Someone Just Had Pizza, And Wants To Tell Smackdown to Step Aside

I am offended by the haughtiness displayed earlier this week about the occasional donut or slice of pizza in class.

Perhaps the angry professor who sent in his "smackdown" might consider that he should do what he thinks is right in his classroom, and let the rest of us do what we wish.

I know that my students work very hard for me. I assign extra reading, extra writing, and they sometimes stay late to finish group work that we do as a part of our curriculum. I make their work for me mean something, have serious deadlines, and I set goals that are hard to reach.

And once a semester I spend $20 on pizza (usually during dead week), and we sit around and talk about all we've accomplished. If you see that event as being symptomatic of some sort of "extension of grade school," it's because you are seeing that event out of the context.

Not a one of my students would tell you that my class is like grade school.

At the end of a challenging 15 weeks we blow off some steam and have a meal together, like colleagues, like questers who've finished a journey.

If that's not your style, then don't do it. But don't deny it to those of us who choose to celebrate and thank our students for their hard work in this way.

PS: And after we had pizza, about half of us made our way across to the Student Union and got ice cream. Shame on us, I guess.

Smackdown On The Whole Donut Thing

A reply to the donut post.

I refuse to think of college students as "kids." They aren't kids, though each is someone's child. They're young to be sure. But they are also old enough to vote and old enough to die in battle. Some have already been to Iraq and back with National Guard units. Who are you calling "kid"?

I'm impatient too with donuts. And candy, whoever is giving it out. As one of my students, seemingly going mad, said to me, "It's demeaning!" I'm tired of, "He's a great teacher, he always lets us out early." Oh, and pizza. Especially on filling-out-evaluations day. I think that a professor should use class meetings as intended (or replace them with even more-time-consuming stuff like individual conferences). Don't pander with "treats." Have students over for a meal, if you'd like to share food and conversation. That's a genuine learning experience. Let your students see where and how you live. They'll likely be nervous as hell, but it'll mean something to them, and they'll remember it.

And I'm impatient with crayons, and drawing pictures in class. I'm impatient with classroom games: wordsearches, bingo, and the rest of it. And the dreary "group presentations" followed by weak applause. I'm impatient with faculty members who semester-by-semester cheapen the value of an education by turning college into an extension of grade school.

With May Approaching, and With a Bit of a Sugar High, Someone Is Feeling All Gooey

My students today brought in donuts for everyone and a giant mocha latte for me today. It was just a regular class, 2 weeks to go in the semester, and the 4 or 5 who arranged it said it was "Just because."

That's the kind of thing that makes the amount of work I have to do all seem worth it. I have my days like any other university professor, and I think about the private sector, the money to be made, getting out from under my 3 committees, my task forces, my dinners with Trustees, and those sometimes troubling and needy students. But on mornings like this one, with a group of 15 happy and laughing students, white powdered donut mustaches on us all, I couldn't ever imagine leaving.

You made my day, "kids," and although I'm pretty sure none of them will see it, I just want someone to know that it meant the world to me.

Some Press From Minnesota - Some Flava from the North

Profs vent online about their students
Professors put off by teacher-rating Web sites have retaliated with their own site.
By Jamie VanGeest
University of Minnesota Daily

Disgruntled professors are fighting back against professor-rating Web sites by creating a site of their own. The blogging site Rate My Students is a place on the Web where professors can post about the complaints and struggles of being an educator. On the Web site, bloggers remain anonymous and the comments about their students can be scathing.

Someone who identified as a tenure-track English professor from a Minnesota school had some complaints about students. The professor’s post read, “As a group, you’re lazy, unmotivated, and you are eager to lie to my face about the most minor of matters. You treat me with such casual disrespect — tardiness, phony stories about missing class, casual plagiarism — and yet you — and your parents — expect me to treat you like rare geniuses in my care.”

University English professor Michael Dennis Browne said this person might have psychological problems and could be taking it out on students. “This professor sounds disturbed to me and should try another career,” he said. Browne said he doesn’t see the function of having anonymous Web sites such as Rate My Students and Rate My Professors. “I think anonymity lets the bugs scurry out from under the stones,” he said.

Joel Weinsheimer, also an English professor, said he really questions whether the Web site really promotes teaching. “If (as a student) I read I was lazy, unmotivated and eager to lie to your face, I would not be much inclined to learn more in this class,” he said.

