"It's Just Me Expressing Levity So I Won't Be So Stressed." Today's VidShizzle. A "Re-Enactment" For the Ages.

One of the few YouTube videos we found with its own "gag reel."

The Tender Ballad of Nancy Not-Flakey, the Poor Misunderstood Creature Who Never Met an Office Hour She Didn't Like.

Dear Professor Gruffy McGruff,

I came to your office hours to ask you to review my assignment, and you did so gladly. But then when I asked you a question about a particular section of the assignment, you ignored me. Thinking it was an oversight, I asked again, and you snapped at me. You simply said my name in an angry, ominous voice that made it clear that any further inquiry about the source of my confusion would result in a full-blown outburst. Not wishing to antagonize you, I dropped the subject altogether and skulked out of your office.

Professor McGruff, do not be angry with me for not being as smart and talented as the kids in the back row, all of whom were lured away from MIT and Stanford by prestigious full 4-year scholarships, including stipends for books and living expenses. Do not be angry with me for not being as smart and talented as you are - after all, you teach this stuff, you have a PhD and 30 years more experience than I do. You're an expert in a field in which I am just starting out.

You can be impatient and exasperated with me because my mind doesn't process complicated ideas as fast as yours does. I'm sympathetic to impatience and exasperation - I feel just the same way when I have to explain something twenty times to someone who lacks the intelligence or initiative to understand it the first time. But you skipped right past the optimistic first explanation, Professor McGruff, and right past the impatience and exasperation of a second or third explanation, and proceeded to righteous anger of a tenth or twentieth explanation delivered to a lazy, careless, ignorant snowflake who makes no effort to comprehend.

I may be stupid but I'm not lazy or careless. I come to your office hours every week, submit assignments early so I can have your feedback to start my revisions as soon as possible, ponder your every word in lectures, take notes diligently, and try my best to absorb all the complicated and brilliant ideas you convey. I know I won't get an A in your course, the hardest of all courses offered in my major, and I've already resigned myself to destroying my excellent GPA. It is worth to gain even half the knowledge you share with us each week. But your anger frightens me, Professor McGruff, because I can't make myself as brilliant as you are simply by wishing.

I will continue to ask questions that seem frightfully obvious to you, and I am afraid that you will continue to snap at me angrily without even attempting to explain. Please, if you are going to use the angry voice, could you at least angrily snap the explanation to my question, instead of just my name? That way I'd have a chance to understand.

Sincerely,
Nancy Not-Flakey

Beaker Ben, One of the Famed RYS Regulars, Shoots Up to Assoc. Proffie Status. Wait Till You See How Differently Freshmen Treat You Now!

I think I speak for all faculty recently promoted to associate professorship when I say that we appreciate all of our colleagues’ support. We could not have done it without you, if for no other reason than we’d spend all our time doing more worthless committee work.

In the past few days, I’ve realized there are many benefits to becoming an associate professor besides a change in title and the enormous raise (ahem, well, anyway...), such as:

10. never again have to explain to non-academic friends that an assistant professor is nobody’s “assistant”
9. convert promotion dossier into bestselling autobiography
8. stop pretending to be so nice to coworkers
7. become a Platinum-Level photocopier user, in which I get free airfare for every 20,000 copies I make
6. drive with confidence knowing that cops never ticket associate profs
5. give an Academy Award-type speech (I’d like to thank my fourth grade teacher for helping me learn long division...)
4. feel that we need to start raising the requirements for promoting assistant professors
3. marvel at my old schoolmates’ reaction, “You got promoted?!”
2. don’t feel constrained to make all lists contain 10 items

Oh, heck. Who am I kidding?

1. begin resting on my laurels

A Smattering of Replies On the Student Athlete Thirsty.

Here at Euphoric State University (long a NCAA Division II power, now transitioning into Division I), the athletes that I have had in my classes (which range from non-majors' courses to advanced courses for majors) are very mixed. Some of the best students I have ever had have been athletes -- women athletes in particular: I've had excellent students who played women's soccer and softball. I've encountered men's basketball players with serious attitude problems, and other basketballers who put their heads down, did the work, and earned their Cs. I have yet to have a football player on the active roster do well in a class I teach, although I currently have a former footballer who's doing well. I haven't really had enough baseball players or track and field athletes to make any generalization, and cheerleaders have ranged from dogged overachievers to stereotypical bubbleheads.

