University English professor Louis Masson recently asked his students to send him, in writing, the questions they really wanted answered. Excerpts.
Have you ever seriously regretted teaching? Is it our fault?
How much money does a professor make?
How do the University really decide who gets tenure?
What one thing brings you most joy?
Do you treat athletes different than other students?
Have you ever read a student’s paper that you wished you had written?
Do you ever get so annoyed with a student you want to just smack them?
Have you ever had an assignment that you couldn’t grade?
Why in Pride and Prejudice do you sometimes see a long line in front of the word shire?
Why do English majors get grades if art can’t be graded?
Boxers or briefs?
What keeps you going?
What kinds of students do you remember the most and longest?
Do you feel like you read more papers from students who are not that bright than from students who are?
Are you generally impressed with what your students give you?
What impresses you most in a student?
Is being good-looking a benefit or a detriment to a student’s grades?
Do teachers think that a well-groomed student has not spent enough time studying?
How important is it to wear formal attire when teaching?
Why in heaven’s name do you enjoy Wordsworth?
Why do you get out of bed and come here every day?
Does the phrase those who can’t, teach, bother you?
Why are you so happy all the time?
What was your worst grade in college?
At what point in your career did you feel like an expert in your field?
Why does society value education and intellectual achievement so much more than pretty much everything else?
Will you teach me Latin?
Do you know why I am here?
Do you actually feel good when students earn top grades or could you not care less?
Where did you go to college?
You recently said, If only I was twenty years younger and knew what I know now… but what is it you know now?
Do you really know what you are doing or are you just pretending?
Why is it that when we are asked for our own opinion or are asked to interpret something, we get graded for it by what is right and wrong in your mind? It’s our own opinion!
Why do you take attendance?
Do you like creating more work for yourself when you assign twenty-page papers?
Why don’t you ever see a contemporary poet?
Do we have to write a paper about poetry?
Do you enjoy making students stressed and upset when you give exams and papers that are impossible?
If there is little punctuation in a poem, are we supposed to stop at the end of each line or read continuously until a punctuation mark?
Why does poetry, and all literature in general, have to have some sort of deeper meaning?
Why are we forced to take calculus if we will never use it again after school?
Can you make class short today?
