I have been sitting at home all weekend, trying not to hate the shitty students and trying to bolster my self-esteem and willingness to do the job by working hard to focus on the good ones. I have fall syllabi to write. As I think about how I need to modify the basic course syllabus I have employed for the last 3 years, it just kills me that all of my modifications are centered on how to deal with the lazy shits who don't need to be in college.
How to dock them points for not coming to my class, even though I'm philosophically opposed to such point-docking. How to make my syllabus SCREAM of my intent to fail plagiarists. How to set up traps for the lazy, the uninspired, the fresh-air-stealers. How to ensure, through multiple and diverse grading opportunities, that all of the Fs and Ds and Cs and Bs will be unassailable grades, able to withstand grade appeals managed by the even the most molly-coddling administrators...
It's so exhausting.
