The Blackboard Horror Picture Show

Ugh. Some days, I enjoy teaching. And other days, my students make me want to crawl into my bed and never come out. This week was one of those weeks that made me want to retreat under a blanket.

First off, my school is ripe with entitled hipsters. I feel like every character in Lena Dunham's show Girls got placed in one school. Some students are legitimately well-qualified, hard working, and intelligent. But a great deal of them show up to school with Longchamp purses, Ugg boots, designer sunglasses (it's winter people!!!) and expect you to hand them good grades. I sometimes think the school let them in so they can use tuition money to buy the deans more alcohol. 

These are the types of kids that will talk incessantly about how the 2 weeks they spent in Africa really changed their lives because they realized how hard it is to live without fresh water to wash your hair. Or how they are going to start their own non-profit to solve their pet project of an issue. Or how they can't focus on their homework without their anxiety medication because no one is listening to their feelings. 

Another student told me about her extremely rich father who has a great deal of political influence, and how he can pull strings to get her into any medical school she wants to go to. This was all on a casual shuttle ride to my office. This made me really mad, because unlike people with great social connections, my brother and I both had to work at real jobs, score well on the MCAT or the GRE, and apply to schools to get to where we are right now.

Two weeks ago, we handed back a problem set involving some scientific calculations. I docked students for not using the correct units. It sounds petty, but units are really important in science. The 1998 Mars Orbiter exploded because the scientists didn't specify what units they used. In toxicology, which is what the homework was about, you literally can kill someone if you don't use the right units. 

I docked students 1 point for putting the wrong unit down. This was out of 2 points, so they still got partial credit. This generous for a science class. 

After the set was handed back, a student yelled at me after class for docking one point due to incorrect units. I tried explaining that units are non-negotiable standards, and the math clearly supports the units specified in the answer key.

This student didn't care. The student argued that points should be returned because units are dumb and it is repetitive to keep writing them.

Turns out, this same student later wrote a long email to the instructor justifying the original answer and demanding the point back. Which was returned, but didn't significantly increase the score.

Last week was the midterm. I sacrificed my Monday to grade and score the tests. On Tuesday night, I uploaded the grades onto Blackboard and checked the first 12 of 36 student scores to make sure the upload worked correctly. They looked good, and then I checked one at the bottom just to be sure, and it was ok. So I called it even.

On Wednesday night, I had more time to double check the scores on Blackboard, just in case. I then realized that some of the scores were uploaded incorrectly, while others were ok. So, I had to go back and check each score individually to make sure they were ok. As if this wasn't embarrassing enough, I had to email the class and the instructor to inform them of what happened. 

Literally 2 mins after the email was sent, I got a few happy emails from kids whose scores improved. And one nasty email from the same previously mentioned student that looked like this:

Me (to the entire class): Hi class. Your midterm grades are available online. There was a slight misfunction with the grade uploaded earlier. If you checked earlier today, the grade posted may not have been your real grade. The grade posted now is your real score. Sorry for the mix up.
It: What do you mean by misfunction? Will the cause for the difference in grades be clear when we get our exams back?
Me:The issue is not with the scoring of the test, but with the Blackboard upload. Instead of seeing your score, you saw someone else's score.The grades on Blackboard now match your score on the exam.
It: Well whoever originally saw my score is probably a lot happier than I am right now.

What the what?! Like I am supposed to magically change her real grade?! What did she expect me to do?! Feel bad enough that I would permanently change her score?

My co-worker knows this person from college. She informed me that the student forwarded her the sent messages. The forwarded email had an extra bit of text acknowledging that the student knew the email was mean, but sent it anyways. 

Ugh, I am so sick of the hipsters.