Here is a rant I considered doing earlier. This is the one about grading papers. I never realized how much trouble this was when I was just an undergrad writing the papers. It seems that my fellow TAs who don't care about their students have an easier time. I honestly want my students to do well (at least most of them), and I've gone to covering their names so that I won't know who's paper I'm grading. It really upsets me when I give a paper a low grade and then uncover the name of one of my more involved students (most of them are really apathetic because this is a required course). I can say that I now understand why undergrad proffs were so happy with papers that I thought were mediocre. My worst paper ever was better than most of the ones I'm grading now.
On the other hand, this is the second set of papers I've had to grade, and I actually see improvements in some of the areas I called attention to the first time. I don't feel that my comments are going unheeded. Seeing some of my students improve really makes me proud (sure, it's cheesy, but true). I see why teachers love what they do. (there are times when I can also understand the frustration)
So, any of you who are students, next time you get a bad grade, consider the fact that your instructor or teacher or TA probably didn't enjoy giving that grade any more than you enjoyed getting it. It really IS different from this side.
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