Hall of Fame Post #12: Indiana Checks In and is More Than A Little Naughty

A first year professor of Math from a college in Indiana writes:

L makes me wish I wasn't married. He's so sweet and yummy and here I am with a brand new ring on my finger. When I lean against the overhead projector I can't tell if it's the bulb warming me up, or just his eyes on my ass.

Someone Gets all Global

I urge my Business Communications colleague to take heart. As I occasionally whisper to my better students, the next time faculty members begin rhapsodizing about globalization, multicultural sensibilities and other touchy-feely nonsense, they ought to consider that the under-35-age populations of Iran, India, and China number in the hundreds of millions, and their pent-up aspirations are partly informed by the internalization of a Western-style work ethic that our equivalent demographic has largely abandoned.

If there is any truth to the millennial notion of an imminent age of international commerce, I figure our current crop of students will be roadkill in matter of just a few years.

NY Times Blurb Appears And Here's Some Flava

Turning the Tables on Students

THERE is dishing it out and there is taking it, and then there is the convoluted case of rateyourstudents.blogspot.com.

The Web log was started in November 2005 by a professor at a liberal arts college in the South as a satirical riposte to ratemyprofessors. It was not a ratings site in the traditional sense; professors wrote to complain, often ruthlessly and hilariously, about their students' unearned sense of entitlement, their ditziness, their laziness, their clothing choices.

Almost immediately, scores of messages came in attacking the site. Professors found the comments undignified; students complained that they were misunderstood and victimized. "My major field adviser is a stinking drunk" and "my psychology professor tries to look up my skirt," wrote one student from a college in New Jersey. So "while you're all getting your jollies picking on students, please realize we're not all the same, and not all of us deserve your scorn."

The site in time evolved into less a nasty catharsis than a forum for professors and students to explain themselves. But the condemnation continued: some threatened to identify the site's founder to his colleagues; others, thinking they were the subject of a slander, threatened legal action. In February the site was hacked into and taken down.

The creator handed it over to three fans, also professors, and it is back online, though the new administrators say it gets about half the messages than in the most heated days. Still, the battle rages.

Someone Is Worried About the Future of America

I try very hard to accept the modern student. I've been teaching for almost 30 years now, and still remember the halcyon days when students actually dressed for class, when they arrived on time, and took part in class actively. These notions are apparently completely outside the bounds of what the modern student thinks to be civil or possible, so we get what we get.

And I've modified my teaching in all the ways I've been told I must. I offer entertaining classes. I challenge them less. I hand out grades like they were Halloween candy; students get them for just ringing the bell.

But last week's 3 pm Business Communications class about did me in.

• B walked in carrying a Sports Illustrated and a muffin, but no paper, pen, or textbook.
• C took her shoes off as soon as she got into the room and put her bare feet up on a neighboring desk.
• D, and this was not unusual, arrived in "pajama" bottoms with Spongebob Squarepants all over them.
• In the middle of class, E wondered if we might go outside and sit on the grass because it would help her "concentrate better."
• F said, apropos of nothing going on in class, "Man, those Chinese are really getting powerful."
• G laughed out loud once during my lecture, and when I peered over to see what had happened, saw a wide open newspaper on his desk.

I'm not saying that this is typical, or that the modern student has doomed us all, but is there anyone out there being successful in getting students to take class seriously? It seems that the only time I can get my students' attention is when I holler "midterm exam" or "final exam." And even then it takes a bad grade to get them motivated and willing at least to argue about that.

Some of these students are seniors, presumably on the cusp of entering the world, being in charge, taking over, leading whatever will be the future of the country. Am I the only one worried?

On Being a Wimp

I have good intentions, or so I like to believe.

But yesterday I realized that I'm just another wimpy professor who'd rather be liked than almost anything else.

When confronted with a student who simply hasn't done his work as assigned, I sat there nodding my head like one of my son's bobblehead toys as the explanation and empty apology came out.

I tried to be tough. I started by saying that since the lab report was not prepared as assigned, I wouldn't accept it. Then the student - usually a good worker, usually active in class, a supporter in class - got this hurt and damaged look. I backtracked, saying perhaps I could dock the whole thing a grade.

This, too, was met with incredulity. The student said, "I'm really surprised. You always say in class that the learning is the most important thing. And I've really learned from this."

And then I just wimped. I took the report. The student smiled big, said, "Dr. Xxxxxx, you are the coolest teacher I've got this semester." And then he disappeared.

Along with my good sense.

Advice to Parents: Which College Major is Best?

Here’s a quick guide to which major holds the most promise for your child.

