades until it’s too late.

The students who care way too much about their grades are great; they do their work, they work hard, and they pay attention. They can occasionally be annoying, what with their brown noses and all, but that’s an acceptable evil.

The students who don’t care about their grades are great, too; they remind me of myself in school. Good for them.

The students who don’t care about their grades until it’s too late are great, as well, until it’s too late. Then they suck because they complain about their grades that they seem surprised by, even though I specifically spell out exactly how their grades will be calculated on the first day of class and all over their syllabuses.

My students’ grades are determined by two things: quality work (of course) and paying attention/showing up. Students who are surprised by their grades typically don’t do the latter.

Event of the Week:

Since I don’t have anything to do today (not true), I’m eating breakfast in bed (totally true) while watching The Simpsons (also true) and folding origami cranes out of $2 bills (unfortunately not true).