MOAR referencing

At the start of every class I pick up my trusty whiteboard marker and write a list of what I will be covering in the lesson. This keeps me on track as well as providing my students with an overview of what they will be learning during the session. Earlier this week, in amongst things like "spelling", "annotated bibligraphy" and "essay structure" I had written "MOAR referencing". Being a fan of the internet lolcats/I can haz cheeseburger phenomenon I felt I was being humorous and witty (particularly since it was getting to the point where my dear students were chock-a-block full of all things referencing - both intext and reference list citation). So it was with comic intent that I chose to spell "more" lolcat style rather than in the "more" academically acceptable way. I assumed that everyone was familiar with lolcats, so imagine my mild surprise when a young man very politely raised his hand and asked me why I had spelled "more" as "moar". Imagine my further surprise when upon further questioning of the class I discovered that they were not indeed either familiar or enamoured with "teh funnee talking kittehs". I had made a rookie mistake, assuming that my students had the same cultural capital and knowledge that I did. I had done the same thing the day before, when (during a session on referencing again) I was befuddled by the confused looks when I kept referring to "n.d.". Finally, I realised that what I assumed was straightforward, everyone-knows-this information ("n.d. stands for "no date") was no such thing. Once I quickly explained it (along with n.p. for no page) we were all set and back on the same page. Do I have a point in regaling you with these anecdotes about my teaching week? Well, sort of - in a very basic way. It's this: as educators, we cannot assume anything of our students. It is very easy to forget that what is easy and self-explanatory to us is foreign, alien and downright confusing to students. As tertiary educators we live and breathe a particular culture that like all cultures has its own practices, jargon and discourses. When we throw a student into that culture, we need to take the time to gradually induct them into our culture. They are strangers in a sometimes very strange land.Of course this is not to say that our students do not arrive in our classrooms without complex and interesting cultures of their own. They do. And it is the capacity we have as educators to find points of connection between these various cultures that can make tertiary education such a rich experience for all concerned.