Daggers for Darlene from Doris

Darlene, a wisp of a student, an airy confection of pajama pants, flip flops, and gauzy tops, begged me last week to set up a special conference for her since my normal office hours didn't fit with her schedule of mani/pedi, Grey's Anatomy, and bulimia.

She has several assignments pending, rewrites, make-ups, etc.

So we picked a day and time off of my normal schedule. We confirmed it in class and through email. She knew it was a day I normally spend at home (30 miles away - it's been a joke in class several times), but I try to give every student every bit I can when their begging seems especially honest.

So I make the drive, make coffee for the whole department, open some mail. And then I wait.

40 minutes after Darlene's scheduled time, I get this email:

Doris,

What a bubble-head I am. I forgot I had to help the girls put up banners for homecoming. I didn't really have that work done anyway, and I wouldn't want to waste your time. Have a great day!

Darlene

A Useful Diagnostic Tool: On Evaluations (cont.)

My experience departs markedly from that of the other good folk who have commented on student evaluations. My department permits me the latitude to design my own instrument. All of the questions I pose are open ended, and they have all, at various times over the years, provided me with good feedback. I use them to get suggestions how to improve my lectures, to find out which assignments they thought they learned most from, which books they felt they understood and which not, which rubrics were helpful to them and which not, and so on.

I ask my students not just to answer the question posed, but also to explain why they think as they do. I have received generous feedback from them over the years, and have implemented many of the suggestions that they have offered. I have found this feedback invaluable in fine-tuning my teaching. I am, simply put, a better teacher because of the useful commentary and criticism I have received from my students.

The notion, put forth by one recent commentator, that my students lack the competence to judge my performance, is ludicrous. They are, if anything, more finely aware of multimedia communication, and more sophisticated at some of the modes of communication I use in my classes, than I am. I would not trust them to judge my overall value as a scholar and an intellectual, but I emphatically do trust them to be able to make discriminating judgments about performance. This is especially true of lectures before large numbers of students, which certainly have a strong performative element to them. Student evaluations are a diagnostic tool, and they have their weaknesses. They should not be the sole instrument on which I rely to improve my teaching. But the notion that they have no value at all is silly.

I see lots of my colleagues who get defensive about their student's criticisms. It stings to have some thoughtless 19 year old tell us they think we are lacking, especially given that most of us work quite hard at our jobs. But we should not take their criticisms at face value. They are well worth considering, it seems to me, if your agenda in reading them is to figure out what you are doing right, and what you might wish to improve. I do not think they provide the sole basis on which I work to improve my teaching, but without them, I would be unable to fine-tune my pedagogy anywhere near as effectively as I have been able to do.

Best Student Excuses!

Remember that we are partnering this week with the Chronicle of Higher Education to develop a collection of the best student excuses ever. Send them to us and we'll coordinate with the editors at the Chronicle for an upcoming "Short Subjects" piece.

We also had a number of requests for a re-link to an older RYS piece about student evaluations. One writer said: "You guys are rarely that funny." And we must agree.

Fearing the Tyranny of Evaluations

Mail flooded us last night, with nearly all of it voicing support to our correspondent's views on the "useless practice" of student evaluations.

I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciated the recent posting on Student Evaluations. More and more I feel the Tyranny of Student Evalauations, even though (or maybe because?) mine are usually very good.

Yesterday in class we had a visiting speaker, a well-known poet whose work we'd studied--and had lively discussions about--before she came. She attended the class for no pay (just the sale of her books to my students). As she was speaking and generously sharing her wisdom, one student came in late and promptly put his head on the table and fell asleep. Another's eyes were closing, and I glared at him, and he immediately found the energy to wake up. Another opened her laptop and began typing away, even though I've banned laptop use from my classroom. I didn't want to interrupt the speaker, so I tried to concentrate on the students who were clearly focused on what she was saying.

Afterward, I struggled with what to say to the students who I felt were rude. And I won't lie. My student evaluations were on my mind. But I decided that I wasn't going to buckle under the Tyranny of Evualuations. I decided that I was doing other teachers a favor by saying something--perhaps the teachers these students will have in the future.

So I wrote emails to both students to let them know I was upset and offended by the way they treated the speaker. The Laptop Girl wrote back and apologized. She was clearly contrite. I wrote her back and said that I hoped she understood that my ban on laptops has to do with not knowing if someone is checking email or casually websurfing during class--and also that a laptop feels like a barrier between me and the students. It felt great to have this communication with her, and I was glad I didn't let the Tyranny of Evaluations dictate my human and professional response to a student.

I still haven't heard from the Fell Asleep Guy. I don't expect to. And I'm okay with that. Maybe he'll be absent or asleep next week when we students fill out evaluations.

On Student Evaluations

Let me start by saying that I love my job. I love teaching. I love the research component because it's all mine, but I mostly love the classroom and the never-ending supply of young people. I've been in the game for 26 years and think I'm pretty sure I will teach until I retire several years from now.

It's been the greatest career, with dozens upon dozens of amazing experiences. Students continue to engage me and interest me, and watching find their own feet is always a tremendous pleasure.

But today I woke up with a knot in my stomach, and I was out of sorts all day. I was giving my students the evaluation instrument my college uses. As soon as the large white envelope came out of my bag the students started their energetic twittering. I even heard the same comments I always hear: "Yeah, now we get to give the grades," etc.

I always read the preamble that my college gives me to read, about anonymity, about how grateful we all are to gather comments. How we're eager to find ways in which to teach the courses better. There's even a line that reads, "Your instructor welcomes your criticism."

And of course it's all complete bullshit.

My students, for all of their sweetness and energy, don't have any idea whatsoever about my worth as a professor. They won't know what they've learned from me for many years. They certainly don't have the wherewithal or the experience to evaluate my performance in any meaningful way.

I have tenure now, but the evaluations end up in my Dean's file. I still see them each new term. I have to read things like, "She should wax her lip better," and "She should take better care of herself, so she could get another husband," and, "She should get a life and quit caring if I get my lab projects done in time. Lighten up, bitch."

And any goodwill my students earn is gone again after that. My numericals are always above my department average, and I have many wonderful comments each term. But it only takes a handful of comments or ratings to make me just want to puke my guts out and find a job consulting for one of the biotech firms where most of my former students find themselves down the road.

I've never understood why we do it? Why do we ask them the questions at all? Are we too lazy to evaluate ourselves? When I first started teaching, a mentor or colleague would visit every term, and I'd present a teaching portfolio (assignments, worksheets, and student work). My peers would meet with me to discuss my progress, and once a year I'd sit with my department chair or Dean and talk about things I could do to make myself a better instructor in future semesters.

But once I'd been in the game for a few years, Scantron evaluations seemed to overwhelm everything. Because they came out in digits, fractions, decimal points, they seemed to be real, to have weight. My 3.24 was worse than so-and-so's 3.50 for "shows respect to students," and so this information became something that was used against me, for me, whatever applied.

And ever since then I've felt horrible when student evaluations loomed. I thought more and more about them. I worried that I might be unkind when I would not allow a late presentation. Would a petulant and half-stoned student hang on to this imagined slight and blast me on evaluation day? They all seem to know it's coming. They all seem to light up. They continue to think that they're only doing what I do when I grade their work. And it's all wrong. It's so wrong-headed I can't even believe we fall for it.

When I talk about it in class - which I've not done for years - someone always says, "You must get bad evaluations." I've had colleagues say the same thing. That's not the point. I worry even more for young faculty. I see our newest colleagues here jump through hoops to please students, inviting whole lab sections out to coffee, bringing in donuts, allowing endless test and quiz retakes in the hallways of every classroom building for fear of what Missy and Michael Student might check off when evaluation season comes around.

