Tonight is my last Friday evening to teach this term. I’ve been teaching the express semester for the past year, wherein I cover everything between the Big Bang and postmodernism over the course of three weekends: four-hour Fridays, eight-hour Saturdays, and five-hour Sundays. I’ve been very happy with the quality of students: they, for the most part, are up to the challenge of completing an entire college course within this condensed timeframe. If I think about it too much, however, I recognize my own coginess within the conveyor belt of higher education.

I abhor the accreditation board-required pre- and post-exams. First off, they make no sense, especially on the questions that I don’t cover at all. I can’t cover everything between the Big Bang and postmodernism! That would take millions of years, and human beings are finite. That’s one thing I’m most certain of these days. What are they interested in measuring anyway: the students’ memory? my teaching ability? Regardless, it’s yet another hoop I must jump through in order to retain my professional credentials. And my own coginess within the conveyor belt of higher education.

I recognize that my job is literally to pump out credentialled drones who can successfully complete standardized exams and not ask too-difficult a question when it comes to reality or anything between the Big Bang and postmodernism. Especially “god.” My one student–who stayed up till 2:00am one evening Googling everything I taught earlier that evening just so he could sound intelligent arguing against everything I taught the next night–will be perfect for the new economics. I elect him to be master of us all. And may his NASCAR-watching bastard brood rule in succession from the throne of drone. Just goes to show you that if you can find it on the Internet, then it must be TRUE … like all the conspiracy theories about how scholars rewrote history to disprove huge chunks of the Bible. “I yawn in your general direction, not only because I’m tired of teaching your hillbilly ass something worth knowing, but because your ‘scholarship’ via Google puts me to sleep.” I disengage from my own coginess within the conveyor belt of higher education. It looks like I have a new contender for my job.

Class dismissed.

Tonight is my last Friday evening to teach this term. I’ve been teaching the express semester for the past year, wherein I cover everything between the Big Bang and postmodernism over the course of three weekends: four-hour Fridays, eight-hour Saturdays, and five-hour Sundays. I’ve been very happy with the quality of students: they, for the most part, are up to the challenge of completing an entire college course within this condensed timeframe. If I think about it too much, however, I recognize my own coginess within the conveyor belt of higher education.

I abhor the accreditation board-required pre- and post-exams. First off, they make no sense, especially on the questions that I don’t cover at all. I can’t cover everything between the Big Bang and postmodernism! That would take millions of years, and human beings are finite. That’s one thing I’m most certain of these days. What are they interested in measuring anyway: the students’ memory? my teaching ability? Regardless, it’s yet another hoop I must jump through in order to retain my professional credentials. And my own coginess within the conveyor belt of higher education.

I recognize that my job is literally to pump out credentialled drones who can successfully complete standardized exams and not ask too-difficult a question when it comes to reality or anything between the Big Bang and postmodernism. Especially “god.” My one student–who stayed up till 2:00am one evening Googling everything I taught earlier that evening just so he could sound intelligent arguing against everything I taught the next night–will be perfect for the new economics. I elect him to be master of us all. And may his NASCAR-watching bastard brood rule in succession from the throne of drone. Just goes to show you that if you can find it on the Internet, then it must be TRUE … like all the conspiracy theories about how scholars rewrote history to disprove huge chunks of the Bible. “I yawn in your general direction, not only because I’m tired of teaching your hillbilly ass something worth knowing, but because your ‘scholarship’ via Google puts me to sleep.” I disengage from my own coginess within the conveyor belt of higher education. It looks like I have a new contender for my job.

Class dismissed.