TFM
It’s no secret that COVID has seriously fucked up the normal way classes are taught in colleges across America. Many of us have to deal with a sixty-five-year-old woman trying to figure out how to share her screen for about fifteen minutes at least three times a week, and then on top of that there’s the pieces of pube that feel the need to fill any silence in a breakout room with bullshit questions about who’s got what major and where everyone’s from. It kind of sucks, but at this point I’ve gotten used to all that to the extent that I no longer think about dropping out every time some blowhard feels the need to unmute themselves and engage the professor in conversation about how his weekend was in a three hundred person Zoom lecture. Let’s face it, COVID has been hard on our professors too. I do genuinely feel bad when my public speaking professor is met with complete silence every class after asking how we’re all doing, but there are a select few members of collegiate staff that have had way too good of a time with this whole COVID thing.
I’ve had a few professors in the past ten months or so that have included a couple asynchronous class days into our schedule, and for that, I am wildly thankful. Not having to wake up for my 9:25am class last Thursday was immaculate, and I am already getting some blood flow to the nether regions thinking about being able to sleep in the next time that happens. I have to say, though, the professors that decided that because of COVID they’re just going to make the whole semester asynchronous and post videos each week for the students to watch should be subjected to some kind of torture. My personal proposition is that they be forced to sit in the bathroom with me every morning when I make my daily attempt at starting my day with a clean pinch, but that might violate some part of the Geneva Convention. Something needs to be done, though, because I don’t understand how posting videos each week even counts as teaching.
I won’t deny that I respect the fact some of these professors have found a way to completely avoid doing any of the work that they’re supposed to because that kind of successful laziness is something I strive for every day, but the fact is that if I have to deal with all the fuckery and anal torture of Zoom, so should they. It seems totally unfair that they get to pass on all their actual teaching to the TAs in recitations while we all have to struggle through all the assignments for the class – because who the fuck goes to asynchronous lectures? On top of that, the TAs all end up wildly unprepared to help with anything that actually has value because think about it: if you’re not going to the weekly lectures, what makes you think that someone who isn’t even being given a GRADE for the class wants to sit around and watch the videos? I actually dropped my only asynchronous class of this semester purely based on principle. I decided that spending my days plucking out my individual armpit hairs would be a better use of my personal time than watching some guy talking about Russian fairytales.
Luckily, I think this is the last semester those bastards will be able to get away with this. A lot of colleges are already hosting in person classes, and I think by next semester everyone will be. All that really means, though, is that we have to act now. I ask – no, I’ll use a big vocab word here – I implore anyone currently reading this and in an asynchronous class to bombard your professors with emails and ask as many questions as possible. Make them do their fucking jobs and teach. Otherwise, they’ll have gotten away with a year and a half of doing absolutely fucking nothing.