I'm done for this term at least. But I just hated myself and my profession today, and were I a little wiser, I'd go about finding away to banish this useless practice.

Don't Tell Your Students to Buy a Clue. Unless You Really Want Them To.

We have recently had a case where one of our graduate students discovered one of her papers on a website called 123helpme.com. We had put a few papers on our department website so students could refer to them for guidelines as to how to do a good graduate level paper. The student's paper was simply stolen from our website. It never occurred to us to copyright a student paper.

I suspect others have had this problem before because I note that many students are copyrighting their papers. But this is our first instance, and we are quite upset. 123help.com did not contact our student for approval to publish her paper. Presumably any paper that appears on the web is considered fair game for plagiarism. I checked the site out and found hundreds of papers for sale there. Our student's paper was listed for $39.95.

I highly recommend that professors check this site for papers they receive. Also there must be some legal remedy for this sort of intellectual theft. Our student is consulting her lawyer, and we intend to consult the university lawyers about this situation, but I wonder if we have any recourse since the paper appeared on the website. I, for one, am certainly disturbed by this new trend.

====

We here at RYS were so interested in the site mentioned above that we checked it out. Indeed there are many essays for sale, but there is also a category of "free essays," and we've downloaded a number of them. Our favorite so far is this one on terroism. What we show below is not the whole essay...but almost:

Terrorism is an issue that many people are rushing to become informed about. By typing in key-words of interest, a web-surfer can basically take a crash course in the subject. Popular search engines include:

• http://www.askjeeves.com
• http://google.com
• http://yahoo.com
• http://altavista.com

By typing in "terrorism" or "terrorism in history" or "terrorism in America" an entire library of resources can instantly be at the researchers beck and call. This may lead to websites such as http://www.cnn.com, which (among other resources and news clips) provides the researcher with a condensed history of Recent Terrorist Attacks on the United States starting with the two 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing a total of 258 people.

Where We Partner With the Chronicle For a CFP Regarding the Best Student Excuses

We're feeling quite dewy this morning as we're hooking up with the terrific folks at The Chronicle of Higher Education for a call regarding the best student excuses you'd care to share with us - the absurd, the imaginative, the ridiculous, the sublimely outrageous. Excuses about missing class, missing a test, needing extra time, why they're so sleepy, why they aren't wearing shoes, etc.

Send us your posts, and we will organize the best of them with the folks at the Chronicle. They are planning a little feature for their excellent "Short Subjects" section, and we suppose we'll use some of them on our site as well.

The Chronicle editors assure us that they will respect the anonymity of all participants and their colleges. We will need a working email address, however, as the editors may need to followup with questions.

The "Don't Poo-Poo Post," and It's Not What You're Thinking. Revisiting The Call to Hang Together.

I'm willing to wager that you, Dr. XXXX, are tenured. This is the only possible way to explain how you could completely overlook the real reason that I see most professors (including myself) bending: potential ramifications on their evaluations. If instructors don't make themselves available and user-friendly to students this materializes as scary numbers by semester's end, numbers that largely determine if we work next semester.

"Faculty should hang together" is an impossible prospect as long as we, the non-tenured, have to worry about what the cherubs think of us. Can't we all agree that the problem is circular? Professors want tenure, to attain tenure you must have strong evals, to attain strong evals you must make some concessions with students -- who, as we are all aware, have entitlement issues.

You probably have no need to worry about evaluations ever again, Dr. XXXX; however, these little babies are a crucial part of forging our own careers in academia, so that we may attain tenure and then scoff at the "teaching excellence" and "academic support," as if our own arrogant and alienating methods were inscrutably perfect. And as much as I care about my evals, I care just as much about learning. If your goal is for the students to learn, then that goal can be met so many ways; too bad that you poo-poo any method that doesn't involve them hanging on your every word.

I'm not going to act like my students' potential boss - in fact, that's exactly part of the problem! I'll behave like an educator that has a larger investment in their education than my own ego or profits. Stop with the easy blame and approach this problem objectively. Have you looked around Dr. XXXX? Jobs are scarce, especially for folks like us, without job security or clout. Don't fault us if we've learned to play the game and even care a little about educating along the way.

Going Dark For the Bird

Since all of our students have parents who are making them fly home to Wisconsin on non-refundable plane tickets for TUESDAY FREAKING MORNING of Thanksgiving week, and because nobody gives a shit about college in the face of having Granny's homemade whatz-it, we're going dark for the rest of the week.

Sure, we could be better, stronger. We could show more initiative. We could keep the site humming between turkey and football, but our students have beaten us down so much this semester that we just want to nudge ourselves into a delicious stupor until Monday morning.

But we'll be back. Unless something horrible happens to us. More horrible than normal.

Sensei Stanley Sends in a Message About a Silly Student - RYS Old School Style

I have a particular student (let's call him "B") who is among the most socially retarded people I've ever encountered. B has grated on my nerves all fucking semester, constantly interrupting me and the other students with his endless, monotonous monologues that are only tangentially related to the discussion, but mainly serve to confuse the other students. On more than one occasion, said ramblings have prompted me to blurt out, "What?," with an utterly baffled and exasperated expression on my face. The other students snicker, but B is oblivious to them because he believes what he is saying is brilliant and breathtakingly original. His eyes dart around the room to see if anyone has noticed and is impressed with said brilliance, but all B gets for his efforts are bored expressions, fidgeting, and awkward silence.

It's embarrassing and sad, really. I try to ignore B, but he always has his fucking hand up. It's painfully obvious to the other students that I'm ignoring him, but most often they are no help either because they just sit there and stare at me, waiting for me to give them the answers or break down and call on B. I must admit that I get some amount of sadistic pleasure intimidating B. He's always coming up to me after class and apologizing for interrupting or laughing at something only he thinks is uproarously funny.

B is incapable of talking like a normal human being. His language is obsequiously formal, which makes interacting with him all the more difficult and awkward. Then he bows (yes--bows!) at me like I'm some sort of latter-day Kung-Fu master, and he is my grasshopper. Muttering to himself, he walks out of the classroom.

On Power

In the years that I have been hiring fresh out of college students to work in my consulting firm, I have noticed that many younger students have no clue how to deal with real power and hierarchies, which makes my life as an employer difficult--and students' lives potentially very difficult once they leave the university. While it's hardly the role of higher education to turn students into little worker drones (even as a professor in a professional program I agree with this principle), it does not hurt to think about how investing in yourself, challenging yourself, and developing good work habits and manners as a student can help you when you get out (so you can succeed at your fancy schmancy buy-our-houses-to-turn-into-parking-lots career.)

I know it's frustrating for students who think professors are just pompous, but it is important to encounter professors strategically. If you are adept and self-aware about power, you see it and you understand how all your acquaintances in your professional network, profs and classroom peers, can hurt or help you. For example, in an accounting class, some of your colleagues may get hired at the same firm as you. Some may get promoted over you. Do you want them remembering you as that little prick who came to class with his ass hanging out, never ready? Or do you want them to remember you as the person who worked hard, helped out when asked, was a pleasant compatriot, and came prepared?

Let's think about this more systematically: How do professors have power?

1. Recommendations. I am routinely asked, for example, to write letters and fill out forms recommending students for positions, law school, or MBA programs. Maybe people ignore my recommendations, so that a crappy or lukewarm one from me doesn't mean anything. But I don't think so. I certainly don't ignore recommendations when I am hiring. I am a nice person and don't take out grudges on students, but others do. Being savvy about power means you don't trust my niceness and grace--or anybody else's--unnecessarily by being an idiot, lying to me, cheating, cutting corners, telling me my class matters less than your frat's ear-wax removal activity (it may be very important you; just don't tell me), or any doing any other thing you know you shouldn't do but try anyway because you think you can get away it.


