On strike!

Now, I'm usually a pretty big proponent of the "there are no stupid questions" theory, but come ON!  This semester, a number of my students have truly been pushing the limits of that theory (as well as the limits of my patience).  I like to consider myself a caring, compassionate, thoughtful presence in the classroom (as well as formidable in some degree); I'm not necessarily in the business of scaring the pants off my students, but every once in a while I sure would like for them to cut the crap and pay attention to my words.

On Monday I gave a final exam review session.  The potential was great: we were all present (save for two students), all had notes from the entire semester, all had review sheets partially filled out.  It should have been a walk in the park, really.  What happened on Monday, however, was far from its potential.

"Do we have to write essays for this exam?"

This is a dumb question because on the review sheet (which I had gone over) were the essay topics they had to write about.  What this question is really asking is, "Couldn't you please skip the essay portion of the exam and let us go without it?"

"Could you narrow down the works that the passages are going to be from?"

This is likewise a dumb question.  Primarily because it is asking for me to tell them not just how to study for the exam (which I've already done) but because it's asking me to tell them what precisely will be asked on the exam.  My answer was, "No."  There was a follow-up question.

"Well, but, if you don't narrow down the passage options for us, then, that's like...thousands of pages that we have to reread and study over.  Are you sure you can't narrow it down for us?"

I didn't entertain this question with more than a frustrated eye-roll and moved on to the next.

"Do you think you can change the format of the exam so that we have a wider selection and fewer to choose?  So, like, instead of having to choose five passages out of eight to identify, couldn't you give us, like, ten, and ask us to identify, like, three?"

No.  I couldn't.  This is college.  Come on.

Exasperated, I asked them if they had any questions about the review, any works that were giving them some difficulty.  Crickets.

Fine.  Review: wasted.

Between Monday and today (Wednesday), I had more stupid e-mailed questions from my students.  After I got a question about whether or not the first-person narrator should be called by the author's name (to which I responded, "no") with a follow-up of "well, then, what do I call the nameless narrator," I decided that I'm on strike.  No more stupid student e-mails for the rest of this semester.  Which ends in a matter of hours after my students take their exam.

So there.

Strike!