My personal hypothesis -- and that's all it is; I really have no data other than my own observations, and I could be horribly wrong -- is that the more "big-time" a sport is, the less the athletes are willing to focus on academics. For students who play softball, soccer, or volleyball, their college years are their last opportunity to play competitively; barring the very rare Olympian, there's no real chance for them to turn pro and make megabucks and endorse shoes and Wheaties. Those students know they have to find a serious job, and they've developed the work ethic and toughness to stick it out in the classroom. On the other hand, the football and men's basketball players hope to turn pro, even if it's a subconscious hope -- one or two of our school's football players have made the NFL or CFL each year for the past few years, so it's unlikely but not impossible. Perhaps they feel less driven to succeed academically because they're hoping for a pro contract. But I could be wrong.

[*]

From June 2005 through June 2008, I taught at a service academy. Some of our student athletes were both amazing students (at a curriculum where EVERYONE takes at least 1 full year of chemistry, 1 full year of physics, at least three semesters of calculus, and both mechanical and electrical engineering classes) and amazing athletes. I learned that the students that made the varsity teams were expected and required to keep their grades to a certain point certainly higher than NCAA standards and that these students would rise to a level that was frequently astounding! Of course, we had some folks that were less than motivated, but teaching there has made me completely re-evaluate the concept of the student/athlete and what can be both expected and required of these people as students. Now having returned to a Big 12 powerhouse (sort of), I have some student football players performing well in organic chemistry and general chemistry. Naturally, some of these folks too are less than motivated, but that is the exception rather than the rule. I am proud to work with them!

[*]

When I was a Grad student I was an advising assistant. Hey, it paid the bills and the free food was awesome. I went to a SEC Powerhouse school and what I saw on a daily basis were hills and valleys.

The female athletes, by and large, were on their stuff, they had good grades in challenging programs as well as the sports. They were not babied and easily rivaled any other student on campus for success in academics. The sports program for females was pretty good too and enjoyed a good reputation in the state.

The men on the other hand is an example of the most negative stereotypes ever put to paper. I would see football players that simply did not care what they took for class. Or what they majored in. Their grades, for the vast majority, hovered around the 2.0 mark. The major of choice was Sociology, up until the department decided to institute an "Advanced Stats" requirement that pretty much ensured the football players had to major in something else because there was no way in hell any of those guys could pass college algebra, much less advanced states.

The other major of choice was "Sports Management" because, apparently, once you play, you can manage too! What most of them did not realize was that the program was difficult to get into and none of them stood a chance. Off to Political Science they went, I think.

Once their usefulness to the team was done they either flunked out or graduated with a 2.0 GPA and no future. The stars, well, we all see them on NFL game days, don't we? Not so for the majority.

The best story I have is a kid coming back, he said he played basketball and that he was returning so he could complete his degree and play. First problem was that he was trying to register a month after classes had started. Also, he had something like a 0.8 GPA, or less, I forget. I mentioned how he would be at a severe disadvantage but he paid me no mind! His answer to everything: Coach will help him out.

The facilities for these kids was exactly what has been talked about: top of the line with their own advisers and tutors who were most often douchebags of the highest order. The advisers, not tutors. The tutors were in it for the money and I know one or two that hated it because their assigned athletes were the worst kind of lazy. But apparently the money was good.

I have a mixed feeling on student athletes. Some really do work their hind ends off to achieve both on and off the field. The ones who consistently met the lazy, coddled stereotype were the football players. Only the stars ever went anywhere or did anything with their school careers. The vast majority did poorly, did not even finish half the time, and faded back to whatever town they came from. They are the real story here; that guy who drifts off in your class will be back to ghetto town USA in two years after his glory days are over.

[*]

Color me disillusioned. Taken as a whole, student-athletes are average students, but the some turn out to be utter disasters, and they're particularly memorable. I've had quite a few drop the class once they realize it actually requires work, disappear halfway through the semester once their grades have cratered, or doggedly submit craptacular assignment after craptacular assignment. By now, I've come to the point of trying to avoid knowing if a student is an athlete. That way, I don't approach the students with a preformed negative attitude, and it's a pleasant surprise when I find out that a good student is on a sports team. That being said, when I find out a D- student is on a team...it doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

[*]

Look, student athletes vary in their capacities (to think critically, turn assignments in on time, or to piss off their classmates and me) like the rest of the student body.

