I’m going to reveal a dirty little secret about educators. Okay, this is a secret about me that may apply to other educators. When students made funny mistakes on their written assignments–the kind that made me laugh out loud and forget the pain of grading piles of papers–I photocopied the gaffes and put them in a special folder. Whenever I needed a good laugh–like after a faculty meeting when we resolved to table a 90-minute debate over a comma versus a semi-colon–I’d pull out my Student Bloopers folder and engage in chuckle-therapy.

Is this mean-spirited? Maybe. Aren’t educators supposed to be compassionate? Of course. I corrected their mistakes and gave them another chance to submit their papers. But, come on. These bloopers were like finding real gold after panning a fool’s gold river for days. Would you throw the precious nuggets back?

It’s time when young people are heading back to college and when professors are preparing for the migration of students back to their classrooms. Let’s start off the academic year with a bit of levity. I’m sharing a bit of my Student Blooper collection.

(NOTE: All grammatical, spelling, and other errors are the students’. Read them carefully.)

  • In an essay about the Taliban: “Also the leaders of the Taliban demand that no women should show their faces in public or else they will be killed or even beat to death.”
  • Documenting the efficacy of America’s educational system: “I think the U.S. system of education is fine. I say this because I have been educated soley  in the U.S. and I feel pretty smart.”
  • Describing the effects of rape on the victim: “Memories are a hard thing to forget.”
  • Describing issues related to women in the workplace: “And older women are being told of new cases and experiments with their bodies such as menopause.”
  • Debating capital punishment: “You could be punished to death with the crime of cheating people when selling them beer. The means of execution were burning, frowning, and impaling on sharp sticks.”
  • Describing a primitive jungle culture: “The elder people are content with what they do, and the children play carelessly in the streets.”
  • Describing Domestic Violence Intervention programs: “But each case is different and can be referred to individual counseling or what’s needed in that case. If the case wasn’t cut clear then both parties should be in the program, because it takes two to tangle.”
  • Analyzing the drug problem: “Marijuana users can cum on a daily basis while the dealers have to wait for customers every day.”
  • Conclusion of a paper about sexual abuse: “To conclude this paper I would have to say that this is a subject that I really enjoy because it makes me realize what kind of sick world we live in.”
  • In a paper arguing the merits of euthanasia: “Notice above how good death is in quotes; I’m assuming that the quotations cause the great debate about euthanasia since most people today believe that quotations show some hidden meaning.”
  • Opening line in a paper for my Social Problems class: “This paper before you is one that should concern every single person on the face of the earth.”

Should I send this paper to the FBI? CIA? NATO? English Department?