With college fueling the fun factor in young adult entertainment these days – just look at the pizza boxes and beer bottles littering dormitory hallways every morning – it’s no surprise that youngsters are flocking to college. In fact, over 91.6 percent of all college students are between 17 and 22 years of age, according to statistics.

The biggest question faced by new college students is what to major in. Each major touts different benefits, from self-actualization to automatic entry into the upper middle class, and each major can help young adults in different ways. So which major is best for your child? We asked D. Thornley Asparagus, Ph.D., associate professor and author of numerous unread publications, to match typical childhood personalities with majors:

The bullied child
The major: computer science
By majoring in computer science, you’ll be able to get revenge on co-workers who think you’re ugly by remotely downloading child pornography onto their desktops and then notifying the company’s IT administrator of ‘excess bandwidth usage.’ Computer science majors earn large incomes and work long hours, so they can easily meet their material needs while having no friends. For the bullied child who majors in computer science, adulthood will be a very familiar experience.

The chubby child
The major: business
Just like the chubby child, the business major draws attention, appears important while consisting mostly of flab, and consumes resources that could be more productively used elsewhere. These qualities enables an obese recipient of a business degree to feel self-important despite being a cost liability to any employer’s health insurance provider.

The child who needs to find inner peace
The major: religion
Religion majors learn that slaughtering – or at least condemning to Hell – anyone who doesn’t think exactly the way they do is completely acceptable because that is God’s will. Nothing produces peace of mind better than learning that faith in a Supreme Being absolves you of any need for independent thought or for taking responsibility for your actions.

The ill-mannered child
The major: athletics
For the ill-mannered child who needs more sunlight than employment as a prison guard can provide, athletics is the perfect major. Students who major in athletics (sometimes alternatively known as ‘physical education,’ ‘sports management,’ or ‘let’s create a major so you maintain your NCAA eligibility’) learn that it’s not how you play the game that counts, but whether you get probation for your third sex offense. Ill-mannered children who major in athletics receive all the assistance they need, in the form of cash, cars, and when all else fails, grade-fixing, to successfully complete their college education.

The distracted child
The major: education
Distracted children are well-suited for the education major, because in college those who major in education don’t really learn anything anyway. The education major represents the triumph of form over substance, so paying attention, mastering unfamiliar material, and acquiring new knowledge are totally optional.

Some "Hard Truth" That Runs Both Ways This Morning

An Open Letter to the Mentor that Abandoned Me

Dear Professor,

I just wanted to thank you for all the extra time you spent mentoring me these past two years. I was more than happy to talk with you about the classes I was TAing for you, all the papers I was grading for you, all the work I was editing for you. I was more than happy to tell you that you were doing a great job, even when I didn't think it was true. I didn't mind the extra work, and I didn't mind supporting you when you were down. After all, you were my mentor.

As long as we were talking about you, your work, your theories, your interests, you had all the time in the world for me. But, as soon as I actually began to struggle, you walked away. As soon as I said, "You know what? I need help with this," then I was "needy" and I craved "attention." Thanks for the "hard truth" instead of support. Thank you for deciding that it was best for me if I worked on my own. Thank you for deciding that you didn't have time to help me after all.

You ignored me, and instead of offering instruction you brushed my concerns away and just said, "You're smart, you'll get it, just keep working." Then when the work wasn't as good as expected, and you realized I needed a little more help than you wanted to give, you walked away.

Now, you say you are burnt out. I have taken too much from you. Well, you know what? I'm burnt out, too. Maybe I should just give up. I should know how to walk away from something that disappoints me. After all, I had you for a mentor.

On Knowing the Material

I am a professor. I understand perfectly well about students who work the graveyard shift and are then tired during my class, who are taking my class to fulfill a requirement but are not interested in the material, and so on.

I don't even get irritated at the students who try to claim that because they are not interested in the course, they should not have to do the work. I know they realize this is implausible. What amazes me though, are the students who truly believe that they are no longer responsible for the material covered in the prerequisite courses to my course (courses they passed) because these courses are over.

I wish these students would realize that courses are given in a certain order for a reason. I even have some who think that once they've been tested on something, it should never come up again -- not realizing that the things we test them on are the things they need to know precisely because they will come up again.

Generally speaking though, I would say that professors are more irritating than students. More neurotic. The irritating professors are those who believe that because they have their degree, they no longer need to learn anything, and they have the right to lord it over everyone else.

