My English Teacher, the Anti-Christ

Before a new semester gets underway, I thought that I would share this story from last semester.

Due to a teacher shortage, I got stuck with a double-section of our upper-level writing class. Normal class sizes were maxed out to the highest that I had seen in our Center in the few years that I worked there, and here I ended up with a double-section. Although I had taught larger class sizes than this before (in China), I had never taught writing to such a large group. I thought I was going to fail miserably.

I suppose that it did no help that I am trying to build a reputation as the meanest teacher in the whole Center (fueled only by my pronouncements to my class that I am the meanest teacher in the whole Center). It is possible that some students actually believe this declaration, but as the semester wore on, it became apparent that few (if any) put an credence in this statement. However, by wonders of wonders, I may have actually convinced a single student.

In my course evaluations, I got the usual teacher feedback (helpful, prepared, organized) along with the usual course feedback (relevant material, writing is important but hard, good preparation for university, I think this class is too big). So no surprises, but I did enjoy the comments from one student:

This teacher has no Christ-like attributes. He is no caring, kind, patient. He is cold-hearted person.

Not to make light of this student's apparent pain (nor to make fun of his grammar), but I admit that I smiled - and even chuckled - when I read this. As I completed reading the evaluations, another interesting comment came up.

On the first major paper the teacher gave me zero score and I was totally shocked and upset. Can you believe it? This is horrible teaching style.

Anyone want to wager a guess that the first and second comments came from the same student? Course evaluations are supposed to be anonymous, but when a student makes revealing comments such as these, it doesn't take much detective work to figure out that these comments were made by the student whom I warned about plagiarism in his draft (and who sent me a rude email explaining that he had never been so insulted in his life and to whom I responded calming and kindly even though I was more than a little angry at his rude email and whom I invited to meet with me but who never came and who then quickly shut up when I explicitly and privately showed him the plagiarism in class), and then who did little to fix the plagiarism and as a result got a zero score just like I had warned him repeatedly.

So what do we learn from this story?

If you persist with plagiarism, your teacher is the Anti-Christ.

I think that is a good moral. Can't wait for a new semester of writing students. I'll share this story and maybe, finally, students will believe it when I tell them that I am the meanest teacher in the Center. After all, I have a student's testimony.