February 23, 2008
If You Want to Slack, It's Less Work for Me
Guest Editorial by Dr. Louis Opfelt,University of Dayton English Professor
I used to get angry when I would give an assignment to a class of 30 students, only to find that less than eight people actually bothered to complete the work. I would think to myself: "Damn! That's just rude!" or some such thoughts.
These days, I have come to the conclusion that slacking students are actually doing me a favor, creating less work for me to grade.
Take my recent annotated bibliography assignment, for example. The class had three weeks to find 8-10 sources and write a paragraph on each book. Only 11 people bothered to do the bibliography, which meant that my workload for the other 19 students consisted of marking a zero in the gradebook. The next seven turned in some shit that they cobbled together at the last minute that did not come close to the expectations, and four people actually looked like they did the assignment.
Essentially, these slackers reduced my workload by over 60 percent!
That's more time for me to watch a hockey game on TV, or to work on my book, or to sashay over to the Déjà Vu strip club and watch a hot girl-on-girl stage show.
Actually, I made up that last part about the hockey game. I don't much care for hockey, and would rather surf for Internet porn, but the point is this: I have a lot more time to myself now that I have come to the realization that college slackers are my secret friends.
