Helping & Laughing or What we remember about our students

In the end, I helped him, since I was just sitting here, not doing much. Too bad that now he's done and I still have ALL my finals from U#2 to grade! :-(

Here is the pile of exams (there were two of those!) whose student names and grades I read to K so he would input the data into the computer:

In any case, it was hilarious! I'd read a name and he would say, "Oh, that guy isn't doing well" or "That student has really improved throughout the semester" or "S/he won't pass!" "S/he is a really good student!" "He's got great handwriting -- can you see how neat it is?"

In many cases it was an ethnic comment: "Oh, that's a Korean guy."  "That's a Chinese-American girl, and that's not her actual name, it's ....".  "This guy is African, can't remember the country" (he said that one twice).

Or comments about their major, sport or other association: "This one is from engineering" or "That's the chemistry girl" and "that guy is from chemistry too." "She's the dance major I told you about, I don't know if she will pass." "That's the guy who plays a sport [couldn't remember which one]." "S/he is from the armed services and was worried about her scholarship."

Or about their physical traits: "He's got very nice blue eyes." "She has red hair, and these big glasses.""He's a little clumsy."

The funniest were completely random and K couldn't help but laugh every time I read a name and he remembered the random facts: "That guy broke his foot." "That one hit a deer with his car and couldn't come to several classes" (and then I'd ask "Did he break his foot?" "No! That was the other one!" and we'd laugh and laugh). And "He would always joke in class! When Friday came he would celebrate 'It's the last day of the week, YAY!'" "He sat with the Chinese-American girl." "That was the guy who played trombone in class once." "Ah, that guy came to every single office hours in the new building and he enjoyed it!" "That was the guy who complained about the grading and made me change the parameters." And so on and so forth!

At the end K was laughing and saying "I've got something to say about every single one, right?" Except for one or two about which he said "He disappeared in the middle of the semester and came so few times to class that I can't even remember what he looks like/anything about him."

Yeah, it was fun! I will try to come back and blog about this one student of mine that blew my mind when he wrote a composition about his house. But that's for another time!

Teaching is fun sometimes!