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You know you're not in college anymore when..... Dire Straits
Lessons Adults learn from Kids Politically Correct Student Excuses.
Tips for Computer Science Lecturers.
One of the fringe benefits of being
an English or History teacher is
receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper
in an essay. I have
pasted together the following "history" of the
world from certifiably genuine
student bloopers collected by teachers throughout
the United States, from eight
grade through college level. Read carefully,
and you will learn a lot.
The inhabitants of Egypt were
called mummies. They lived in the Sarah
Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate
of the Sarah is such that the
inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain
areas of the dessert are
cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians
built the Pyramids in the shape of a
huge triangular cube. The Pramids are a
range of mountains between France
and Spain.
The Bible is full of interesting
caricatures. In the first book of the
Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from
an apple tree. One of their
children, Cain, asked "Am I my brother's son?"
God asked Abraham to sacrifice
Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob,
son of Issac, stole his brother's
birthmark. Jacob was a partiarch who brought
up his twelve sons to be
partiarchs, but they did not take to it.
One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave
refuse to the Israelites.
Pharaoh forced the Hebrew
slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led
them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened
bread, which is bread made
without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses
went up on Mount Cyanide to get
the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew
king skilled at playing the liar. He
fought with the Philatelists, a race of people
who lived in Biblical times.
Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and
500 porcupines.
Without the Greeks, we wouldn't
have history. The Greeks invented three
kinds of columns - Corinthian, Doric and Ironic.
They also had myths. A
myth is a female moth. One myth says that
the mother of Achilles dipped him in
the River Stynx until he became intolerable.
Achilles appears in "The Illiad",
by Homer. Homer also wrote the "Oddity",
in which Penelope was the last
hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey.
Actually, Homer was not written
by Homer but by another man of that name.
Socrates was a famous Greek
teacher who went around giving people advice.
They killed him. Socrates died from an
overdose of wedlock.
In the Olympic Games, Greeks
ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and
threw the java. The reward to the victor
was a coral wreath. The government
of Athen was democratic because the people took
the law into their own hands.
There were no wars in Greece,
as the mountains were so high that they
couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors
were doing. When they fought
the Parisians, the Greeks were outnumbered
because the Persians had more men.
Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks.
History call people Romans
because they never stayed in one place for very
long. At Roman banquets,
the guests wore garlic in their hair. Julius
Caesar extinguished himself on
the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March
killed him because they thought he
was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel
tyrany who would torture his poor
subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
Then came the Middle Ages.
King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur
lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harlod mustarded
his troops before the
Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized
by George Bernard Shaw, and
the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on
their necks. Finally, the Magna
Carta provided that no free man should be hanged
twice for the same offense.
In midevil times most of the
people were alliterate. The greatest writer
of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems
and verse and also wrote
literature. Another tale tells of William
Tell, who shot an arrow through
an apple while standing on his son's head.
The Renaissance was an age
in which more individuals felt the value of
their human being. Martin Luther was nailed
to the church door at Wittenberg
for selling papal indulgences. He died
a horrible death, being
excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter
Donatello's interest in the
female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance.
It was an age of
great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg
invented the Bible. Sir Walter
Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented
cigarettes. Another
important invention was the circulation of blood.
Sir Francis Drake
circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
The government of England
was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking
difficult because he had an abbess on his knee.
Queen Elizabeth was the
"Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success.
When Elizabeth exposed herself
before her troops, they all shouted "hurrah."
Then her navy went out and
defeated the Spanish Armadillo.
The greatest writer of the
Renaissance was William Shakespear.
Shakespear never made much money and is famous
only because of his plays. He
lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing
tragedies, comedies and errors.
In one of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations
out his situation by
relieving himself in a long soliloquy.
In another, Lady Macbeth tries to
convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking
his manhood. Romeo and Juliet
are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing
at the same time as Shakespear was
Miquel Cervantes. He wrote "Donkey Hote".
The next great author was John
Milton. Milton wrote "Paradise Lost."
Then his wife dies and he wrote
"Paradise Regained."
During the Renaissance America
began. Christopher Columbus was a great
navigator who discovered America while cursing
about the Atlantic. His ships
were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa
Fe. Later the Pilgrims
crossed the Ocean, and the was called the Pilgrim's
Progress. When they
landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by
Indians, who came down the hill
rolling their was hoops before them. The
Indian squabs carried porposies on
their back. Many of the Indian heroes were
killed, along with their
cabooses, which proved very fatal to them.