I teach in a department that is particularly popular for the athletes at my Div I school and don't think I've ever had a class without student athletes. I've had incredibly diligent, respectful, and intelligent athletes, and I've had lying, cheating, pieces-of-shit athletes. The pattern I have found, however is that the young men who dream of greatness on the football fields and basketball courts are generally less well-equipped intellectually to be in college courses and tend to struggle with their grades more than other athletes or non-athletes. A handful of them resort to plagiarism, test-peeking, or other forms of douchebaggery to make things easier on themselves, but they're not all like that. A few realize that their athleticism got them into college but won't get them out: they might as well get a degree so that they have a future after their inevitable sports career-ending knee or spinal injury.

Interestingly, the three (that I know of) former students of mine who left college to make it successfully to the pros were also kind, honest, respectful, and attentive members of their classes, whether or not they also had smarts.

Another general observation: many of my female student athletes have been better students than most of their non-athlete classmates. They are focused, manage their time well, don't have super-powered egos, and seem to appreciate the education because they don't operate under the delusion that they'll be making millions in a year or two. For all the pains-in-the-ass that several of my student athletes have been to me and to their classmates, I've found our school's academic support department for athletes to be fair and particularly interested in athletes' good behavior and academic performance. I keep them in the loop about students' performance and they return the favor by not interfering in how I conduct my courses and by putting a metaphorical boot in the asses of the trouble-makers.

We'd all do well to give all students the benefit of the doubt until they prove themselves unworthy of it. Then, proceed as necessary.

[*]

I teach an honors level physical science course, and for the most part student athletes avoid it. There are several exceptions, however, and in my semi-vast experience these exceptions have outperformed and outmaneuvered everyone else in the class.

Three such athletes are burned into memory, and each showed a veracity for learning the likes of which I have not noticed in many of my majors (who also take my course). Each of these student athletes was female, played a prominent position on their respective teams (pitcher for softball, center for basketball, captain for track and field relay competition), and hands down could answer any question related to what I taught, no matter how far out there. They all asked thoughtful, insightful questions, actually CAME to office hours when they needed to, and blew the rest of the children out of the water come exam day.

Do I cringe to know that student athletes are in my course? Quite the contrary...I know from past experience that they will likely set the bar for everyone else. While I realize this anecdote is generalizing a few examples to a whole population, I think it pays to sit back and put yourself in someone elses' cleats once in a while. Maybe then we'll not be so quick to jump to harsh and rash conclusions about things which we really know very little of.

The Bitchy Bear of Boston on Bowls, Owls, And The Need to Protect Those Precious Snowflakes Through The Kind of Coddling Any Real Mommy Would Expect.

As is entirely too frequent in all of our lives, I had to confront and sanction a plagiarizing student this week. Keep in mind that this was a lame-ass assignment for a lame-ass class, the sort of class that most donkeys could pass if their parents were capable of writing checks for tuition. This particular assignment required a student to take five--count 'em--five whole digital pictures and required at a maximum--a maximum--of 300 words. Rather than take the digital photos himself, Snowy decided to take images off of Google. And of course, he used the first few images that show up on Google images, as he didn't have enough gumption to scroll. Then, he ripped off text from the web pages to describe the photos. He couldn't manage a whole five sentences for his own captions.

I confronted dear Snowy and his response was: "You didn't say we couldn't take text from websites." He says this, and I start to feel one of the veins in my temple give way. This is a 20 year-old person. Help me, God, please God help not to dope slap him because I am pretty sure that would tip off my colleagues to how I really feel rather than all the student-centered bullcrap I wrote in my teaching statement. This problem here, I guess, is entirely my fault. Instead of feeling...oh, I don't know....something even remotely socially appropriate like shame, Snowy is angry with me.

Suddenly, the weight of the world began to bear down on me much more as I thought of all the many things I have neglected to tell my students not to do. I have never told them not to come to class with a salad bowl on their heads. I have never told them not to spend their entire allowance on cookie sprinkles and pinking shears. I have never, not once, not ever told them not to stand in traffic and not to put out their cigarettes on another human being's head. I've never told them not to use bourbon in a martini. I've never warned them not to write their problem sets in blue eyeshadow. I never told them not to shove their keys in a light socket. Do you see the problem here? Because of me, and my failures as an instructor and, let's face it, as a human being, one of my students, right now, could be posing as a naked taxi driver in Tijuana all because I never told him not to! AIGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH. There could be another student using nailclippers to trim hedges because I didn't tell her not to. The inefficiency! One of mine could be out there, right now, poking at owls with an umbrella because of my inability to make my expectations clear. Was I raised by wolves? It's like I have no social conscience whatsoever! Here I was, thinking about my own stupid little problems like paying rent and getting tenure, instead of thinking about what they shouldn't do.