What Should Really Be Given As Instructions On the Day You Pass Out Student Evaluations In Class

To be Read by the Instructor:

Each quarter, Xxxxxxxxx Colege asks students in every course to complete a Course Evaluation form. Your honest, thoughtful responses provide us with vital information we use to evaluate and improve courses. We also use the information to gather data on your instructor. If he likes to wear dresses on the weekend, for example, the data we get from you will allow us to fire him for something other than being freaky-deaky.

Your responses provide important information we use to evaluate part-time instructors for re-hiring and scheduling of future classes. Although, to be fair, part-timers are so cheap and pliable, that unless you report that your instructors have been sodomizing animals in lieu of lecturing, we'll probably hire them all back and put them in your classes again next semester. It gives a nice break to our real professors who are trying to get ready for tenure and promotion.

At the same time, part and full-time instructors use your responses – and particularly your written comments – to help improve our courses and our teaching. At least in theory. Some just toss them in the bin right away, cackling at how silly your little concerns are.

It’s important for you to know, however, that we instructors will not see your responses, or the summary of them, until after your assessments have been submitted. In other words, the anonymity of your responses will be protected. We ask that you be fair, candid, and constructive in your comments. Besides, we've saved some innocuous class quizzes from early in the semester so that we can match your handwriting, and if you make even the slightest negative comment, we'll find who your next profs are and collude to give you so much hell you won't believe it.

At this point, I’m going to turn the process over to [student volunteer/person too stupid to avoid the job], and I’ll leave the room while you complete your forms. Thanks for your cooperation. I'll be out in the hallway, relishing an extra 15 minutes away from you and your criminally small brains and bad attitudes.

Hall of Fame Post #11: Waiting

A week ago I assigned 14 pages of reading from our Econ text, the first part of chapter 5. It's not a bad book, not as these things go. There are charts, graphs, even a photo of Tiger Woods that fills half a page. My instructions in class were: "Read the pages from chapter 5, answer question #1 or #2, and be prepared to tell me about a situation in your own past where you were paid for doing something."

I sent an email to my class with the same info 2 days later.

Today I walked into my classroom, my 85 students sitting politely in chairs, books on their laps, smiling, peaceful, the class of someone's dream, perhaps. I took my coat off, arranged my papers, turned on the microphone and smiled back at them.

"Who wants to start," I said. "Let's start easy and have someone tell me what the main message of the chapter was?"

There was no sound. The peaceful looks vanished. Pages began to flap. I could feel a breeze.

"Well, then let's just talk about a time when you were paid for something. Remember the chapter talks about private transactions versus public transactions."

Nothing again. This is my second year of teaching, but I'm already tired of the bullshit of a dead class. I leaned into the microphone and said, "Don't you know that we came here today so I could help you? Don't you know that I've done the reading? Don't you expect that it's your turn now?"

I guess I looked pretty upset because a few hands went up.

"What," I barked at a girl in the front row.

"What chapter was it we were supposed to read?"

On Drunks, Well-Rounded-ness, and Inspiration - And Maybe a Little Bit About Balloon Animals

From a professor:

On occasion an indignant student comes across this site and offers objections that invariably fall into a few general categories. 1) students aren't all bad, 2) we don't love/need your subject, 3) you aren't inspiring as teachers, so why should we be inspired students?

Of course not all of our students are stupid, lazy, cheating drunks. If they were, we'd leave y'all to your stupid, lazy, cheating, drunken selves. If you show intellectual curiosity about our classes, we'll begin to see that you aren't like your peers. The problem is that your stupid, lazy, cheating, drunken classmates make things difficult for the rest of you. Use some peer pressure to tell these jerks that it isn't okay to be that way. Your classes and college will be much better places as a result. Also, many of us worked during our BAs, and most of us worked as teaching assistants during our graduate educations. We understand about being over-worked, low on sleep and stressed. If there is some short-term problem that will hinder your performance, please let us know.

As for the "I don't need this class; it's not in my major" complaint, you may be right that some classes are in your general education requirements because faculty politics make it impossible to change them. For the most part, though, the classes are included because they give skills and knowledge students do need to be well-rounded. Courses stay in the core for another reason, namely that they help you to do better in your major classes. It is often the case that a course gets added to the requirements by the people in your area. Since you trust them with the knowledge about what you need to do with your future, you should trust them that you need this non-major course.

