Grading sucks. I know that as a TA, I have to do something for the money that the school pays me. I'm fine with my job of teaching (even when my students don't do their job of reading their assigned readings). But please, no grading.
I enjoy reading quizzes, exams and papers. As a sociologist, this is one of the best ways to understand how American students think and in what kind of world they're living. In my discussion sections, I tried to give my students thought-provoking quizzes. Even though grading those quizzes took me a lot of time (at the expense of my own courses), I still enjoyed reading them. Some were really bright, and some ... well, not so much.
And now I have finished a marathon of grading their final papers. It was quite a hard-labor. For this paper, they were supposed to sit somewhere, record the specs of the first 25 T-shirts they saw, put those T-shirts in categories, then rank the categories into a hierarchy based on a single criterion and finally, analyze their findings (i.e. make conclusions about those people based on their T-shirt). This was an exercise to give them a better understanding of categorization as a scientific procedure and also to make them understand how it differs from stereotyping and how bad is the latter.
Most of the students found it an interesting exercise. For the sake of the paper, they played the devil's advocate, trying to make judgments about their subjects based on their appearance (they were not allowed to interview their subjects). And by the end of the paper, they concluded how stupid it is to judge people merely based on how they appear. Well, I hope they don't forget this lesson. Superficial judgment is one of the biggest problems we have in this world.
I found some of the papers very thoughtful and I have to say they gave me quite some insight about American society in general and American college students in specific. There were some who were really brilliant in their arguments. Yet, reading some of the papers confirmed something that I knew about American colleges, specifically SIU.
I'd already observed that here, porn is more important than justice. And then, I got to witness that porn is even more popular than faith. Already knowing that I'm living in a party-land, it is trivial that in Saluki way of life, alcohol has a very high value. Reading the papers confirmed this (whether alcohol is more venerated than porn in SIU remains to be seen). A lot of students had established a category for beer, bar, party or anything related to alcohol, even though the number of alcohol-related T-shirts in their sample didn't exceed 2-3 out of 25.
Some had made fun of it, and some had taken it seriously. And interestingly, some had ranked their categories based on popularity. And party-goers (or similar names for their categories) stood high in their hierarchy. All that didn't surprise me. It just gave me a deeper understanding of American collegiate life. But among all alcohol-inspired thoughts, this line stuck out and I will remember it for quite some time:
"I like beer and beer makes me happy which is why beer is one step above Obama. If Obama influenced my life the way beer did then he would probably be a step over beer, but he doesn't."
I enjoy reading quizzes, exams and papers. As a sociologist, this is one of the best ways to understand how American students think and in what kind of world they're living. In my discussion sections, I tried to give my students thought-provoking quizzes. Even though grading those quizzes took me a lot of time (at the expense of my own courses), I still enjoyed reading them. Some were really bright, and some ... well, not so much.
And now I have finished a marathon of grading their final papers. It was quite a hard-labor. For this paper, they were supposed to sit somewhere, record the specs of the first 25 T-shirts they saw, put those T-shirts in categories, then rank the categories into a hierarchy based on a single criterion and finally, analyze their findings (i.e. make conclusions about those people based on their T-shirt). This was an exercise to give them a better understanding of categorization as a scientific procedure and also to make them understand how it differs from stereotyping and how bad is the latter.
Most of the students found it an interesting exercise. For the sake of the paper, they played the devil's advocate, trying to make judgments about their subjects based on their appearance (they were not allowed to interview their subjects). And by the end of the paper, they concluded how stupid it is to judge people merely based on how they appear. Well, I hope they don't forget this lesson. Superficial judgment is one of the biggest problems we have in this world.
I found some of the papers very thoughtful and I have to say they gave me quite some insight about American society in general and American college students in specific. There were some who were really brilliant in their arguments. Yet, reading some of the papers confirmed something that I knew about American colleges, specifically SIU.
I'd already observed that here, porn is more important than justice. And then, I got to witness that porn is even more popular than faith. Already knowing that I'm living in a party-land, it is trivial that in Saluki way of life, alcohol has a very high value. Reading the papers confirmed this (whether alcohol is more venerated than porn in SIU remains to be seen). A lot of students had established a category for beer, bar, party or anything related to alcohol, even though the number of alcohol-related T-shirts in their sample didn't exceed 2-3 out of 25.
Some had made fun of it, and some had taken it seriously. And interestingly, some had ranked their categories based on popularity. And party-goers (or similar names for their categories) stood high in their hierarchy. All that didn't surprise me. It just gave me a deeper understanding of American collegiate life. But among all alcohol-inspired thoughts, this line stuck out and I will remember it for quite some time:
"I like beer and beer makes me happy which is why beer is one step above Obama. If Obama influenced my life the way beer did then he would probably be a step over beer, but he doesn't."
And this was from a student whose life has been influenced and improved by attending SIU. Isn't it great to be a PhD student in such a life-transforming school?
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