So if you ever encounter a naked taxi driver or particularly confused-looking owl, you'll know who to blame.

One of Our Fave Regulars Returns. Athena From Allentown On Locking It Up.

Part of my problem in writing in to RYS, especially under a "Regular" handle, is that my most bizarre and share-worthy encounters just seem too recognizable if any of my students are perusing this site. But Clint from College Station got me to remembering some of the things I dealt with at my last T-T job (and let me just say, good for you, Clint, betcha those students start making an effort to get their ass to class.)

I taught large classes in a large lecture hall with stadium seating. It was kind of an awful room, no chalkboard or whiteboard, just a piss-poor projection system, and was optimally arranged for students who might want to look over one another's shoulders during an exam. It also had four entrances--two, from the main lobby of the building, came in the front of the room behind the lecturer (and slammed noisily if not eased deliberately back into place), and the back doors (entering from a little-used hallway on the next floor up) were a bit difficult for students to find the first time.

Eventually I got tired of students coming in 10 minutes late, walking in one side of the room behind me, across the front of the room (between me and the first row of seats), and into their seats while I was lecturing. This was happening EVERY SINGLE DAY; one student actually came in more than 20 minutes late and did this. So I announced in class (at the end, when people were there) that I was going to start locking the front doors at the beginning of class, but that the back doors would always be open, and if students had to be late they could come in that way. I mean, c'mon, I know that in a class of >30 people there will almost always be someone who has a legitimate reason for being late on any given day, and this was a class of 200. So fine, come when you can but do it discreetly.

A few days later I found out that there was a group of students from my class who also had another class together across campus in the slot immediately before. (It would be a hustle to get between these two buildings in 10 minutes, for sure.) They had begged their other prof to let them out early each day--"because they would be locked out of my class if they were late"!! They didn't know that the other prof and I were good friends, so as soon as she mentioned it I gave her the real story. I don't know if she ever told them they'd been caught out, but she never ended her class early for them.

"What I'm Going to Do Now, Simon, Is Beat You With Cat Fur." Today's VidShizzle.

Big Thirsty: What's the Real Deal on Student Athletes?

We continue to get mail about student athletes. Topeka Tina was annoyed at the new digs being built for athletes to study in, and another reader sent in one of those student athlete propaganda videos every school has. The mail poured in after that, with many writers wanting to discuss the efficacy of devoting even more energy and time to student-athletes. But over the past couple of days we've gotten a few notes on the other side of things, like the two pieces below. Read these and we'll follow up with today's Big Thirsty:

Congratulations on your head-up-your-ass smugness. Your athletes are "retards who cannot focus on more than one thing at a time"? Really? All of them? How did you manage to get all of them to submit to intelligence testing? That really is remarkable. Of course, since you're an RYS reader, I assume you're educated enough not to make a blanket statement based wholly in rhetoric and your own biases. I'd really love to hear how you accomplished this experiment. Back when I was in my undergrad, trying to get the team to decide what to have on our pizza usually resulted in a fistfight (yes, I was one of those dreaded student-athletes; it's a good thing my department chair doesn't know that I'm the "emotional equivalent of a seven-year-old who constantly needs to be redirected", but hey, at least I can bounce a ball).

This is a sore point for me, because every department in every school has a Tina. Well, they have at least one, it's probably more. I don't know how many times I was forced to put in ten times the effort of my peers just to shake off the "dumb jock" prejudices and earn the grade I deserved. How many times did I have to explain my paper because "the guy who plays 'feetball' can't have written this, it's coherent and in English"? It's nice to know that the professors who tormented me and other like me continue to live on in their small-minded little bubbles.

I've heard it said before that it's jealousy. As the theory goes, either you wanted to be an athlete in college or you wanted to fuck one. I don't know if that's true, but I've never seen a group of educated people come together with such irrational vitriol as it is when professors talk about student-athletes.

Look, not every student-athlete grows up to be a professor. A quarter of them or so don't even belong in college. I'm not denying that. Still, if your attitude is that they're all there to "cheat their way through college", you need to check your ego at the door and realize just how many of them are just poor kids who see their job at strong-side safety as the only route to an education. So, you said "fuck y'all"? No, bitch, fuck you.

[*]

My undergrad institution was a Division I powerhouse. I would watch my sports teams annihilate others on TV and then wake up the next day and see these mini-deities walking around with their acolytes.