2. Recommendations (II). I have an extensive network of people I know in my field. These people hire. They ask me often to recommend students for internships and new positions. If I don't like you, I can't fire you, but I also won't use the power I have to help you, and that's unfortunate...for you. Because for every one of you idiot/snotty students we have, I also have some students who make me proud to recommend them to my professional contacts. No, you don't have to suck up to me--you'll find that I can smell that 1,000 yards away. I just need to see the following in various doses: desire, motivation, time management, commitment, some smarts, good sense, the ability to cope with people who don't agree with you, and the ability to understand that "it's not about you." That's it.


3. I can keep students from attaining credentials they want. I teach two required courses in one of our undergraduate degree programs. I can, in fact, prevent these students from graduating. If you are failing my class, I can prove to an outside authority that you are failing and therefore do not deserve to graduate. And I publish 8 papers a year and sit on $6 million in grants; my university could care less about whether you complain to the Dean about me or not--I am worth way more than your tuition dollars. Good sense suggests you couch your appeal to me in this context as "I am struggling, and I need some help in the class. Can you help guide me to additional resources?" rather than "Your grading sucks. I need at least a B."


4. Departmental support and other goodies. If I have goodies to hand out, like assistantships or fellowship opportunities (and I do), then I won't give them to you if you piss me off. Why would I? There are employments opportunities for lively undergrads in my department because I sweat my ass off writing grants. I don't actually have to do as much of that ass-sweating as I do, and I can hire anybody I want. If you keep your relations with me positive and collegial and show me you have tact and good sense, I'll be much more likely to give these kind of opportunities to you than if you are unpleasant. For those of you on fellowships, we do regularly staff students, and on federal fellowships, I often evaluate students' progress toward the degree. So in other words, I can influence whether you get to a) have or b) get to keep the nice funding packages that pay your tuition and give you a stipend.

In other words, I was utterly shocked as an assistant professor at how much power I really do have. Not worlds of it. But more than I ever thought as a grad student. And I try very hard to respect my students. I don't generally ask that students pay me compliments and treat me like the great "I Am" (at least I hope not). But that doesn't mean I want to put up with some student's crap and over-familiarity and that, if subject to same, it doesn't hurt that student in any meaningful way. It can.

So the bottom line is that if you want a cat to sit on your lap, you don't rub its fur the wrong direction. Some people need to have their egos stroked in order to give you the candy they have (and sometimes they won't share, not even then). We are talking EQ here--emotional intelligence--that can help serve you well if you use your education as a chance to hone your institutional smarts, instead of as a 24-hour party line at McUniversity full of dumb ol' professors.

Part of Our High School Constituency Wants To Turn the Tables On Us

As an English teacher at a public high school, I know I'm not in your typical target audience member, but I wanted to respond to some of the digs being taken at teachers.

I came across your blog after googling "I hate teaching." Yes. It had been one of THOSE days. I found the blog to be quite cathartic and began poring over the archives. I've noticed that a lot of Freshman instructors wonder (rightly so) whether teachers have their heads rooted firmly up their asses. Well, yes and no.

Like a previous poster who railed against fellow instructors who stymied him/her by lowering expectations, I find myself furious with faculty who continue to give "art projects" rather than essays, or shoe box dioramas instead of actual critical thinking. I know the fine arts are taking a hit in public schools, but hey, this is an ENGLISH class--you don't get an A because your poster has glitter on it. I'm also tired of faculty who bend rules, give extra credit, and give test questions to students in advance.

On the other hand, however, I find some of the charges posted on RYS to be out of turn. Why is it that when students are in your classes and don't learn that's their fault but when they're in my class, I'm to blame? I read RYS because my students, despite the age difference, mirror your students in the ridiculous behavior/attitude department. Remember, there is no entrance requirement for k-12--so multiply your apathetic student load by the entire population. Consider how few people actually have a college degree in the US and you'll start to get a picture of how many students I encounter who really don't care a thing about Shakespeare even if I teach it while juggling monkeys who are juggling flaming chainsaws.

I know I'm in the minority of high school teachers, but two years ago I sent out emails to department chairs and Freshman Composition/Rhetoric professors at all of the local state, private and community colleges in my area. I explained who I was and that I was interested in the areas they found Freshman lacking so I could address these areas in my Senior classes. I heard back from one professor. I emailed again. I heard back from nobody else. I spent a day of my spring break video taping a lecture of that professor's to show my Seniors so they could get an idea of what would be expected of them in college. I remember college and I have a good idea what's expected, but my students somehow have the impression that I'm just a lowly high school teacher, and it's nice to have professorial back-up.

So I open it up to all you good people now: What the hell do you want us to teach students before they get to you?

The Final Word on the Uncle Ernie Exchange - Somewhere Between Free Rein and the Hard Line

The responses to the Uncle Ernie posts ("be nice! the student might really need the break!") are missing the point.

The point is, some students LIE. So far, the only students who have asked me for concessions (without documentation) have been students who are doing poorly. The ones who miss classes with no explanation, or who don't turn in work. The ones who are doing well avoid having to ask for days off - and when they do, they often suck it up. This pattern makes me less likely to just let people off for Uncle Ernie's birthday. (Or anything.)

How do I know my students are lying? I've caught them in it, bald-faced. I teach at a Catholic university, but about 60% of the students are non-Catholics. Without realizing it, I scheduled a test on Yom Kippur. I had eight students ask me to reschedule. Definitely legitimate. Six wanted to take the test later, and two wanted to take it early. A few weeks later, I attended the on-campus Mass. Imagine my surprise when I saw those six students, not merely sitting in the congregation, but actively participating. I watched them all take Communion. WTF? Did they all convert?

Under confrontation, they all wilted - they had lied about their religion in order to get an extra week for the test. They didn't all get together on their lie, but they all had the same idea. And yes, they all ended up with zeros on that particular exam.

I've been in the position of having to choose between family and college. My father needed a heart transplant at the end of my junior year. One of my professors went on a power trip and said she'd flunk me if I didn't show for the final. That meant I couldn't go home to say good-bye. And when the news that Dad got a heart came through, I couldn't go home to be there with my family if something went wrong. I filed a formal complaint with the University, but they moved too slowly to make a difference; I took the F and filed an appeal later.

There's nothing admirable about what that professor did. However, I no longer think her attitude was a personal attack on me. I can imagine how tired she was of having to make concession after concession to students. And how tired she was of being lied to. Also, the difference is: I was willing to take the immediate consequences of not coming to class. The students who ask for days off, notes, whatever, aren't. They want to be able to go to their sister's wedding and still get full credit for participating in class. For them, 'participation' means showing up - which also indicates they don't particularly value the college experience.

I don't advocate the hard line, but I no longer give students free rein in regards to taking days off. They can decide to do whatever they want - but I demand a lot more documentation before I make any changes.

This Letter Just Arrived From Dreamland Avenue in Fantasyville. The Rest of us Losers Must Live on Bad Vibes Boulevard in Shitburg City.

When I was in college, one of my professors lost his mother. The class got up a collection to send flowers to the funeral, along with a condolence card we all signed. When he returned a week later, almost every student with a kitchen had brought a casserole for him to take home. He got very choked up and said, "This is why I love teaching here -- people acknowledge the simple human things in your life."

Another time a professor mentioned in passing, but with a worried look on his face, that our papers would be late because his daughter was in the hospital with an ear infection run amuck. Two days later, two huge get-well cards, balloons, and a box of coloring books and crayons appeared from the class for him to take to her. We got back a lovely crayoned picture as thanks.