The winter of 1620 was a hard one
for the settlers. Many people died and
many babies were born. Captain John
Smith was responsible for all this.
One of the causes of the Revolutionary
Wars was the English put tacks in
their tea. Also, the colonists would send
their pacels through the post
without stamps. During the War, Red Coats
and Paul Revere was throwing balls
over stone walls. The dogs were barking
and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the
colonists won the War and no longer had to pay
for taxis.
Delegates from the original
thirteen states formed the Contented Congress.
Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin
were two singers of the
Declaration of Independence. Franklin had
gone to Boston carrying all his
clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under
each arm. He invented
electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared
"a horse divided against
itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and
is still dead.
George Washington married
Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father
of Our Country. Them the Constitution of
the United States was adopted to
secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution
the people enjoyed the
right to keep bare arms.
Abraham Lincoln became America's
greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother
died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin
which he built with his own
hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore
only a tall silk hat. He said,
"In onion there is strength." Abraham Lincoln
write the Gettysburg address
while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg
on the back of an envelope.
He also signed the Emasculation Proclamation,
and the Fourteenth Amendment gave
the ex-Negroes citizenship. But the Clue
Clux Clan would torcher and lynch
the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims.
On the night of April 14, 1865,
Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his
seat by one of the actors in
a moving picture show. The believed assinator
was John Wilkes Booth, a
supposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth's
career.
Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment
was a reasonable time. Voltare
invented electricity and also wrote a book called
"Candy". Gravity was
invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly
noticeable in the Autumn, when the
apples are flaling off the trees.
Bach was the most famous composer
in the world, and so was Handel.
Handel was half German, half Italian and half
English. He was very large.
Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven
wrote music even though he was
deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music.
He took long walks in the forest
even when everyone was calling for him.
Beethoven expired in 1827 and later
died for this.
France was in a very serious
state. The French Revolution was accomplished
before it happened. The Marseillaise was
the theme song of the French
Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the
crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their
shoes. Then the Spanish
gorrilas came down from the hills and nipped
at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon
became ill with bladder problems and was very
tense and unrestrained. He wanted
an heir to inheret his power, but since Josephine
was a baroness, she couldn't
bear him any children.
The sun never set on the British
Empire because the British Empire is in
the East and the sun sets in the West.
Queen Victoria was the longest queen.
She sat on a thorn for 63 years. He reclining
years and finally the end of
her life were exemplatory of a great personality.
Her death was the final
event which ended her reign.
The nineteenth century was
a time of many great inventions and thoughts.
The invention of the steamboat caused a network
of rivers to spring up.
Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick Raper,
which did the work of a hundred
men.
Samuel Morse invented a code
for telepathy. Louis Pastuer discovered a cure
for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturailst
who wrote the "Organ of the
Species". Madman Curie discovered radium.
And Karl Marx became one of the
Marx Brothers.
The First World War, cause
by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf,
ushered in a new error in the anals of human
history.
The Final Exam!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
INSTRUCTIONS
Read each question thoroughly. Answer
all questions.
Time limit--four hours. Begin immediately.
HISTORY
Describe the history of the Papacy from
its origins to
the present day, concentrate specially
but not exclu-
sively, on the social, political, economic,
religious,
and philosophical impact on Europe, Asia,
America, and
Africa. Be brief, concise and specific.
LITERATURE
Compose an epic poem based on the events
of your own life
in which you see and footnote allusions
from T.S. Eliot,
Keats, Chaucer, Dante, Norse mythology
and the Marx Bro-
thers. Critique your poem with a
full discussion of its
metrics.
MUSIC
Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate
it and perform it
with flute and drum. You will find
a piano under your
seat.
LOGIC
Using accepted methodology prove the following:
That
the universe is infinite; that truth is
beauty; that
there is not a little person who turns
off the light
in the refrigerator when you close the
door, and that
you are the person taking this exam.
Now disprove all
of the above. Be specific; show all
work.
PHILOSOPHY
Sketch the development of human thought;
estimate its
significance. Compare with the development
of any other
kind of thought.
MEDICINE
You have been provided with a razor blade,
a piece of
gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove
your own appendix.
Do not suture until your work has been
inspected. You
have fifteen minutes.
BIOLOGY
Create life. Estimate the differences
in subsequent hu-
man culture if this form of life had developed
five hun-
dred years earlier, with special attention
to the pro-
bable effects on the English Parliamentary
system. Prove
your thesis.