That's all I saw for the longest time - the glory, fame, and privilege. Then I started tutoring Student-Athletes at the tutorial center - one of their "special privileges." My students were swimmers, tennis, football, and soccer players who were bright-eyed, eager to please, and tired as shit.

Let me tell you what these kids go through. NCAA regulations stipulate that their training and practice is capped at 20 hours a week, roughly the equivalent of a part-time job. The reality is far from that. I had a swimmer who had to wake up every morning at 4:30AM to practice, run to class, practice again, study, meet with me, and study some more before crashing at midnight to do it all over again. On top of that, they have to put up with ruthless competition not only from other teams, but with their friends who are trying to take their starting position.

Being a student-athlete is a fulltime job, and they get paid shit. As an amateur athlete myself, I know just how taxing it is to get physically hammered every day. If you've never lifted a barbell and had your muscles screaming in protest, or ran so hard you threw up, then you don't have the faintest clue what they go through. If anything, your ire is misdirected. You should be targeting the administration for exploiting them.

So please, get off your high horse and cut them some slack.

[*]

Q: I know there are a variety of "experiences" that have been shared on RYS about particularly bad student athletes, but do these anectdotal experiences represent the norm for student athletes? I guess my own experiences have been that student athletes are a lot like most of my busier students. Do your readers expect the worst when a student athlete shows up?

A: Send replies here.

Yo, Pedro, Hold Off On the "Send" Button.

Regarding Pedro's post yesterday. Snowflake's e-mail wasn't as turd-like as he believes. Snowflake is a little misguided, perhaps, but her tone is respectful. But we cannot tell from her e-mail or his response whether Snowflake is a dedicated student or one of those Just In Time types. I assume the latter, since he mentions it in her response. Let's say she wasn't a snowflake but a serious, dedicated student. Would an hour of time be too much to ask for? Is it disrespectful to write a professor to inquire what time would be the most convenient, i.e., the slower times when less students are lined up? One of my professors keeps office hours, yet I always ask him when's the best time to stop by, so I can avoid going to him when there are long lines. I do make an appointment with him even though it's simply during open office hours. However, I am a fairly serious student who doesn't flock to office hours Just In Time. I assume Snowflake, given her epithet, is not of the same ilk.

One of my professors solved the Just in Time dilemma thusly: on the first day of class, she announced that students who submitted all assignments on time, revised assignments when requested, and came to office hours regularly to get help would be bumped up the front of the line for office hours. Just in Time students who came to office hours only before exams or submitted assignments late were given lower priority. I came to her office hours one day when she was with a student, and others were lined up. She promptly kicked him out, told the rest of them they'd have to wait, and sat with me as long as I needed. That is one way to ensure that students come to office hours regularly and not wait until their problems are snowballed to the point where they need hours of office time.

[*]

Really? Do you know what I see when I read this email? A student who needs help in preparation for one of the most important tests of the semester. All he's doing is asking for it. He knows what he needs (by the way, he didn't say "an hour", he said "no more than an hour"), he offered a more than reasonable time frame that spans three days, his email was proofread, and he was polite.

It isn't his fault you have 360 students - doesn't he have the right to fight for face time with his professor? That's what all the other students in the "huddled masses" are doing: three hours of office time for 360 students, they must be camped out there like they're waiting for tickets to the seventh Star Wars movie. And they're probably bitching and jostling to get to the front of the line, because they know the poor dunderheads at the back who didn't arrive three days early isn't going to get in - all Snowy Snowflake is doing is playing the game, but smarter.

If I'm going to join you in melting this snowflake, you need a bit more back story - about how Snowy misses class, or is always late, or doesn't pay attention, or doesn't participate, or doesn't pass in work, or ANYTHING that indicate that he is anything other than a student who has some questions and needs a little more help than usual to pass his midterm. Or do you even know who this guy is? I don't blame you if you don't, with 360 students, I'm sure the majority of them get overlooked anyway.

"Maybe not World's Worst, But Certainly World's Stupidest."

It was the biggest Thirsty email night of all time! And it was on a freaking Wednesday! Anyway, we've gotten through the majority of the stuff that came in, and have chosen the following replies to Mr. World's Worst Boyfriend, who is keen to save his girlfriend from life of a Classicist. Please to enjoy:

• Lemme start by saying how much I don’t give a shit about Mr. Boyfriend’s phony concern for some chick’s future masking his pathetic fears that she’ll go away and leave him for somebody smarter and more interesting.