On the "my instructor isn't inspired" complaint, remember that the classroom is a cooperative arrangement. You need to participate in your education and not just watch us like we are on TV. While some professors may try to reach you with balloon animals and juggling, most of us just have ideas and concepts. They inspire us, and we hope to introduce them in a way that will inspire you.

This Blog's Narrow View Gets a Boot Sized Hole In Its Ass

A new student reader writes to tells us the "the kids are all right."

After googling RMP, a site I have used frequently in the past to attempt to mold even a vague impression of an instructor whose teachings I am about to invest money in, I stumbled upon your blog. I read through the archives, noting the descriptions of stereotypical college students whose lives revolve around drinking, parties, apathy toward school, and having no sense of reality due to their parents funding their educations.

One of the things I have learned as a college student thus far is to not generalize. This is the foremost issue I have with your blog. Your unabashed pride and haughtiness about what you do reminds me of a squad of cheerleaders bragging about their pyramids and how their football team would be nothing without them. Yes, you are professors. Yes, teaching is a field that requires volumes of knowledge, patience, and adeptness. I'm sure you all have certificates and diplomas and awards, but the fact that you see your students through such narrow eyes is insulting. Furthermore, the fact that the original moderator of this site claimed that, "I have a lot of freshmen in my classes, and I don't know if an 18-year-old would quite understand what I am doing," is laughable. An 18-year-old student would understand perfectly what you are doing; you're talking shit about people in order to placate yourselves and enforce a sense of superiority. Eighteen-year-old girls do the same thing everyday!

I am peeved because none of you seem to understand that we students are not just clones of each other. Have you ever stopped to consider that some of us work, for example? I myself am forced to pay the extravagant fees of college by working the graveyard shift at a fast food restaurant 5 days a week, and I am agitated by the same ungrateful drunks that come through the drive-thru, slurring their words and lacking an ounce of respect for anyone sober. Working to pay my way through college results in me looking a little tired throughout my classes, but I do the work. I sit there and listen. I take notes. Don't expect me to have a smile plastered to my face or to do cartwheels into the classroom, though.

Also, you whine about students not having any care for their classes. This goes both ways. Half of my teachers are hardly interested in what they are doing, and some of the professors on this blog even admit such disinterest. How are we, as students, expected to exude some "passion for learning" when the dolt teaching the class distributes some mindless busy work and then slouches at his desk so he can check his email and play Solitaire until the end of the hour?

Lastly, the reason I personally exhibit disinterest in classes is because I am plainly not interested, the reason being that nearly every college requires students to enroll in courses that have nothing to do with their major. I'm guessing this has some cheesy underlying meaning, like that taking these extra courses will help us become more well-rounded. I, however, believe it is just another way for the schools to weasel more money out of us and make us stick around their institutions so that they can keep buying whatever it is they use our thousands of dollars to buy.

I believe I am well-rounded, and I believe I became that way on my own. College did not teach me about the writings of Howard Zinn, the photography of Jamel Shabazz, the history of Motown, or any of the other myriad things I am interested in. Above all, I am just requesting that all students not be viewed with the same disdain that hangs like a pall over nearly all of the entries on this blog. Have a little respect for those of us who are more than tanned, Corona-guzzling, pampered rich kids.

I am aware that this response will most likely not attain a coveted spot on your blog, due to the fact that I identify reasons other than hangovers why students are not always bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I understand that you enjoy your gossiping and you probably prefer that I don't rain on your parade. I am just glad to have written this, and in doing so, perhaps I gave you some ideas to mull over.

In Response to a Student Who's Just Not That Into You

regarding an earlier post:

I teach communication, which I suppose might be considered a "college experience" course. And my classes are full of Business majors, largely unconvinced that they need to improve their communication skills. Even when I apply communication concepts to workplace scenarios (employee-employer, co-worker interactions, sales presentations, and customer service) in an attempt to make the material more meaningful to my non-majors, they already have all the answers: it's all just common sense, right?

But their level of engagement certainly seems to shoot skyward as soon as they receive anything but an "A" in my common sense, "college experience" course. Unfortunately, there's nothing less convincing than listening to a student who pays less attention in my class than in their "major" classes, does only the minimum work that they have to do, does not volunteer anything to the class discussion, and never takes advantage of office hours to engage me in any level of intellectual discussion, trying to persuade me that his/her grade should really be an "A."

No, I don't expect these students to love my area of study. I don't expect these students to come to my office hours to discuss their view on different concepts, or ask me for mine. Just so they "pick up" enough "stuff" in my class so that when they wait on my table someday, their customer service skills will be adequate enough for me to have a pleasant dining experience. I don't have an interest in their damn grades, why is that so hard to understand?

