Monday, August 20, 2007

UGH

Dear Graduate School Faculty:

When you are teaching accelerated graduate classes--three credit classes in an intensive 8-day, four-hour-per-day format--you don't need to assign busy work in lieu of actual academic papers. Of course it's necessary to tailor the degree of out-of-class writing and reading to a manageable level. But please, for the love of God, stop assigning Personal Belief Statements and Personal Reflections. These assignments are pointless, insipid, and irritating beyond belief. I'd much rather write a real two- or three-page paper. Don't ask me to write any more three-page Personal Belief Statements about IDEA or FAPE or literacy. I can't take it anymore.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm woefully undereducated, and when I read something like this, it further raises my anti-academic hackles.

You're a better man than I to stomach it.

Geoff said...

You're not missing much. I think Katie Couric has influenced graduate assignments: How does the likelihood of teaching students with ADHD make you feel?