Schenectady Synecdoche

It's the URL for the word "trackback" at the bottom of the individual post. One of these days when I get some time, I'll do some tweaking to the interface, and remember to make the trackback thingy a little more evident. As far as the student-bashing goes -- yeah, I don't like it either, especially not when I catch myself doing it. But I'd want to carefully separate out "bashing" from complaining about one's day, of whom students (and colleagues) will necessarily be a part. And I recall being a rather rotten undergraduate in certain courses; sometimes, all that ego, angst, and self-centeredness so typical to teenagers does, indeed, merit complaint. I think the thing of it is that teachers talking about students -- because of the power relationships -- is always gonna be weird and possibly uncomfortable, whether it's bashing-style blame of students or conversion-narrative praise of students.

A good point (& thanx for trackback info). There's a difference between griping about students (I do plenty of that, without hesitation) and making fun of them. So my term "student-bashing" is too general; what I'm really talking about is the derision of students.