End of term and care bear murder

One does not simply walk into the office to collect work at the end of term.

If it is at all possible the students become all the more demanding at the end of term. These are usually the students who have spent all year not handing in their work. To be fair to them this does show some sort of commendable behaviour. Any student who can go a whole year ignoring the continuing looks of death, the slow stroking of bolt cutters whenever a lecturer asks where their work is or the extraordinary amount of sadistic sarcasm dripping down the office walls, has some real determination of character, or they’re just really fucking stupid. I place my money on the second one. These students seem to slither their way out of the woodwork at the end of the year when they realise they are about to go out into the world without a qualification, and as it turns out a qualification is essential to their working lives. The student population seems to double like a parasitic swarm as student after student shamefully make their way into the office. A lot of time you didn’t even realise these students existed. They stumble in showing about as much spatial awareness as they have academic and you spend a good few minutes thinking ‘who the fuck are you?’ as they whittle on about how much work they have left to do. I like to give them names based on where I think they are going to end up in life, so at least I have some sort of reference in my head. For example in the last week I have encountered; Bin lid, JK (Jeremy Kyle) and dead. The last one is more of a hopeful dream than a reflection on their abilities. Unfortunately the education system has changed and you are no longer allowed to throw out an insult scattered with swear words and kick them out the door. You are supposed to help all students achieve. Quite frankly this disgusts me. Lecturers end up doing more work than the students as we attempt to wrap them up in a soft little cloud so tightly that it could strangle a care bear. However apparently this is not a concept universally accepted by the higher ups so we are forced to bow down to Ofsted and make sure every student passes.

Whilst this concept is most irritating (I’m not overly enamoured by the concept of rainbow based murder), it is nothing in comparison to the attitudes of the students around this time. The universe suddenly jolts to find a new centre of gravity and revolve only around this one spot. A typical conversation goes as such:

“Have you marked my work yet?” Notice no “hello”, no “please”.

“What work?” I know exactly what work bin lid means but I like the cause a little bit of frustration considering the jealousy of their blood pressure over mine.

“You know that one we had to do that table for” proving that they have no idea what the assignment is called, what it’s for and clearly they have not learnt a thing.

“When did you hand it in?” Blood pressure beginning to rise again.

“Yesterday” Assignment hand in cut off time is 3pm. It’s 9am the next day. I believe the expectation here is that at 3pm the previous day I would have rushed down to the reception and grabbed the assignment whether it had been tracked in or not. Perhaps a lord of the rings worthy battle would have ensued with the reception staff. I of course would have ran straight back to my desk and marked the work, or perhaps if I was still teaching or doing any other work I would have taken it home, because this is what I live for. I live to mark the work of students who apparently have no concept of time or space, lack the ability to construct a polite sentence and contribute to my never ending reliance on my homicidal imagination.

“Oh yesterday well bin lid I thought I would use your measurement of time which seems to be completely different to everyone else’s but according to you completely acceptable. So lets see; this assignment is 3 months late, I’ll drop you an email in September” Blank face.

“It’ll be marked when I get round to marking it” blank face.

“Leave”.

Bin lids assignment is sat on my in tray at the top of the pile. It instantly makes its way to the bottom of the pile. It’s these little tricks in life that bring a smile to my face.