PSYCHOLOGY
Employing principles from the major schools
of psycho-
analytical thought, successfully subject
yourself to
analysis. Make appropriate personality
changes, bill
yourself and fill out all medical insurance
forms. Now
do the same to the person seated to your
immediate left.
SOCIOLOGY
Estimate the sociological problems that
might accompany
the end of the world. Show how boy
meets girl theory
developed. Construct an experiment
to test your theory.
ECONOMICS
Develop a realistic plan for refinancing
the national
debt. Trace the possible effects
of your plan in the
following areas: Cubism, the Donatist
controversy, the
wave theory of light. Outline a method
from all points
of view. Point out deficiencies in
your point of view
as demonstrated in your answer to the last
question.
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Define a computer. Define Science.
How do they relate?
Why? Create a generalized algorithm
to optimize all com-
puter decisions. Assuming an 1130
CPU supporting 50 ter-
minals, each terminal to activate your
algorithm, design
the communications interface and all the
necessary con-
trol programs.
PUBLIC-SPEAKING
2,500 riot crazed students are storming
the classroom.
Calm them. You may use any ancient
language except
Latin or Greek.
PHYSICS
Explain the nature of matter. Include
in your answer an
evaluation of the impact of the development
of mathe-
matics on science.
AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE
Outline the steps involved in breeding
your own super
high yield, all weather hybrid strain of
wheat. Describe
its chemical and physical properties and
estimate its im-
pact on world food supplies. Construct
a model for
dealing with worldwide surpluses.
Write your Nobel Prize
acceptance speech.
COMPREHENSION
Three minute time test. Read everything
before doing any-
thing. Put your name in the upper
right hand corner of
this page. Circle the word name in
sentence three. Sign
your name under the title of this paper,
after the title
write "yes, yes, yes,." Put an X
in the lower left hand
corner of this paper. Draw a triangle
around the X you
just put down. On the back of this
paper multiply
703x668. Loudly call out your name
when you get to this
point. If you think you have followed
directions care-
fully to this point call out "I have."
Punch three small
holes in the top of this paper. If
you are the first per-
son to get this far, call out "I am the
first person to
this point, I am leading in following directions."
On
the reverse side of this paper add 8950
and 9850. Put a
circle around your answer and put a square
around the
circle. Now that you have finished
reading carefully,
do only sentence two.
POLITICAL SCIENCE
There is a red telephone on the desk behind
you. Start
World War III. Report at length on
its socio-political
effects, if any.
EXTRA CREDIT
Give today's date--in metric.
CHEMISTRY
Beginning with Schrodinger's equation,
derive all
physical and chemical properties of water.
Discuss
why it is the "universal solvent" and its
role in
all physico-biological processes.
You may not ap-
proximate in your derivations.
GEOGRAPHY
On the unmarked world map on the next page,
correctly
sketch in and label all the world's rivers
that an-
nually discharge over 4.3x10^10 metric
tons of silt.
PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCE
Compare and contrast the chemistry and
side-effects of
every leading brand of analgesic with those
of Kings
Soopers brand aspirin. Give all relevant
data and
graphs.
ENGLISH
Trace back to proto-Indo-European the etymologies
of
every English word containing "sk".
Give all pos-
sible cognates in German, Spanish, Czech,
Illyrian,
and Sanskrit.
SPANISH
Translate Homer's "Odyssey", Plato's "Republic",
and
John Irving's "The World According to Garp"
into Old
Spanish. Discuss in full all ambiguities
that arise
from the cultural barriers in humor and
idioms between
the two languages.
LATIN
Translate the works of Shakespeare into
Ig-pa Atin-la
and provide a comprehensive pronunciation
guide. You
are required to preserve all rhyming schemes
and met-
rical devices.
GEOLOGY
Describe the complete 4.5 billion-year
geological his-
tory of North America. Be sure to
include effects due
to volcanism, erosion, meteoritic impacts,
strip-mining,
and prairie dogs.
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
Design a gamma ray relay system for intercontinental
communications. Discuss all possible
design and imple-
mentation problems and a systematic method
for testing
the system.
MATHEMATICS
Restricted to just one sheet of paper,
a pencil, and
basic arithmetic, you are to calculate
the values of
the first twenty Mersenne primes containing
the digits
in David Lee Roth's telephone number.
Show all work.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Using the molecular model kit underneath
your desk,
construct a complete model of a human epithelial
cell.
