It's just a little bit of murder

I am about one more stupid question from tearing my students limb from limb. They (well, really only two of them, but in a class of four, that's enough) are driving me so far up the wall I'm going to have to get suction-cup shoes and figure out how to eat while being upside-down.

Yesterday, we went to the computer lab to do some easy research for their next paper. They're all officially supposed to start as freshmen in August, but for various reasons are getting a jump on their coursework (for the two I want to murder, being good students is not the reason!). Their assignment was to research a major they were interested in (on the university's webpage - not all that trying) and use that research to write a short, informative essay on the major.

One of my students complained that this assignment was dumb and he couldn't see the point.

Which is funny. Most of the assignments have no intrinsic value - the students aren't learning important information, but rather are learning to write - and I've got no problem with them noticing this. But this one actually has value beyond the practice writing. I mean, they're gathering information about the major they want to sign up for . . . this is a good thing.

He also told me that he couldn't find any information. I showed him how (in 2 easy clicks) to get to the page he needed. Two minutes later he said he was done and asked if he could leave. There were 45 minutes left in class.

Also, if you hear "you might want to do X" from a teacher, you pretty much assume that they mean "if you want a good grade, you might want to do X," right? Not that they're just telling you that you might sometime wish to do that . . . seriously. And if you ask if you need to do something, and the teacher says yes, you wouldn't then say "I'm not going to do that - it's too much work."