Audible gasp

One of the topics I wanted to cover in today's lecture was one that had left an impression on me when I first encountered it in my own undergrad days. There was some data in particular—evidence for the psychological reality of a theoretical construct—that I couldn't remember the details of, but did recall finding compelling and cool and spooky. I wanted to show this to my students today.

It took me a long time to dig up the relevant information, to come up with good illustrative examples, to make the appropriate slides, and to tie it into the rest of my lecture, and in the end, it just didn't seem as cool as I had remembered it being. I nearly left it out, but fortunately did not.

I say fortunately, because when I got to that bit in my lecture, I revealed this piece of data (without any especial emphasis or drama), and from a few of the students came an audible gasp. One of them let out a quiet, "Oh, my god!"

So for the rest of the day I have been remembering what it was like to come across new ideas like this, and compelling evidence for a theory, and to tie it all together for the first time. It gave me goosebumps then, and the reactions of my students gave me goosebumps today.

Is this really something to be proud of? Or to tell your lecturer?

I ran into one of my students today at a secondhand book fair. She was standing in a corner without any books.

"Haven't you found anything you liked yet?" I asked her.

"Oh no," she replied. "I'm just waiting for my brother. I don't, like, read books or stuff."

Observations of Little Consequence

My semester (as far as teaching goes) has been completely and totally uneventful. However, I have made two observations:

1) We have a feature on our online rosters where we can look at our students' ID pictures. This is great for trying to learn names. I've noticed though, that only one or two of the male students smile...the rest all have what are essentially mug shots. They all look like convicts. The girls are all smiling. What might one make of this? I think that the guys are trying to cop an attitude to look tough, perhaps.* Thoughts, anyone?

2) The semester has begun so smoothly, that I'm almost afraid I'm doing something wrong. Why are there no problems? Does this mean, that since this is an upper-division course, that my students are simply more mature and less dependent on me for their every need? I certainly hope so. But in the meantime, this is unnerving.

I have been utterly uninspired to post simply because things are going too well. I'm hopefully not jinxing myself (knock on wood), but I felt like I should share why I was absent.

*For instance, a lot of the male students have their jaw jutting forward and their head pulled back, while their eyes are half closed. Does that give you a sense of the visual? I wish I could post one of the pictures, but that is clearly out of the question.

Polling time

So, there's a student who got 16% on the assignment, but loses 20% in lateness penalties (10 days late at 2 percent per day). Do I give him 16% (many people in my department waive the lateness penalty if the student has failed anyway), 0%, or -4%?

More observations from the assignment

It's so disappointing when a student misinterprets the instructions for an assignment, and by doing so sets themselves a task that I would never assign, is boring as hell, and will probably put them off linguistics for life.

And then I have to try and work out how to mark it.

And again!

The student I mentioned below wasn't the only one who thinks grammar is a pain.

From another assignment:

"English grammatical inflection poses a particular hazard to young children."

I guess this student finds grammar a little painful

Marking assignments today, I came across this little gem:

"Played is the verb play with the past tense affliction."