Demonstrate all cellular processes with
your model,
including anaerobic glycolysis, protein
production,
and mitosis. You may not collaborate
with your neigh-
bors.
GENETIC ENGINEERING
Using all accepted methods of genetic engineering,
out-
line the procedure for developing a hybridoma
that will
produce peanut butter. Do it.
Note: You will flunk if
you should happen to develop an incurable
disease.
Excuses, Excuses!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is a partial list of actual written
excuses given to teachers
in the Alburquerque public school system by parents
of students:
1. Dear School: Please excuse John from
being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30,
31, 32, and also 33.
2. Please excuse Dianne from being absent
yesterday. She was in bed with
gramps.
3. Please excuse Johnnie for being. It
was his father's fault.
4. Chris will not be in school because
he has an acre in his side.
5. John has been absent because he had
two teeth taken off his face.
6. Excuse Gloria. She has been under the
doctor.
7. Lillie was absent from school yesterday
because she had a going over.
8. My son is under the doctor's care and
should not take fizical ed.
Please execute him.
9. Carlos was absent yesterday because
he was playing football. He was
hit in the growing part.
10. My daughter was absent yesterday because
she was tired. She spent this
weekend with the Marines.
11. Please excuse Joyce from P.E. for a
few days. Yesterday she fell off a
tree and misplaced her
hip.
12. Please excuse Ray Friday from school.
He has very loose vowels.
13. Maryann was absent Dec. 11-16, because
she had a fever, sore throat,
headache, and upset
stomach. Her sister was also sick, fever and sore
throat, her brother
had a low-grade fever. There must be the flu going
around, her father even
got hot last night.
14. Please excuse Blanche from jim today.
She is administrating.
15. George was absent yesterday because
he had a stomach.
16. Ralph was absent yesterday because
he had a sore trout.
17. Please excuse Sara for being absent.
She was sick and I had her shot.
18. Please excuse Lupe. She is having problems
with her ovals.
Test Mistakes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A teacher forwarded this list of comments from
test papers, essays, etc.,
submitted to science and health teachers by elementary,
junior high, high
school, and college students.
As she noted, "It is truly astonishing what weird
science our young
scholars can create under the pressures of time
and grades."
"H2O is hot water, and CO2 is cold water"
"To collect fumes of sulphur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube"
"When you smell an oderless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide"
"Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin.
Oxygin is pure gin.
Hydrogin is gin and water."
"Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillars."
"Blood flows down one leg and up the other."
"Respiration is composed of two acts, first inspiration,
and then
expectoration."
"The moon is a planet just like the earth, only it is even deader."
"Artifical insemination is when the farmer does
it to the cow instead of
the bull."
"Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down
on them and makes them
perspire"
"A super saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold."
"Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas."
"The pistol of a flower is its only protections agenst insects."
"The skeleton is what is left after the insides
have been taken out and the
outsides have ben taken off. The purpose of the
skeleton is something to
hitch meat to."
"A permanent set of teeth consists of eight canines,
eight cuspids, two
molars, and eight cuspidors."
"The tides are a fight between the Earth and moon.
All water tends towards
the moon, because there is no water in the moon,
and nature abhors a
vacuum. I forget where the sun joins in this
fight."
"A fossil is an extinct animal. The older it is, the more extinct it is."
"Equator: A managerie lion running around the Earth through Africa."
"Liter: A nest of young puppies."
"Magnet: Something you find crawling all over a dead cat."
"Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away."
"Planet: A body of Earth surrounded by sky."
"Rhubarb: A kind of celery gone bloodshot."
"Vacuum: A large, empty space where the pope lives."
"Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if
the blood is affirmative or
negative."
"To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose."
"For a nosebleed: Put the nose much lower then
the body until the heart
stops."
"For dog bite: put the dog away for several days.
If he has not recovered,
then kill it."
"For head cold: use an agonizer to spray the nose
untill it drops in your
throat."
"To keep milk from turning sour: Keep it in the
cow."
You know
you're not in college anymore when....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. At 6am you're waking up instead of going to
bed.
2. Beers at lunch get you reprimanded.
3. College sweatshirts are 'casual' instead of
dress-up.
4. The 4 food groups are no longer beer, pizza,
ramen and cereal.
5. It's 'getting late' when it's 9:30 p.m.
6. Three Words: Student Loan Payments.
7. You make thousands of dollars a year - and
still can't afford that dream car.
8. You start eyeing the Light Beer section appreciatively.
9. Naps are no longer available between noon
and 6 p.m.