My senior year, I was the recipient of the generous acknowledgement of the simple human things in my life. I lost three relatives in quick succession, one of them a younger woman who still had minor children, who died very suddenly and in a foreign country. My family was REELING from the shock and struggling to muster our resources to deal with all of the funerals, and getting the suddenly-orphaned cousins home from a distant continent. It would have been easy for my professors to say snidely, "Your grandfather died last week, your grandmother two weeks ago, and now your aunt? Aren't you running out of relatives yet?" Instead, they sent my family condolence cards. To all three funerals. One department sent flowers. My student coworkers at my student job sent a HUGE arrangement. My professors, my supervisors, my fellow students all went out of the way to cover my shifts, arrange for me to have deadline extensions, reschedule tests, get notes, collect handouts, everything. I thought I might have to withdraw for the semester, but with everyone's generous help and understanding, I was able to finish the semester and graduate on time.

And guess where all my donor dollars go -- the college that treated me with human kindness or the professional school that treated me with harsh, unbending rules-adherence?

It's too bad the "Uncle Ernie" poster lives in a "real world" where people are assholes. I don't think he's doing his students any favors by preparing them for a world full of assholes. In the real world *I* live in, when I'm sick, my neighbors send over chicken soup, my husband's secretary sends him home with her trashy celebrity magazines to keep me entertained, my colleagues offer to cover my phones and appointments, and my clients are understanding and helpful about rescheduling.

I live in a world where people cover for each other at work so they don't have to miss a kid's dance recital, where neighbors watch your pets, where friends drive you to the airport at 4 a.m., and where acquaintances ask after your family. It's too bad the "Uncle Ernie" poster lives in a world with so little common decency and human kindness. He should try exercising a little and see how it works out for him.

In Defense of All of Those Who Love Uncle Ernie More Than College - And a Reply From the Original Poster Who Dared Upset Ernie's Birthday!

To the Uncle Ernie poster who wrote this little gem:

When I was a college student (100 years ago...), I missed family birthdays, mygrandparents' funerals, etc. because my family knew that my college educationwas important and that that's what I needed to do at that point in my life.

Thank you for sharing your experience. With your whole class, how nice. Never mind that this is your personal experience, and it reeks of privilege and cultural ignorance. Did you ever consider the cultural factors, the ones that happen to coincide nicely with going to college, that play a big part in this? Not everyone can get away with skipping funerals, and in fact, religious stipulations may prevent this. Not everyone's family is so lovey-dovey and happy that their little baby gets to go to college, and focus on their own individualistic success and ignore family responsibility. This letter completely disgusted me. How dare you assume that your experiences are applicable to everyone?

I think almost everyone who posts on this site needs to think a little more about the cultural values they are assuming everyone holds, and how this influences their opinions of their students. This goes for everything from re-take standards to assumptions about familial obligations. What are you trying to accomplish and why?

===

A couple hours after the post above appeared, we heard from another writer who wanted to reply.

Where is the "privilege" and cultural presumption in the original post? Maybe the highly suspect "cultural values" of this disgusted poster should include much better critical reading skills.

I am from a working-class family, and the first of my family to go to college. You better believe that going to college and making it my priority was indeed my family responsibility. My parents wouldn't consider my coming home for funerals or weddings-- nor could they have afforded the tickets.

I wasn't a coddled child. Quite the contrary -- I was expected to be the engine of social mobility for my family. This came with some sacrifice, and isolation and homesickness is a part of that story. But, (and this will be obvious to most readers, save one) this is an unremarkable American story -- common as dirt. Privilege? Hardly.

Well, It's Not an Official Pledge, But We Like It.

I, Student X, Pledge to:

• Respect my professor, no matter how little I think s/he actually knows.
• I pledge to read the syllabus carefully.
• To do all the homework on time.
• To wear actual adult clothes and shoes at least once a week.
• To come to class on time.
• To give my professor the benefit of the doubt sometimes.
• I pledge never to give stupid excuses, and to accept the fact I’m an adult.
• I pledge not to whine about a grade I deserve I pledge not to insult my professors with bribes, unless I think they might actually take them.

I, Professor Y, Pledge to:

• Take my students seriously.
• Give them the benefit of the doubt sometimes.
• Care about them learning the material.
• Remember that this class is just one of the many challenges they face.
• Not put them down for a question in class.
• To tuck my shirt in sometimes and make sure I don't get chalk dust on my ass.
• Not take my own frustrations out on them, especially the ones who are really trying.
• Not to make ridiculously difficult tests simply to amuse myself.
• I pledge to treat every student fairly remembering that once, I too was a student who had a dog eat my homework.

Someone is Getting Out, But Has Some Words for Profs, Students, and The iPod Generation. The "Something Shiny" Post.

The countdown has begun. In four weeks, I will graduate with an MA in British literature and a year and a half of experience teaching freshman composition.

To my professors, past and present: I love you. Over the past 10 years, you have all shaped my life in ways you could not possibly have imagined. You opened up new worlds to me, new perspectives, new philosophies. You gave me your guidance, and some of you have blessed me with your friendship. I don’t think I ever really appreciated all you do, all you go through, how I abused my position as a “good” student, and how much inadvertent disrespect I showed you. You have my eternal gratitude, and my deepest apologies.

To two beautiful students: You are exquisitely intelligent, socially conscious, and eager to become more self-aware. I have no doubt that you will experience much more pain, frustration, and rage than your classmates—but you will also find more pleasure, satisfaction, and joy in the world. I was incredibly fortunate to find you both in one of my first classes; you have helped keep me sane. I cannot thank you enough.

To the students who don’t give a shit: You’ll never know how much entertainment I’ve gotten out of your papers. My friends (academics themselves) and I have laughed long and loud at your willful ignorance, your laziness, and your insolence. You abdicated any right to respect or privacy when you repeatedly spat in my face. But I can understand your indifference. Accepting the status quo (that means “the way things are now”) makes it so much easier to get to the fun stuff, like the after-game kegger, or your sorority’s theme parties, or the latest episode of whatever vapid teenage-young-adult-beautiful-people-sex-scandal television is on this season. (Sorry—with homework and teaching, I work 16-hour days, so I can’t keep up with the latest titles.) Asking “Why?” is work. You have to start thinking. And thinking is hard. And it’s scary. And it will rob you of all the pleasure you get in life. So just don’t. Whenever someone asks you to think, turn your iPod up loud and start downloading porn; that should counteract the effects. And if anyone says you’re stupid, you just tell them that sticks and stones will break your bones, but……ooh, look, something shiny!

To those of you who remain: I know I don’t have the teaching experience that you have had, but I don’t think I can stay on to develop more. I’ll admit it freely: I’m just not a very good teacher. I care too much and I don’t care enough. It may be cowardly and selfish—or it could be the most intelligent move I’ve ever made—but in any case, it’s time for me to go.

I’m sorry. Thanks for all you have given me and others. I wish you nothing but the best of luck.

Are Students Even Capable of Evaluating Instruction? One Reader Wonders.

It's that time of year again, when the administration sends out its minions with their student opinion surveys. I hesitate to use the term "course evaluation." Now I'm sure there are a bunch of yahoos out there who claim that their instrument is valid and reliable and is currently being used in however many institutions. And of course that may be the case. I have no problem with a well-designed and well-tested measurement instrument. Where my beef emerges is around the idea that that students are capable of - hell, even understanding - what evaluation entails.

I'm not really sure that the bulk of them are in a position to do so. Let me give you an example - something from the trenches: I ask students to write weekly annotated bibliographies. A component of the assignment is to write a one or two line evaluation of the reading. And I make it clear that I'm looking for an intellectual or academic evaluation - as in something like: "The author raises some provoking questions about X, but does not address issue Y." Or something like "This article offered an interesting contrast to the previous two articles we've read given that it adopted a different methodology and a different theoretical framework."

