What I Have Learned So Far As A Teaching Assistant

I am about one and a third weeks into my teaching assistantship trying to convince people that biology is interesting.  The sad part is that it's nominally a lab for the intro bio course for majors, so one would expect they're interested by default.  That, alas, would be an inaccurate assumption.  A few things I have discovered thus far:

• Assume you are teaching cabbages.  Rowdy, disobedient cabbages.
• Prior knowledge is probably not something you can depend on.  Hint: red blood cells do not attack antibodies.
• Don't show fear.  Undergraduates can sense fear.
• There is always an excuse.
• No matter how explicit you make it, it will be misunderstood or ignored.  For example, large italics saying "COMPLETE SENTENCES" on a slide will not make people realize they have to use complete sentences.
• Don't be afraid to say you don't know.  As in, "I don't know why I gave you a zero.  Can you please put the gun down?"
• When grading, treat misspellings as an adventure.  It's apparently possible to spell "rotten" with a "w."  I had no idea.
• Students write simply to get it over with.  Legibility, space on the page, or any semblance of sense are all secondary to the goal of putting things that might be letters together in assemblages that might be words in sequences that might be phrases that could, if you squint just right during a specific phase of the moon on the fifth Tuesday of the month, almost answer the assigned question.  Maybe.
• Being a good TA is a lot like being a good umpire.  You have to have a thick skin and very, very selective hearing.
• Pretty soon, you're just as eager as your little monsters are to get the hell out of the lab and be done for the afternoon.

I'm adding this last one well after initial publication, but that's because I ran across something way too hilariously depressing to not mention.

•  This one is filed under the "I don't want to live on the same planet as you anymore" heading.  To recap, I am teaching the labs for an intro bio for majors course.  I got to listen to one of my students complain to me about how the professor teaches the course as if the students are bio majors.  Apparently, it's easier for a non-major to gripe about the class being taught for the people the course listing says it's aimed at than it is to, say, register for a course aimed at all the business majors or aspiring Great American Novelists who will actually end up grinding out twice-weekly columns about local minor-league playhouses and their exciting upcoming production of Macbeth as told by Mrs. Smith's fourth grade class.

Now if you don't mind, I have some grading to do, followed by a play date on the nearest railroad crossing.