If my students learned something from me....

So this week is finals week and I have been grading and grading and grading. The professor assigned my students this silly reflection paper. They had to pretty much write what was meaningful for them this quarter and why. I disagree with the assignment, especially for a huge lecture english lit. class. And grading them is a nightmare- how can you put a grade on a reflection????? This paper might make more sense for a small small writing class or workshop class, but not for a lecture class. I mean all you are going to get is a bunch of BS papers were students don't care and are just sugar-coating things that they think the professor wants to hear. This is exactly what happened. Except for one paper. This is part of the paper that I actually appreciated:

"As for my prose, I am an arrogant child, who, just out of puberty, is finally learning how to shave. I use too much fluff. Frankly, I just enjoyed reading my own writing. I also enjoyed looking at myself in shiny objects. I maybe exaggerating. The point is, I really noticed improvement from my first essay to my second, and I think I owe a lot of that to the discussion section. My TA was instrumental in gently suggesting that I stop bullshitting as much as I did (I do), especially when it mattered. Great Advice.
As to this reflective essay: it was cathartic, after writing seriously for a quarter. I am not sure what you expected to get out of college students when presented with a purely opinion-based essay, but I tried to give, as candidly as I very possibly could, my answers to your questions."

So I guess my first quarter teaching (TA'ing for two discussion sections) is complete. I enjoyed my students and liked helping them, even it all I taught them was when is the right time to bullshit.