Two Quick Imaginary (We Hope) Letters To Students, One About Cheating, and One About Spring Fever (or Baseball, You Pick)

Dear Ms. X,
Cheating in Logic really isn't all that difficult, and if you pick someone who knows how to DO logic you won't get caught. Next time sit with the smart kids in the front, not the dumb but fun group in the back of the classroom. Yes I think dropping the course would be a good idea, as you didn't even have the sense to figure out that the person you cheated from can't do logic to save her soul.

Dr. Mr. Y,
I know today is the first day that it will hit 70 degrees, but we still are holding our 3:30 class and I expect you to be there. I know you were upset that I didn't cancel class last month when there was 4 feet of snow in your driveway and 1 foot everywhere else. I still don't see that as a reason to cancel class in GOOD weather. Also, yes the material covered both days will be on your exam at the end of the semester. Get the notes from someone else, I already taught that class and will not teach it again in my office because you felt like you had to play baseball in the park.

Someone Wants to Talk About the Correlation of Easy Profs and Good Evaluations

I began teaching 3 years ago at a mid-sized undergraduate college. It's amazing how much I've changed in that amount of time and what I've learned regarding human behavior.

Unfortunately, I'm one of those people who worry too much about my evaluations. It's not that I really care what college students think of me, it's just that I work very hard to be a good and fair teacher, and I get frustrated when students don't see that. Besides, student evaluations are the primary indication of teaching ability at our school.

I also get annoyed by the correlation between good and easy when students rate professors on student evaluations or on Rate My Professor. When I read comments like "XXX is the best professor at XXXX. It's impossible to make less than an A. Exams are the study guides. I wish all teachers were this good," I get frustrated.

My classes are particularly challenging due to the subject matter. I do what I can to make the material as clear as possible. But, no wonder students sometimes say negative things about me on my evaluations....not everyone makes an A in my courses and you have to work particularly hard in order to do well. How can I compete with other professors who give out grades like they are nothing?

Just once, I'd like to see one of these 'good because they're easy' professors get a comment like, "What's the point of this class? I do not have to go to class or study to make an A. I have learned nothing new since taking this course.... what a waste of time!"

A Student Wants to Clear Something Up About Student Interest in Your Damn Course

I admit that I've had some fun on this blog. I like to know what some of you profs are thinking of us, and I cheer when you take on the lazy and disrespectful students that bug me, too.

But one idea that keeps coming through that I don't think profs understand is how "engaged" you want students to be in each class. I'm a Business major, and in most of my major classes I'm pretty involved. I do the reading and assignments, and I see how Finance and Accounting will be valuable to me later on.

But when I'm in my Music Appreciation course or my Advanced Composition course in English, I know that stuff is just part of my "college experience," and not really a part of what I'm going to do in my career, so I occasionally pay less attention than my teacher wants. I do the work I know I have to, but I don't volunteer or go to office hours. I don't see the point. I know I'm supposed to get a well-rounded education, and I do pick up stuff in all of my classes.

But when profs get bent because I don't LOVE their specialty, that's just useless. I don't have an interest in every damn course, why is that so hard to understand?

Three Quick Blasts From a Professor Who Has One Thing On His Mind - And While It IS a Good Thing - It's JUST One Thing

Here it comes, kiddies.

R: You cannot take the final exam early or late. It's been announced since January. It's a normal day, a normal time. You haven't offered any reasonable reason why you can't attend the event. So, no, you have to be like all the rest of the people. You are not special.

G: No, I'm not going to find you a local pharmacist to whom you can pose your lab report questions. Am I in your lab group? Do you imagine that all of the other 79 people in class are having me do their legwork for them? You are not special.

C: No, I will not stay later on Thursday to "go over" what you missed last week while your team was in Texas. I know for a fact that we spend a shitload of money on those tutors who travel with you and who have access to all the class info that I post in the lab databases. Your schedule is rough. I get it. I did the triple jump in college, and sometimes I missed assignments and quizzes. That was my choice. I lived with it. I dealt with it. In order to help all of my students I'm in my office every Tuesday and Thursday from 11-4. You are not special, and I'm not going to treat you like you are.

One Professor Is Starting to Get Comfortable

I would grade my abilities as an instructor in the B+/A- range. I'm still learning how to be a teacher, but I work really hard to teach my students what I know. I'm slowly breaking bad habits, things like failing to make eye contact during lectures. I don't always project confidence, and I've never been comfortable in my own skin. A number of students are put off by this. But I'm into what I teach.

