28-52-2011: My brain on student papers

I’ve been trying all week to catch up on marking papers for my two University courses. At the end of it all, this is what my brain feels like. Cloudy, fuzzy, there is some strange pattern there but it’s hard to discern.

Seriously – I received papers that were ecological tirades when the instructions were “leave bias out of it”. I received claims based on corporate websites, and others based on websites maintained by eco-warriors. I received claims that “all the data shows…” and then provided one sketchy paper or web address. I was told that sea lice are jellyfish, and that a government body no longer involved in the industry at all is regulating everything.

I’m flabbergasted. Part of me wants nothing more than to abandon teaching this particular course altogether since it sucks so much out of me. The topic is controversial, and half the students that take it seem to think it is a course designed to bash the industry. Then they seem surprised when they get lashed for doing just that.

Where did higher level thinking go? Where did evaluating both sides of a topic and coming to an informed conclusion based on solid evidence go? Where did acknowledgement of missing information go? This is fourth year University, these are our future thinkers.

I think the only reason I keep teaching this course is because I feel that if I can temper some of the radical opinions by providing information and generating more factual discussion, I might help, just a little bit, in showing people that jumping to conclusions based on media bias, that not evaluating agendas behind propaganda, is dangerous. In science we are supposed to be sceptical, we are supposed to question and investigate.

It frustrates me and after marking 20 papers like this I just need a drink.