Not surprisingly, there is seldom an intellectual or academic evaluation to be found. Rather, I get drivel like the oh so vapid, "I liked the article," or the trenchant "The article was too long." Or, "The author uses too many example." Or my personal favorites, "The article has too many big words," and "This article was too hard."

Now if I can't get more than half of my students to offer an intellectual evaluation of an assigned reading - and I've given them plenty of examples of what an evaluation ought to look like - how am I supposed to take their "course evaluation" seriously? I have students who don't know what "pedagogy" means, what a learning objective looks like, and 25% of them haven't read the fucking course outline.

Evaluation assumes that one has some knowledge about what is being evaluated. What the hell do they know about teaching? You're asking a 20 year old to critically evaluate and reflect on my capacity to teach? When was the last time a 20 year old read up on how to construct fair and accurate multiple choice questions on the weekend so that he could ensure that the exam he was giving the following week was well constructed? What 20 year old knows about Bloom's taxonomy?

I'm not claiming that what students say about their educational experiences can't be useful or shouldn't be solicited. Their feedback is, I think, productive and can go a long way in assisting us in improving our efforts at teaching. Feedback is, I think, quite a different ball of wax when compared to "evaluation" and I'm more than willing to entertain student feedback. The problem is, "course evaluations" don't allow for this - given that they are, among other things, summative rather than formative assessments.

So I have a question - one asked in the interest of doing what we can to help our students become the adults we all know they can be. What can we do to generate pedagogically useful feedback from your students?

On Naming Names and Being the Smartest Guy in the Room & Something Else, But We Can't Figure it Out

When I first started teaching (in 1998), as part of that initial idealistic phase many university faculty go through, I did address students as "Mr." and "Ms." followed by their last names. It didn't work for 18-to-22-year olds; to their ears it sounded ridiculous. As late as the 1990s, only the very frumpiest and oldest of professors did that, and that breed may now be extinct. For "mature" students (over 25), and certainly for ones over 65, or any student who is much older than you are, addressing them as "Mr." or "Ms." can be appropriate; it depends on the individual. It seems inappropriate to call anyone who starts up a round of name calling "mature," but I digress.

Students rarely or never address me by my first name. This is partly because my college doesn't have a Ph.D. program, so that almost-immediate use of first names by everyone doesn't happen here. It's partly also because I tend to intimidate my students, since I'm much smarter than they'll ever be, and everyone knows it. I know, that sounds very immodest, but it's been something I've done all my life without even trying. And I rather like it, so I'm not going to change it unless I have a compelling need to do so. After all, many people and university administrators too often like university faculty who are smart, as long as they're sweet, and not -too- intimidating.

I'm certainly not nearly as smart as I want to be, but who cares since I have tenure. What I dislike more is being addressed by a student by my last name only. When did it become acceptable to address professors in this way? I don't much mind being stripped of my Ph.D., being addressed as "Mr." instead of "Dr." Being addressed by my last name only, though, is something that army drill sargeants or coaches do. When students do this, I feel obliged to correct them, as politely as I can, and remind them that employers and other people they'll meet after graduation often won't react well to this.

Open the Digital Doorway Too Wide and Nothing But Shit Will Get In

When I first got an email account as an instructor of English Literature in about 1996, my students made the attempt to write to me in complete sentences, use capital letters where appropriate, and check their spelling.

Several years later, I noticed that an increasing percentage sent emails containing sentence fragments, haphazard punctuation, and frequent spelling errors. However, they at least felt guilty enough about this that they put a smiley icon at the end as an apology. I really dislike emoticons, but that did indicate to some small degree that the students were aware that they ought to write in proper English to an English prof.

Now, the smileys have disappeared: students unrepentantly send me messages that look like ee cummings writing prose. They're ruder, too. "i cant find my notes for last weeks lectures--can u send me a copy"

No, I don't think I can. It's no wonder their essays are full of spelling mistakes and grammar problems: they get no other practice writing in sentences.

POW! Us Versus Them Is Not Going To Cut it If We Want To Sort The Classroom Out

You never know how it's going to turn here at RYS. Here, a reader goes against some of the recent grain and gives us our "post of the week."

I get plenty of bizarre and inappropriate requests from my students for extra help, second chances, or special treatment. So I'm more than sympathetic to the problem that Hang Together describes ...... but not at all to HT's solution. Because I also get plenty of perfectly legitimate requests for extra help and second chances.

The student whose sister was murdered mid-semester certainly wouldn't have been helped in any meaningful way if I'd been an asshole and refused to grant her request for "special treatment." Nor was the integrity of my teaching blemished even slightly because I gave her carte blanche to decide when she would complete the course requirements. Those circumstances so clearly warranted a deviation from the rules laid out in the syllabus that I felt bad that I couldn't do more to be helpful.

Of course, most requests for extensions are much harder for me to adjudicate. But that's precisely why I always include some sort of "drop the low grade" or "choose four of six assignments" or "flexible due dates" option on my syllabi. Not because it improves student learning, but because it allows me to spend more time concentrating on actual teaching and research, and less time trying to decide which sob stories are bullshit and which are genuine crises.

This system also makes it much easier for my students to really see themselves as adults (rather than "kids" or "cherubs"), since it visibly puts the responsibility for balancing their workload (and their lives) back on their shoulders. They have to decide for themselves when/if they want to burn up their droppable assignments, and this makes it that much tougher (which is not to say "impossible") for them to ask for "special treatment" in December when they know they made poor choices in October.

I can guarantee you that none of this makes my students feel like they're being "coddled" or like my courses are "dumbed down." My students routinely tell me that they have to work harder in my classes than they're used to -- and I'm quite happy to have earned a reputation as a "tough A." If HT is suffering from a plague of students who feel over-entitled (and who of us isn't?), it's certainly not because faculty like me are offering students five chances to turn in three papers. Demanding that "faculty should hang together" isn't the solution here -- and not only because it's a really poor choice of phrase (unless, for some perverse reason, you want to invite people to respond with "get a rope").

This isn't a war, after all, students aren't the enemy ... and what a hardline/"us versus them"/"zero tolerance" approach to teaching says to me is that it's not always the students who need to learn how to behave like adults.

Plagiarism Flood

We have been flooded with stories about plagiarism. We aren't posting many of them because they all go like this:

I teach Sociology / English / History / Biology / Philosophy, and I can't believe what my students try to get away with.

Just yesterday / last week / last month / last semester, my least favorite student Nick / Taylor / Harry / Debbie / Smash / Josh / Tito, turned in a paper a day late.

I hardly ever take in late work, but I thought some grade was better than no grade. Besides, my student said that wolverines ate the first draft / a helicopter scattered the pages / a drunk beat her up in the parking lot on the way to my office / a tiny creature tricked her into selling the essay for magic beans.

Once I started reading the paper about supply-side economics / karate / Immanuel Kant / sex practices among the Innuit / Elvis / double helix chemical reactions, it didn't read like my student's usual work.

So, I went on Google / Google / Google / Yahoo / Google / The Google / Yahoo / Google, and, wouldn't you know it, there was my student's essay.

I've never been so mad / disappointed / flummoxed / alarmed / red-faced / ashamed.

Please keep my anonymous because I don't have tenure yet.

Somebody Snaps and Goes Old School With a Student Rating

I've reached a breaking point with BD, a sophomore student in my evening Poli Sci class. From day one she has taken great pleasure in arguing with other students in class, flipping her hair back, smacking on her fucking gum, playing like she's my buddy and my equal, and forgetting to wear shoes to class about half the time. I mean, like, she's got so much else going on.