10. Sneakers are now 'weekend shoes'.
11. Dinner and a movie becomes the whole date,
instead of the beginning of one.
12. "Your girlfriend's pregnant"-brings thoughts
of tax breaks instead of coronaries.
13. Jack and Cokes become Dewers on the Rocks.
14.The only drugs you take are Tums and Tylenol.
15.You get your news from sources other than
ESPN Sportscenter and MTV News.
16. You find yourself reminiscing fondly of 2-hour
Calculus exams.(Just kidding!!!)
17. You empathize with the characters from 'Friends'.
18. METABOLISM SLOWDOWN.
19. Wine appreciation expands beyond Boone's
and Mad Dog.
20. You actually eat breakfast foods at breakfast
time.
21. When drinking, you say at least once, 'I
just don't have the tolerance I used to'. (not applicable to the Sacramento
Delta group)
Lessons Adults
learn from Kids.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
There is no such thing as child-proofing your
house.
If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run
over them with roller
blades, they can ignite.
A 4 years-old's voice is louder than 200 adults
in a crowded restaurant.
If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan the
motor is not strong
enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing a superman
cape.
It is strong enough, however, to spread paint
on all four walls of a 20
by 20 foot room.
Baseballs make marks on ceilings.
You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling
fan is on.
When using the ceiling fan as a bat you have
to throw the ball up a few
times before you get a hit.
The glass in windows (even double pane) doesn't
stop a baseball hit by a
ceiling fan.
When you hear the toilet flush and the words
"Uh-oh" it's already too
late.
A six year old can start a fire with a flint
rock even though a 36 year
old man says they can only do it in the movies.
A magnifying glass can start a fire even on an
overcast day.
If you use a waterbed as home plate while wearing
baseball shoes it does
not leak -- it explodes.
A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill
a 2000 sq. foot house 4
inches deep.
Legos will pass through the digestive tract of
a four year old.
Duplos will not.
Play Dough and Microwave should never be used
in the same sentence.
Super glue is forever.
McGyver can teach us many things we don't want
to know.
No matter how much Jell-O you put in a swimming
pool you still can't
walk on water.
Pool filters do not like Jell-O.
VCR's do not eject PB&J sandwiches even though
TV commercials show they
do.
Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.
Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when
driving.
Always look in the oven before you turn it on.
Plastic toys do not like ovens.
The spin cycle on the washing machine does not
make earth worms dizzy.
It will however make cats dizzy.
Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.
Quiet does not necessarily mean don't worry.
A good sense of humor will get you through most
problems in life
(unfortunately, mostly in retrospect).
PC Student
Excuses.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- No one fails a class anymore, he's merely "passing impaired."
- You don't have detention, you're just one of the "exit delayed."
- Your bedroom isn't cluttered, it's just "passage restrictive."
- These days, a student isn't lazy. He's "energetically declined."
- Your locker isn't overflowing with junk, it's just "closure prohibitive."
- Kids don't get grounded anymore. They merely hit "social speed bumps."
- Your homework isn't missing, its just having an "out-of-notebook
experience."
- You're not sleeping in class, you're "rationing consciousness."
- You're not late, you just have a "rescheduled arrival time."
- You're not having a bad hair day, you're suffering from "rebellious
follicle syndrome."
- You don't have smelly gym socks, you have "odor-retentive athletic
footwear."
- No one's tall anymore. They're "vertically enhanced."
- You're not shy. You're "conversationally selective."
- You don't talk a lot. You're just "abundantly verbal."
- You weren't passing notes in class. You were "participating in the
discreet exchange of penned meditations."
- You're not being sent to the principals office. You're "going on
a mandatory field trip to the administrative building."
- It's not called gossip anymore. It's "the speedy transmission of
near-factual information."
- The food at the school cafeteria isn't awful. It's "digestively challenged."
Dire Straits?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
And who says our educational system is in dire straits? I
submit these compilations as testimony to the debate, taken from children,
newspapers, and teachers:
"This paper needs a few comas."
"When papa passed away they burned his ashes and brought them home in a
urinal."
"We sat down to a picnic dinner of fricken chicasee."
"You shake milk in a big stirrer machine to make it homicidal."
"At the Knights of Columbus dinner, they will serve the same fish as last year."
"Tomorrow Helen Henry visits the home of a retired Navy Captain and his wife, an exotic U shaped structure."
"LOST: Male cat. Needs medication. Owner very worried, neutered and declawed."