I work my ass off to build rapport and open dialogue with my students. I spend many hours a week preparing for my classes. All of this is accurately reflected in my class evaluations. So it can be disheartening to receive a bad review online.

Actually, whether they're good or bad, very few of these online posts offer constructive feedback. But yesterday, I received the rare negative review that told me that I am heading down the right path as a teacher.

"Does not look at students. Told us that B is the highest grade possible, except if you do outstanding work. 3 books. 2 Exams. 3 Papers. 4 Quizzes. Now you make up your own mind."

Now, as it turns out, the syllabus mentions only one exam and no quizzes at all. The papers are responses to essay questions, not research papers. However, this is not a 100-level class. We have work to do. If you don't want to do it--well, that's what add/drop is for.

I guess I'll keep working on the whole eye contact thing. But I'll be goddamned if I'm ever going to give another A for work that isn't outstanding.

Someone Wonders If There's a Limit to How Much Class Students Can Miss, Even if They Have Really Really Good Reasons, Or An Unsual Amount of Bad Luck

I do my best to put myself in the shoes of undergraduate students, new adults, away from home, a little confused about living in a grown up place with grown up rules, but this year I've been plagued by a wide variety of reasons keep students from attending class regularly.

Some of these are the typical "dead Grandma" stories that I've long since learned are about 75% true. (Once I had a dead Grandma story and then a month later was told she had died, saw a white light, then came back to life - thankfully - and then died later, resulting in two absences each time.)

But some are new for me. I'm trying to get my head around what it is we're supposed to do with students who "can't" come to class and do the work. It's so vexing because every student I have - and many advisors on campus & my boss - think that we should move heaven and earth to keep these students in class, on track, fully paid up, and passing.

Here's a sample of this year's stories. You should feel free to play along at home and see how you'd handle them:

• Fell at the cafeteria, separated a shoulder, took a bunch of physical therapy, which resulted in missing 3 classes, then physical therapist changed times to coincide with my class, and missed 3 more. Still wants to finish semester, and is dumbfounded that I don't agree.
• Uncle broke a toe so she went home to be with family during the day of the operation. Since it was a Wednesday, stayed until the weekend, missing two classes.
• Grandma had an MRI on her hip, so went home and missed two classes. Missed important quiz, wanted to take the quiz by phone at the hospital.
• Boyfriend's mother's car broke down out of town and had to drive with boyfriend and boyfriend's brother to "rescue" her with gasoline and a meal. Missed mid-term, expected to take it at her leisure.
• Went with volleyball team to Florida for tournament, then because father lives in South Carolina, stayed an extra week before coming back. Was alarmed that I had counted her absent, and said that I should be more respectful of her family.
• Dead grandma. Missed two weeks.
• Dead grandma. Missed one week, and when I asked him to do some make-up work, called the Dean of Students and told her that he was suffering from stress, and that my insensitivity should not be allowed.
• Dead grandma. Lingered in the hospital for longer than expected, so stayed away from school for three weeks. When came back, refused to take a make-up midterm, saying her head wasn't into school, but then cried when I asked her if she considered maybe dropping the class and taking it when she would benefit from it. Told me she dropped the class, missed another week, then showed up for class on Halloween dressed as a stripper (along with several of her sorority sisters), and told me she was ready to take the midterm.

Am I crazy, or are they?

Where Someone Tires of the Introspection and Wonders Why We Think About All This Rating So Much

I get sick of the whining among a few colleagues in my department, and I certainly am sick of the overwrought introspection on this site.

If any professor gets tied up in knots over some 20 year old kid's evaluation, then there are much deeper problems at play that you'll need to take care of with therapy, medication, or just a big bottle of booze.

I've only been teaching 6 years, but I quickly learned that the student evaluation system was flawed, and that the idea a freshman could "rate" me as a professor was so foolish that I never spent more than a minute worrying about it.

I work hard, teach well, do my job, and if my Dean or Chair wants to fire me because someone thinks I assign too much reading, well then let them. If that's how it works, it's not a profession I want anything to do with.

As for what rating profs does in the real world, I know countless veterans at my college who get reamed by students year in and year out, and they sit at the same table with the rest of us in the faculty lounge. They look happy and well-fed, and they can teach here as long as they choose because they're good at what they do. Why anyone thinks some frat kid knows what it takes to be a professor is beyond me.