From the beginning she's demanded special treatment. She comments on everything that is said or done in class, putting a little demented and inane cherry on top of anyone else's observation or question. When I ask to hear some new voices in class, she smacks her lips, plunges back into her chair with a pout, and usually fires up the Blackberry to check on the haps elsewhere.

She once came to my office before class started to tell me she couldn't come because she was "buzzed," and thought it would be disrepectful to me to attend class. Then she wondered if I'd send her a podcast of my lecture, or if she could just come by some other day and have me tell her what we covered. "Like, wow, I really just need to go back to the dorm and chill out, let this buzz wear off." She was wearing an outfit that was about right if you were a $30 whore or a circus freak.

On her midterm she misread most of the instructions, skipped 2 of the 4 essay questions, and scored a very considerate D. She came to my office the next week with such a tale of woe that I thought I might be on a hidden camera show of some kind. Her boyfriend has been an ass. Her dad divorced her mom (8 years ago!) and he was being an ass to her. Her English professor accused her of plagiarism, and he was an ass. An RA in her building caught her with 2 cases of beer the weekend before, and she was a major ass. "I mean, like, we have to unwind after all of this work." I was wondering if I was an ass, too, and if she told her other profs how I'd wronged her, but before I could daydream anymore she asked, "Uh, when can I do a retake of the test, since your instructions weren't clear enough." Gum smack. Smile. Toss of the hair.

And then, and I know it sounds like some Afterschool Special, "Gee, Dr. XXXX, I never noticed that cool bracelet before. You're really rocking those friendship beads."

So, I showed her the door, said my goodbyes, and just put my head down on the cool desk for a while. Just for grins, I logged onto Facebook to get a deeper look into BD's college experience. Most of what was posted were party photos taken in her dorm. Bottles of booze fill the bathroom sink. One guy - in another of my classes - is flashing his ass at the camera while balancing a shot glass full of something on his head. BD is in a lot of the photos making out with guys. There's a stunning series of photos of her with her roommate, where they're dry humping on a pool table with a crowd of Sigma Chis around them. And the captions of the photos are quite illuminating: "Hot." "Kisses." "Me and Matt Swapping Spit." "Look at my Boobies!" "Yummy." "Tastes Like Chicken." "Mommy told me to be GOOD."

I've got that class tonight. I just feel ill. She will come bustling in 4 minutes late, mouth wide open, telling us some idiotic series of events that kept her from getting there on time. She'll humph and harumph if I don't call on her as soon as her hand goes in the hair. She'll make fun of at least one student during discussion. She'll want to know if we "have" to do the reading. Or if she can leave early because she has "something going down."

It takes all of my will and all of my energy just to make the long walk across campus to the building. I wish I could smoke or drink whatever it is that gets BD through having to put up with the likes of me and the other asses in the way of her good time.

You Want Them to What? Go to Class, Take Notes, Take Quizzes. Be Adults? You Want a Chocolate Fountain and a Backyard Full of Ponies, Too?

Every week a student asks me for (a) lecture notes (b) a "retake" on a quiz or test (c) whether I "drop" low quiz/test grades and (d) whether he can take a quiz/test at his convenience because he has an ingrown toenail (an actual excuse).

I could blame the students for their wheedling and whimpering, but I blame other faculty. Where are students getting the idea that faculty hand out lecture notes so the little cherubs don't have to tire themselves by taking notes or attending class? They get these ideas from other faculty. Who is giving them lecture notes? Other faculty. Who is letting them retake quizzes, drop tests, and reschedule at their convenience? Other faculty. Some "teaching excellence" or "academic support" person will answer that these dumbing-down techniques improve student learning. They clearly don't. Have we seen any improvement in learning since faculty began handing out notes, powerpoints, and "retakes"? No.

I have a proposal. Faculty should hang together. Don't give lecture notes, and don't post lecture notes. The cherubs will learn that faculty expect them to attend class and take notes. Don't give retakes. The cherubs will learn that the first test or quiz is real and they have one shot at it. Don't give make-ups. Don't drop grades. Don't come in on Saturdays. If they miss class for Uncle Ernie's birthday party, then let them take the consequences. Don't IM with students. If the cherubs have something important to address, then they can address it like adults.

Act like the bosses they will soon have. Stop making it harder on the rest of us.

A Couple of Little Cajones Go A Long Way

Sometimes I'm too lenient with the excuses and whatnot, but deep down inside I know this is just conflict avoidance and I should not be this way. Today I grew a tiny set of cajones and held myself and my class to a higher standard when a student and I had the following IM conversation about an assignment due today at 5pm.

student: dr X i have a quick question. my mom has just surprised me by showing up. would it be possible if i get an extension on the homework until tomorrow morning

me: I'd love to say yes, but that really wouldn't be fair to the other students. I'm sure your mom will understand that college work is priority #1. How about if you show your mom your work and let her see how smart you are? :)

student: no problem, im almost done i just though it wouldn'y hurt to ask thanks anyway!

me: Ok, good luck.

If I hadn't read the "Where Uncle Ernie Gets The Shaft" posting from last week, I might not have said what I said. I might have just said, "sure" because I'm lazy. So thanks for keeping us honest.

Where Baseball's Inviolate Rules Take a Shitcanning, and Where Two Students Meet the Business End of the Plagiarism Punishment Stick

Plagiarism pisses me off so badly that it makes me grind my teeth. It's not so much the fact that students are being dishonest, but that they assume I'm as stupid and lazy as they are. I therefore consider plagiarism to be a personal insult.

This semester, I've started taking a harder line. Instead of just failing the assignment, plagiarists now fail my course. And they get reported to the Dean of Students. Tough shit.

I had two students in my upper-division class commit plagiarism on a take-home essay assignment. Student A plagiarized last fall in another upper-division course of mine. That time, she merely failed the assignment (she later dropped). However, I reported her to my chair, who in turn reported her to the Dean of Students. Strike One! This time, instead of copying from a website verbatim, she changed word order around and used synonyms. However, she neglects to do this on one of the sentences she plagiarizes. That's the sentence I happen to google. (Drum roll, please.) It turns out to be the first hit I get on Google. Busted. Strike Two! Youuuu'rrrrrreee out! There's no Strike Three. This time I'm pushing for suspension.

Student B I think was just too stupid to realize that he was plagiarizing. He's one of those students who is "remarkably unremarkable." In class, he just sits there and warms a seat. I've had him in classes before and he is basically a non-entity - the embodiment of all things mediocre. He seemed to be genuinely stunned when I brought him to my office after class and showed him his paper and told him what the deal was. I told him that I was sorry, but my hands were tied. Later in the day, I got an email from his dad with the usual sob story (it was unintentional, B needs the class to graduate, B is an honest kid, etc.). I told dad that I couldn't discuss B with him due to FERPA. End of story.

Trouble is, I'm not sure taking this hard line is going to endear me to the suits. Because even though they give lip-service to getting tough on student plagiarism, I'm not sure the political will is really there to follow through. Why not? Because getting tough means that the "customers" aren't getting the "product" for which they and their parents are paying. So, if we're too tough on the little darlings for minor things like academic dishonesty, then they will go elsewhere, taking their tuition dollars with them.

If they go elsewhere, then I'm not doing enough to "retain" them. Fill in the rest of the blanks yourself.

Some New Press

We have had this little bit of press hanging around for a while, but nobody's taken the time to post it. So, here's something from Imprint Magazine out of Ithaca, NY. Check this for the whole article, and see below for a little flava.