"Winners at the card party were William Davenport, a turkey, and Mrs. Trudy Baker, a chicken."
"Dear Teacher: Stanley had to miss some school. He had an attack of whooping cranes in his chest."
"Dear Teacher: Lynda was away as she had stripe infection."
"Dear Teacher: Please excuse the stink on Bill's clothes. We've been spraying the garden because it is full of abnoxus incests."
"Dear Teacher: Please excuse Jane. She had an absent tooth. Wednesday she will have an appointment with the orinthologist."
"Dear Teacher: Please excuse my daughter's absence for the past week, as she had a case of the fool."
Tips for Computer
Science Lecturers
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The Unofficial Manual for Graduate Teaching Assistants Teaching Introductory Computer Science Courses for Non-majors
LATE HOMEWORK When a student turns in his/her project two weeks late and asks for full credit, accept the late work and tell them that it will be awarded full credit. However, do inform them that you will not have time to grade it until after you complete your Ph.D.
DISRUPTIVE STUDENTS 1. If students will not stop talking when the class period begins, announce that there will be a quiz the following day on today's lecture. Then leave. 2. If your students are prone to reading the school paper in class, try taking out a full page ad in the paper informing them that they are going to flunk your class.
LECTURES 1. In the event that you are unprepared for a lecture, be sure to use the class time to stress to the class the importance of keeping up with the readings. In fact, spend most of the class time stressing this. 2. When the time comes to lecture on a subject you know nothing about, the art of controlled digression is invaluable. Here, you try to incite unrelated questions from the class which you answer at length. Then at the end of class scold them for digressing and tell them they'll just have to get the material from the book.
GRADING 1. Always use a fire engine red felt-tip marker with a 1/2 inch tip to grade papers. Position your comments strategically so that they spell "DUMB" when seen from a distance. 2. You may grade assignments however you like. Here is a guide to quick and easy grading: 20 % Name 20 % Penmanship 50 % Homework is stapled together 10 % The work itself Warning: Be prepared for a 60% class average.
GRADING ERRORS If student A approaches you complaining that an answer on their exam was marked incorrect but was marked correct on student B's exam, promptly mark student B's answer incorrect as well. This will redirect the heat from you onto student A.
EXTRA CREDIT 1. If students request extra credit to make up for the homework they didn't turn in, be sure to make the opportunity available to them. Some good extra credit problems are: Solve the dining philosopher's problem, using semaphores. Write a C compiler for the Commodore 64. Translate Moby Dick into ASCII-8 code with a leftmost odd parity bit. Design a replacement for the 80486 chip. Build a File Allocation Table (FAT) out of balsa wood. 2. You may also wish to tell the student that they can do extra credit work while you decide whether to accept it. When the student turns in the work, decide against it.
CHEATING 1. When it is obvious to you that several people have copied each other's homework, grade one person's work on a separate sheet of paper, then photocopy your comments onto everyone else's homework. 2. Should you have very skilled cheaters in your class, try giving incorrect information during your lectures. This should result in incorrect answers on exams. Examples that have proven effective include: The three components of a computer system are Larry, Moe and Curly. The only possible digits in the binary system are 0, 1, and 2. The three components of the CPU are the ALU, REGISTERS and cheap bathroom lighting fixtures. The microphone is an output device. "Booting" the computer involves waving a large magnet over your hard drive for 60 seconds. MS-DOS is the operating system for the CRAY Y-MP. When preparing to purchase a new computer system running Windows, you should make sure it has at least 128,000 bytes of main memory. Protocols include saluting your computer and calling the mouse "sir". CPU stands for Ceramic Public Urinal. Structured Programming says that you can write any computer program using only three basic control structures: Sequence, Selection and Guessing.
LAB You are expected to spend at least 4 hours each week in the lab
to assist with student's questions. Students have been known to come up
with some real beauties: "Why should I save it? I wasn't done yet." "My
disk erased itself!" "Hurry up, I need help. This was due last week." "Directory?
What's that?" "What do I need my textbook for? I'm using a computer." Here
are the solutions to the most common problems: P: "The screen is blank
- I can't see what I'm doing" S: Turn on the monitor P: "How do I get into
Windows?" S: Stare at it long enough and it will start to look like candy.
P: "I can't get this computer to do anything." S: Have them move to a computer
that has a keyboard. P: "The stupid printer printed the wrong file." S:
Reprimand the printer. P: "WordPerfect didn't do what I told it to do."
S: Tell them they have to earn its respect first.