Confessions of a GTA: Part 5

Week 6 in a GTA calendar is filled with the undergraduates’ horror of fifth week mid-term tests. I honestly never thought that marking papers could be worse than sitting them. I was certain that this would be the subject of my confession today. However, on Monday I was highly irritated, which I know is fairly easy for me, but nevertheless this kind of behaviour should be stamped out immediately as it was certainly not like this in my day... I teach a class to a pretty cool crew of freshers on Mondays. During the last five minutes of a tough tutorial, I went over to a guy with his hand up. He was stuck on part of the problem, nothing out of the ordinary. I started to explain his mistake. Immediately he said, “I don’t understand”. As I had barely said anything yet, this seemed unquestionable. So I asked him what he did not understand, only to get, “everything” as the response. To start with, this is irritating. As a GTA, I am not contracted to re-explain the entire course up to now to him, particularly in the last five minutes of a tutorial, but perhaps he is feeling hopeless. We have all felt that way at some point at Imperial, after all. Trying to be patient, I ask him if he understood last week’s problems, and he said he had done them all as they were “ridiculously easy”. His words not mine.` I pointed out that his mistake was in part of the problem that was covered the previous week. This was his reply: ‘You are obviously talking rubbish because I have got this question right. The lecturer knows as little as you on this topic. I did this all at school and it was much easier with this method I have done here. I don’t know why I bothered coming.’ My immediate response was that I didn’t know why he bothered asking me! If you are so sure of your answer what is the point in a second opinion? I mean seriously, what is a GTA’s motive to lie? We are definitely not paid enough. I also wanted to point out I was top ten in my year, thank you very much, and passed this course pretty damn well (I’m doing a PhD in it), but then I felt stupid for wanting to justify myself to an 18 year old. What I couldn’t say was “Good luck with that method then, fresher. If you enjoy failing carry on.” On relating this to a fellow GTA, she told me another quite startling story. One of her students decided to email her to say that he didn’t do the homework and didn’t turn up to the (compulsory attendance) tutorial, because he definitely didn’t receive the email she sent him telling him when it was. Noting kindly in the e-mail that in future could she please ensure that he gets them? Looking down the email my friend saw he had sent this lovely note by replying to the email she had sent him in the first place. Nice. So the subject of this week’s confession? GTA’s do not care if you fail or not. No point arguing with us or lying to us. All we are there to do is help. Maybe you can help yourself and just ask us nicely.