***

from "The Rating Wars: Students and Professors Battle It Out Online"

by Alice Paik

For “The Professor,” a tenured professor in the humanities at a small liberal arts college in the South, colleagues in his field deserved a place on the Web to rant back [at Rate My Professor]. In November of 2005, Rate Your Students (RYS) was born. But just three months later, an unshakable hacker infiltrated the blog several times over a two-week period.

“The Professor got tired of the hassle of keeping the blog going in this momentary spate of technological tomfoolery,” says a RYS moderator, one of three others to whom the now-distressed Professor handed the site and its archives. “We [moderators] are all college professors, all readers of the first version of the site, and all fans,” the moderator says.

“We welcome posts from anyone interested in the mission of the site, which has something to do with making the modern-day college classroom a better place where understanding is increased between faculty and students.”

The posts on the blog suggest the majority of this supposedly increased understanding is among the faculty members alone. Phrases like “hellish situations” caused by “disruptive students” are mild compared to some choice vocabulary used to describe the particularly unruly scholars. A group of anxiety-ridden professors even advises readers to hammer down alcohol in the title of their post (“We Recommend the Margarita. Actually A Couple of Them. Step Away From the Computer, And Go Get Something to Drink Right Now.”) prior to reading.

Molly Wilson, a sophomore, does not take offense at the RYS website. Instead, she sees blunt humor. “I love it!” she says laughing. “We do it to them, so why shouldn’t they retaliate? I’m sure they want to rant about bad students just like we rant about bad professors.”

The Ruination of Math Development and Playing Tag - Our Precious Dears Are Under Attack!

Within the past week, two seemingly unrelated news stories have come to my attention. First, it appears that building students’ self-esteem is related to their poor performance in math. The reports on this that I have read seem to imply that high self-esteem causes poor math performance. Of course, math professors and other well-educated individuals with reasoning abilities know that the type of study reported is a correlational study and that correlation cannot determine causation.

Yes, it may be true that our lovely little darlings’ high held opinions of themselves interferes with their ability to solve equations, but there may be a third variable at work. Perhaps our little darlings cannot add and subtract without a calculator because too much of the school day is taken up with feel-good messages and lessons on the importance of loving one’s self. If that time were spent on teaching actual subject matter, perhaps America would not be lagging in terms of math. Or, perhaps students’ high self-esteem leads them to believe that they have the ability to outperform anyone on any math test placed in front of them without having to study. After all, the sun shines out of their…uh…ears.

Which leads me to the next news story that grabbed my attention. It seems that the childhood staple game of tag is being outlawed by a number of schools. Why, you may ask. The reasons are two-fold. First, little Jimmy or little Suzie’s delicate feelings might get hurt. Heaven forbid! Never mind that by playing tag and having to be “it” all the time might actually teach Jimmy or Suzie that they just aren’t good at something. Never mind that by losing at tag repeatedly, they might just come to the realization that they might need to practice and put some effort into running and maneuvering. No, no, no….we wouldn’t want to burst the bubble that mom, dad and the school have so carefully constructed.

The second reason given for banning tag is that schools might beopening themselves up to lawsuits if Jimmy or Suzie falls down and gets a boo-boo. Evidently, the elementary schools are afraid of having to pay the medical costs involved with an application of Neosporin and a band-aid.

So kids, what are you learning in class today? That you are the best thing to ever happen on this planet, that knowing this is more important than being able to figure out the sales tax on the new car mommy and daddy will buy you for graduation, and that if anyone hurts you or your self esteem, you should sue!

More Ways to Cope - Or Is This a Copout?

1. "No office hours this week." Guess what week that is? The one where you have just handed out exam grades. Works like a charm. Allows time for them to cool off. And no one ever comes to office hours anyway the week after an exam other than to complain.
   
2. "You don't like your grade? Wow, that sounds serious! Let me take a look. Yes! You are right! I completely lost my perspective when I was grading YOUR exam. So let's do this right. You and I will approach the department to set up a formal committee to re-grade your exam. You pick two members, I pick two members and the department picks the rest. OK?"
   
3. "E-mail me before you come to office hours. I have found that students have a good, productive session with me when they have 3 main points that they want to go over with me. Of course, we can talk about other stuff too. But be sure to bring your 3 points!"

Could We Get More Students Like This Guy? Probably Not.

A public high school is a terrible place to grow up. It is true that many students do not know basic grammar, that they can hardly distinguish proper English from chatspeak, and that they smoke weed in the parking lot during lunch break. But there are other students who love the subjunctive instead of sex, integers instead of iPods. It is precisely because the student body at a public school is necessarily diverse that the public-school system is so inadequate. One would be remiss to consider the failure of high schools without taking into account the nine or more years of woefully impersonal education that preceded.

I am relatively new to college, but besides the disappearance of bells and No. 2 pencils, much is the same as in high school. Still my classmates fail to comprehend the difference between a noun and a verb. Still my classmates walk into class without having completed the assigned readings or homework. What strikes me is that they feel no sense of desperation or guilt about it. Tuition is through the roof; I cannot imagine that they would be willing to waste their very expensive purchase so nonchalantly. They are so lucky to be in college; why do they treat their education with such offhandedness?

The Never Sent and Sarcastic Return Email is Always a Sure Winner Here at RYS

An email from a student:

“Hi, my family is leaving on a trip the week before finals, and my grandpa and my dad invited me to go. This is only a five day trip and I would be back before finals week. I was wondering if there was any possible way that I would be able to go, and what I would need to get done. Please let me know and get back to me asap.”

The reply I can't send:

I hope I responded to your email “asap” enough.

Sure, why don’t you go ahead and miss the entire week of classes right before final exams? I’m sure all of your instructors will be more than happy to accommodate your family’s vacation itinerary. We’ll even grant an extension on missed work so you can turn it in for full credit — will February 1 give you enough time? It shouldn’t be too much to make up, because most classes rarely do anything very important the week before exams anyway.

But since your email suggests you’re dense enough to have my sarcasm go ricocheting off your cranium, let me tell you plainly “what you need to get done”:

• Give me your dad’s email so I can ask him how the hell he gets off asking me to make arrangements for his special little genius to miss the last week of classes.
• Quit assuming that I have nothing better to do than drop everything and strategize how you can get around attendance policies to take early winter break.
• Get written permission from each one of your classmates, so that they know what applies to them doesn’t count for you, since you’re special and obviously have such a loving family.
• Look back over the graded papers I’ve handed back to you, ponder how consistently shitty your work has been, and then ask yourself if missing the last classes before finals is a good idea. Actually, never mind — that would require critical reasoning. Why start now?
  
  Hugs,
  Your professor

One Year

A year ago today, "The Professor," a humanities professor from a small liberal arts college in the South started Rate Your Students in this very space. (He's a hero to us, of course.)

As many of you know, he ran the site - quite publicly - until February of this year before turning it and its archives over to us. The press on the site was huge in those early months. The NY and LA Times did articles, Chicago Trib, the Chronicle, the Village Voice, etc. International papers in England, Australia, and New Zealand also did articles. "The Professor" even wrote a piece for the London Times Higher Education Supplement.

But his role in the life of the site was short-lived, and now our trio of profs has been running RYS for more than 8 months.

On this little anniversary, though, we want to give a shout-out to the past. Here's the opening salvo from this blog, one year old today.

*^*

As we begin, let's be clear. Rating students and professors is a gigantic waste of energy and time. But as long as Ratemyprofessor.com continues to operate mostly unmoderated and with no real intention of limiting anonymous attacks from anyone who'd like to log in, we will operate over here on our little site.

We will rate our students here. And we will play it fast and loose. And we will do it without compunction. There are no guidelines. There is complete anonymity. You may let loose in any way you like. Email your ratings and I will take care of the heavy lifting of getting things formatted nice and tidy.Then we'll just see where we're at.

