Daily Affirmations for Professors Today I will purposely fuel my students' worst fears. Today I will work to lower my students' self-esteem. Today I will dissasociate from my students. Today I will distrust each of my students on an individual basis. Today I will tell my students that phrenology is the dominant psychological movement of the day. Today I will require my students to purchase at least one product that wreaks havoc on the environment. I am entitled to the admiration I inspire. Today I will hang up on a student when the conversation bores me; later, I will say that the phone inexplicably disconnected. Today I will use sesquipedalian words to intimidate my students. Today I will teach my student what irony means by giving them a quiz while popping popcorn. Today I will play devil's advocate in class simply to annoy my students. I am surrounded by well-meaning little idiots. Today I will permit no talking during class discussion. I will laugh at a student today. Today I will remind students that Albert Bandura is a friend of mine. Sometimes, my email messages disappear if they are thoroughly ignored long enough. I have a right to change my students into who I want them to be. Today I will deliver my lecture starting from the end and working my way to the beginning. Unlike my students, I serve a purpose. Today I will practice a random act of unkindness on the weakest student in the class. Today I will develop a new and unhealthy communication technique. It is my inalienable right to wreak havoc in the lives of my students. Today I will show my students how rote memorization is the key to understanding. My fatigue is eternal. Today I will give my students an exam with questions taken exclusively from the text's footnotes. There are no stupid questions. There are only stupid students. Today I will show my students how the Socratic Method is nothing more than a well-desguised lecture. Regardless of what my students say, my tendency to overreact and lose all perspective makes me an interesting professor. Today I will teach Gilligan's In a Different Voice while calling only on the boys in the class. Everyone should change their schedules to accommodate me. Power is the only thing any of us have; therefore, I must hold on to it at all costs. Fooling my students is infinitely more important than teaching them to think. During office hours, I will read a book while students communicate their emotional needs to me. Today I will insist that my students adopt a fixed view of intelligence. Today I will point out to my students that in a fraction of the time it takes them to write a reaction to the readings, Thomas Jefferson conceptualized, drafted, finalized, and signed the Declaration of Independence. Today I will explain to students that the term "agency" is merely a cognitive psychologist's way of admitting that there is a Ghost in the Machine. The next time I have insomnia, I will crank call a student who has irritated me. Today I will spend class reading my latest article outloud, including tables and references. My tests are objective. I'm not. Today I will be derisive toward a student who is trying to be helpful. Today I will lecture on the ZPD without telling my students what the letters stand for. Daily quizzes are the stuff of life. Today I will create boundaries simply to shut my students out. Today I will call all my female students "Buffy" and all my male students "Biff." Today I will respond to all questions with "You want the truth?! You can't handle the truth!!!" When I get bored in class, I will verbally abuse a student. Today I will answer each of my students' questions with a more difficult question. Correlation is nearly always causation. Today I will begin every sentence of my lecture with "And you can count that this will be on the final." My life is harder than the lives of my students; therefore, I deserve praise for every little thing I do. Today I will make extravagant promises to my students; I will then follow through on nothing. If my students did the emotional work they needed to do, they would be better able to deal with my cruelty. Today I will allow my inner child to frolic by playing a prank on a student with low self-esteem. I am aging very well. Today I will call only on students who lower their head and fidget when I ask a question. As part of the self-efficacy unit I will show slides of train wrecks on mountains. Today I will remind my students that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, abandon their neutrality. I must incessantly talk, talk, talk, talk; otherwise my students may forget that I'm around. Today I will patronize my department chair. I have a right to whine. Today I will pick on the brightest student in the class. Money is more important than teaching. Today I will explain to my students that my dog ate their graded term papers. To get the attention I so rightly deserve, today I will wear my Freudian slippers. Today I will require my students to read a chapter from which pivotally important pages have been removed. Today I will test my students on the contents of the missing pages. I will nurture my students' insecurities and fears on this day. Today I will set a student up for failure. To illustrate sampling techniques, I will lower the self-efficacy of a student selected at random. Today I will remind my students that cooperative learning is for insecure people who aren't capable of doing things on their own. Today I will fight grade inflation by giving a quiz on next week's assignment. Today I will take credit for a students' idea. I am God's gift to education. Repeat: Students are the enemy, students are the enemy, students are the enemy ... Today I will explain to my students why it is that they will be forever trapped in a foreclosed identity status with no hope of escape. Today during class discussion I will respond to every student comment with "You think?" Today I will remind my students that I have tenure. Today I will make a desperate and impulsive decision that will powerfully influence a student's life. Today I will employ a handwriting expert to track down the identities of students who wrote critical comments on my teaching evaluations. My needs are more important than the needs of my students. Today I will remind students that Paulo Freire drove a BMW. The ethic of justice is superior. As a tribute to Freud, today I will displace on my students, act out when they object, rationalize my behavior as rigorous professional development, deny any damage I may cause, and sublimate by drawing naughty pictures on the SmartBoard. It is okay to lie to my students as long as it benefits me in the long run. Today I will talk my students into self-disclosing their emotional buttons so that I may push them at a convenient time. Today I will explain to my students why in psychology the baby must always be thrown out with the bath water. Today I will remind students that it is never okay to ask for help; one must do everything on one's own to ensure it is done correctly. Today, instead of taking a nap, I will lie in bed and make a mental list of each of my colleagues' imperfections. Never forgive. Never forgive. Never forgive. Repeat. Today I will have my students chant "We are all products of our reinforcement history." I will reward them with cheese puffs. Today I will begin class by reminding myself that my students are jealous of my genius. My genius is exceeded only by my humility. Students are oversensitive, underperforming, insecure crybabies. Today I will blame a student for my mistake. Today I will sigh deeply for no apparent reason. Today I will criticize behaviorism while simultaneously shaping my students using classical and operant conditioning methods. Today I will fail any student who does not know William James' birthday. Nothing I do is my fault. On the day before Spring Break I will assign a major project due the day after Spring Break. Today I will remind my graduating seniors that we are in the midst of the worst job market since the Great Depression. I give myself permission to diffuse my students' emerging identity. Today I will make it a point to sigh heavily during my students' presentations, then deny anything is wrong when they ask. Without pain and regret, my students would be emotionally numb. Today during class I will invalidate Vygotsky's contribution to education for the simple reason that he was Russian. Today I will deliver my lecture in mime. My Truths all come with capitals. I accept my students for what they are—materialistically driven little illiterates. Today I will invalidate the feelings and perceptions of an insecure student. I would reject the validity of IQ scores if mine wasn't quite so high (since you asked, 225). Today I will remind my students that there will be an exam late Wednesday afternoon the day before Thanksgiving. Nature trumps nurture every time. Today I will help my students realize that the light at the end of the tunnel is merely a reflection from the fires of hell. Today I will look back on my years in academe and remind myself of how perfect I am in comparison to all my colleagues. Everything is black and white. Nothing is black and white. I am only wrong when I fail to acknowledge that I am right. Ignore me at your peril. Some affirmations stolen or adapted from Today I Will Nourish My Inner Martyr, by Ann thornhill and Sarah Wells. Special thanks to Prof. Gio Valiante, who shares the same view of academe.