Every child who has ever played a make-believe game of "school" would tell you that grading papers is awesome. Older elementary students love to trade papers and grade their desk neighbors' work (using a red pen, of course). For those young people who aspire to be teachers, grading papers is just the greatest thing. The reality, of course, is that grading papers is tedious. Those stacks of papers just pile higher and higher until the thought of actually getting through all of them is just overwhelming. Which is why teachers love the smiley face. Smiley faces are easy to draw and can be interpreted many different ways. How do you say, "Nice effort, but your work on this paper just proves my suspicion that you weren't listening to a thing I said yesterday"? Just draw a smiley face. Want to say "This isn't your best work, but you're so darn cute that I just can't bear to give you a bad grade"? Smiley face.
Smiley faces are like snowflakes: no two smileys are alike. Some teachers draw dots for eyes, others draw vertical lines. Some smileys have noses, and some don't. Some smiley faces are enclosed in a circle, and others are not.
Master teachers can draw an entire smiley face--two eyes, a smile, and a circle around it all--without ever picking up the pen or marker from the paper. If you are a teacher and you are not aspiring to this level of smiley face-ness, you need to reevaluate your goals and perhaps spend some time working on this.
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