"I'm Not Fermi, and I'm Not Discouraged"

A student offers an explanation, and updates the definition for scientists:

I dropped your class. The subject is, for the most part, not related to my research, and in every meeting you make it clear that non-experts are not welcome. I'm never again going to have to listen to your disturbingly worshipful tales about the exploits of successful alumni and Great Scientists. You make it sound like science is only ever accomplished by geniuses, that if it's hard work we should just give up. I'm tired of hearing the story about Enrico Fermi and how he wrote college application essays that were better than anything a grad student could do. You imply that if we're not Fermi, we should quit.

Do you realize that most of the old-style Great Scientists did it as a kind of hobby? They came from rich families and had wives to run their houses and raise their children. There didn't have to be an obvious application for their work, because they didn't really have to find funding. There was no pressure. We, the students in your class, are not like that. We're immigrants and women, we're poor, we have to do our own dishes. Your grad school experience was a little more like ours, but even you have an adoring, helpful woman at home who probably makes life easier for you than you realize. Things don't work that way anymore; we sometimes have to pay attention to things other than science. I think that's a good thing. Science shouldn't and won't consume my life, and that doesn't mean I am less qualified or less committed.

A Prof Encourages a Previous Poster to Ignore Another Previous Poster, and to Keep Asking Those Questions, and Ignore Silly Smackdowns

Dear Constructive Criticism:

First I want to apologize on behalf of professors for Mr./Ms Smackdown. (S)he seems to be working out some personal issues.

Of course, if you are making demands and denunciations, implying that you are too good for your school and your professors, then you richly deserve the smackdown. But I am going to assume from the courteous tone of your message that you approach this in a polite spirit of honest inquiry. If that is the case, then I think most of us will welcome your comments. The first step to truly independent thinking is when you sit in a classand think, "why do it this way? This other order would make more sense. And why not relate it to this other topic?"

Personally, I am delighted when a student asks me these kind of questions - it means they're thinking, not just passively sopping up facts to regurgitate on a test. Of course, very often, you'll be wrong. But figuring out why your inspired, original idea is actually misguided is the second step to truly independent thinking. I think most professors would (should?) welcome this teaching opportunity. On other occasions, you'll be right, but learn that things are done the way they are for organizational or administrative reasons of which you are unaware.

But this is also instructive, if you end up going into academia as you hope to do. And sometimes you'll really be right, and get your professor to see things in a new way. These occasions are rare but satisfying.

A warning, though: it's easy to fall in love with your new idea and to insist on it with increasing stridency, against all reason to the contrary. If you start to think that people aren't listening to you because they can't handle the truth, well, that's a dangerous path to set down on.

With those caveats, I'll say, keep asking questions!

Some People Just Won't Save Themselves

One of my hardest working students turned up this morning with an 11 page essay on NASCAR racing and the technology used to keep drivers safe. Fine. It's a fine topic. I would have approved it. But for the past 4 weeks this student has been working on a paper about siblings and birth order. I've seen him in the library 3 times. I've read an annotated bibliography. I've given advice and help on drafts, an abstract, etc.

So when he showed up today with this new paper, I had to ask:

Me: What gives? I thought you were doing the birth order paper.
Student: Yeah, I know. But I got a little short of time and I had some research already on this NASCAR paper.
Me: (Scratching head.) But you spent 4 weeks on that one paper, then you wrote this new paper over the weekend?
Student: (grinning) Yeah, I really worked hard. I was up until 5 am!

Well, I've been to the rodeo a time or two, and this sort of mini-drama is usually a pretty good sign that the student has panicked and is going to turn in a plagiarized paper - bought, found, googled, or just borrowed from a frat brother.

I held the paper and looked it over and said:

Me: This is pretty unusual. I haven't had a chance to see all your notes and sources like I did for the birth order paper. You know I'll have to check this paper out, right?
Student: (no longer grinning) Oh, I wrote it.
Me: I didn't say that you didn't. But just like your other paper, I need to make sure you're using sources accurately, legitimately. Are you okay with that?

And I actually held the paper out to him, just in case he wanted to grab it and run. But he didn't.

Student (smiling again) It's a good paper. I think it's the best one I've done.

So, I walked back to my office after class, typed a part of the first paragraph of the student's paper into google.com, and in 3 minutes had found 2 other student papers online where my student had liberally copies huge portions - one section was 2 pages long word for word.

I'm not even mad because I see this at least once a year.