We'll still be fucked. We'll still be poor academics. But at least those callous and ignorant "customers" of ours will know what it's like. What we believe here at the site is that if it's little, you say it's little.

That's it.

Someone's Fed Up, and When This Happens We Often Get a List

I like most of my students, really, even the lazy ones, the passive ones, the failing ones. It's the "I-pay-your-salary-with-my-tuition-so-please-me-you-academic-whore" students that I can't stand.

Such students are in the minority, I think. But they are a vocal minority. They speak, and speak, and speak. Not in class, of course. They are quick to spew their venom on RMP. They have no shame in complaining to the Chair that they ONLY plagiarized one paragraph so should have a chance to rewrite. To these students, office hours are for challenging the generous "C" they got for writing yet another fascinating paper on legalizing marijuana. After all, why visit a professor except to enjoy a good moan?

Proponents of RMP say it equalizes the balance of power between student and professor. Well then, let's really play by the same rules in the classroom. In the spirit of fairness, let's all do the following:

1. Roll your eyes every time a student asks, "Will we be tested on today's lecture?"
2. Yawn overtly when you're bored by their amazingly thoughtful observation that morality is relative.
3. Comment (under your breath but loudly enough to be heard) on how good or bad their asses look in those pants.
4. Talk nonsense for the duration of the class period and inform them you met the length requirement.
5. Check your text messages during their presentations.
6. Complain about having to read all of their essays even though their writing does not meet the new academic standard of being "fun."
7. Come to class with no notes, no ideas, and no shower.
8. Nap during class, and tell your Chair that you were, per your obligation, present every day.
9. Pay your little brother to write your lectures. Or better yet, just read something dowloaded from the web.
10. Grade them on how cute and entertaining they were in class.

Fantasies aside, most of us will continue to rise above for the sake of the decent students.

Where Uncle Ernie Gets The Shaft

My students need to attend a certain number of outside events to satisfy our college's core requirements. I give them a number to choose from each week.

After I received about the 15th student note saying, "My mom says I have to come home this weekend for Uncle Ernie's birthday so you'll have to find something else for me to attend," I sent this note to all of my students:

Dear Students,

I'm starting to get a lot of requests for "other options" for the outside event you must attend for this class. There are none--you were presented with two options, one of which you must attend in order to receive credit for this class. An important part of college is learning that sometimes we have to reschedule our lives in order to fulfill requirements. I had to do that as a student and still do as a faculty member. You'll have to do that in the "real world," too. The assumption is that you're available during the scheduled semester (it may surprise you to know that the majority of college students do NOT go home during the semester, let alone every weekend--only during school holidays).

When I was a college student (100 years ago...), I missed family birthdays, my grandparents' funerals, etc. because my family knew that my college education was important and that that's what I needed to do at that point in my life.

Hope you're able to make arrangements to attend the remaining event so that you'll get credit for this requirement.

Best,
Your Professor

Let's Get On With the Name Calling!

Hey Professor Hewitt...

I'm a "non-traditional" student. This means I'm older than the average student and, while I may not have a degree in whatever it is you're teaching, I do have some worthy mileage on me, and could probably teach you a few things. (Get your mind out of the gutter, you perv, I was speaking of sculpture and kiln building!)

If I were to take one of your classes, and you chose to call me by my first name, I'd return the favor without thinking twice.

Some Little Bits - Some So Scary, You'd Think It Was Still Halloween!

We get a ton of email from folks with little bits of stories. They're all great, and we enjoy them. They're tasty aperitifs that precede some meatier fare.

But they don't make for great posts on RYS. We sometimes work with the writers to expand the little bits into bigger pieces. We make brilliant suggestions. Writers ignore those. They make better choices. And then the piece appears a few days later. But sometimes there's nothing else to them, and we always feel bad hitting delete.

So, we've saved some of our favorites from October and they are offered below, unconnected, not thematic, just some little bits of stuff that didn't fit anywhere else.

Sure, this hodge podge of mini-posts may make it seem like we're being lazy, but put those negative thoughts out of your head. We're doing all we can, given that we had a huge crash last night after getting into the leftover Halloween stuff.

• I got a frantic email this evening from a student in my mid-level undergrad course. She just now realized - 9 weeks into the term - that she took and completed this same course last year. It's exactly the same course, with the same title and course number, the same textbook and the same assignments. She wrote that she "didn't know" that she had taken the course before. I'm sure she didn't know, because she's been too busy playing Tetris on her cellphone.
• It might be worth pointing out that ratemyprofessors.com now allows students to upload pictures of their profs for public viewing. "Ohhh Snap!" it ever-so-articulately states. "RateMyProfessors.com just launched Professor Pictures! Bust out your camera phone and upload your professor's picture today!"
• I am tired of babysitting my students. I feel as if I'm in middle school, reminding them to do things like bring a pen to class, bring their books, turn off their phones, put the fucking newspaper down, stop fidgeting, close up the potato chips, take their feet off the desk (and put their flip flops back on!) I have told students several times this semester to quit talking while someone else is talking, to not come to class 40 minutes late, to not take phone calls during class. They sit there with the most perplexed looks.
• I assigned an evaluation essay to my class, and I specified a thorough evaluation of at least three brands or items from a single product line - three different toothpastes, three different kinds of multi-grain bread, etc. The example we read in our textbook actually was a cute student essay about three different brands of soda that the writer had inventively evaluated for taste, after-taste, coolness factor, cost, and nutritional value. This one student wrote a paper that was about the first time he tasted his grandfather's beef jerky and how much he liked it. I gave the paper back after class with the D and he blew a gasket. Don't I know how hard he worked on it? Didn't I know that he went to the trouble to have his mom proofread it - "And she lives all the way in Pennsylvania!"
• I get a paper that's a C. I give it a B. And then the mommy calls me – at home – demanding to know why I didn't give it an A. After all, mommy's S.L.G. (Special Little Genius) absolutely MUST go to Harvard or Oxford or Yale or Cambridge or wherever, and if I don't give S.L.G. an "A," mommy and daddy will have 'a talk' with the principal and pull the student - and all that tuition - from our school and send S.L.G. to a private school where he *will* get an A.
• Let's just be clear on one thing. Sometimes they ARE pajama pants. Yes, the ones with the little slit in the front. And the guy in my 4:30 pm class who consistently wears them really shouldn't sit in a wide V-position, with one leg bent up on the chair next to him. This should be especially true when he's not wearing underwear. When the other guys in class berated him for it earlier in the semester, he grabbed his crotch and said, "I'm just giving the ladies a little something to think about."
• You guys need to post more listings of students to avoid. I'm just getting going in this business, and I can't tell the regular ass-kissers from the ass-kissers who are going to be a problem after that first bad grade. Is there a system?
• On the first day of class I introduce myself as Professor Hewitt. I do not use my first name around the students. I do not sign my e-mails with my first name. And yet in class and in e-mail the students seem to feel free to call me Richard, Rick, or Dick. Here's a hint, Mr. and Miss Bad Manners: if you don' t know which nickname someone uses, use their last name instead. And here's another hint: if someone is in a position of authority over you, and is two or three times your age, you might want to try formality as a sign of respect. Just an idea.
• Where on earth do students get the idea that I am going to postpone their exam because their boyfriend's mother had a foot operation? Unless I drove over this person's foot in my own car, it's not a story I'm interested in.
• If a cell phone goes off in class, I send that student home, mark him/her absent, and give the rest of the class a pop-quiz. The student with the phone gets a zero, of course. This way, I punish the entire class for one student’s mistake. It breeds a general hostility between class members and toward the offensive student. But I'm never bothered by cell phones again. Grow up or get out. Make room for someone who still gives a shit.