• Let me get this straight: you said "fast forward a few years", and you're "dating an undergraduate" majoring in classics? You're helping her with her homework?? You've decided what she would/would not be suited for in her profession? She shouldn't go to grad school so that you won't have to move?Why don't you do that Special Snowflake a favor: shut the fuck up, then saddle up and ride outta Dodge on the same horse you rode in on. Yeah, that horse. Dude, you're not only the World's Worst Boyfriend, you don't even really want a girlfriend. Apparently, you just want someone to call you Daddy. Ick.


• Back when you were a starry-eyed undergrad, if a loved one had told you should just stick with your bachelors', would you have listened? Of course not. Because for most people, that's what being a recent college graduate is all about. You think your life's supposed to going to go in a certain direction, discover the reality isn't anything like what you thought it would be, and then have to figure out what you're going to do now. But it has to be your decision. In short: STFU, you condescending prick. If you need to resort to an ultimatum that basically amounts to "I don't think you're capable of sorting out what's best for you on your own," don't even bother with one. And next time, if you want a woman who understands where you're coming from, you might want to consider dating someone who's already been there.


• illy me, I thought that loving a woman involved supporting her choices not giving her ultimatums. The last time that you told your girlfriend what to do her response was, “STFU you condescending prick” and yet you still want to tell her what to do. You may not be the world’s worst boyfriend but you may be the world’s stupidest.


• Unfortunately, WWB will not be able to convince Classics girl that it's better not to get that grad degree. Although I completely agree with him that she is going down a road to heartbreak, I still think he should give her his support while she earns her Masters. A Masters degree does come in handy - if she needs to find a job that doesn't involve teaching, it will give her an edge over other candidates with 4-year degrees. If she wants to teach high school, she'll have a head start towards fulfilling those requirements. And going to grad school and talking with people further along may dissuade her from completing her PhD. If it doesn't dissuade her, then maybe she has the stuff to become a Classics professor. By 'stuff' I don't mean talent and intellect but perseverance, optimism, and determination. After all, someone has to fill those half-dozen vacant Classics positions, and maybe this starry-eyed girl is the one.


• Yeah, dickhead, because HER career choice should be all about YOU! If she can't get a job where you now have a "lucrative" career, then I guess it's the highway for her. And yet you say you love her - sounds like you love yourself a whole lot more! Listen, just because you couldn't hack it in grad school doesn't mean she can't.


• When I got out of grad school, cynical and sick of life I started dating an undergrad in my field. Around the same time, I started working as a full-time non-tenure-track instructor. In my off time, I spouted off about: how bullshit grad school had been, how I’d been “promised” a lucrative tenure-track gig, how the department’s politics were sick, twisted, and anti-teaching, and I loved teaching, and that was bullshit, and also x, y, and z were total bullshit, too, etc. One day my girlfriend turned to me and said, “I respect that you had this bad experience with grad school, and our field, and the department, but I haven’t yet, and it’s not nice or fair of you to pre-emptively fill my life with the results of your bad experiences.” And the same goes for you, WWBF—you have to let her make her own decision and take her own shot, even if it’s likely to be a bad decision and/or she’s likely not to hit the mark she’s aiming for. For you, the world of “classics” may be useless, an endless drain of time and money, and a reason to potentially break up. For her, it’s pleasurable, at the least, and the reason for living, at the most.


• You're not going to talk her out of it, and you shouldn't. I'm guessing you're quite a bit older than she is and you do indeed come across as a condescending prick towards her and her ambitions. Just because you found your path outside grad school (do I detect a hint of bitterness at your failure to succeed in the academic environment?) doesn't mean that this is going to be the same for her. She's young and she needs to do the thing she loves, even if it turns out not to work for her. It's certainly not for you to stand in her way, old man.

Last Couple of Peeks at Classroom Nudity.

I gave a midterm last night. As students finished up and the exams started to trickle in, one young guy, say 20, brought me his exam. He dropped it off, turned, and walked away. I'd have glanced at his paper but I was already distracted. His belt was cinched up tight to keep his oversized pants suspended at half-crack. His puffy brown and yellow boxers billowing out from the top, a sharp, calculatedly casual contrast to his blue cargos.

So what did I do? I laughed. Not loud, but audibly. I didn't mean to. I really didn't mean to. I was seated when he turned away so his stylish boy-panties were right at eye level. I feel terrible for laughing, but fuck, I'm not the one showing everyone my bum, surely he's at least in part responsible for the lapse in my otherwise professional demeanor. A mature student who sits in the front row saw me laugh and laughed with me. I don't think others noticed. I hope not.

The mother in me wanted to hoist them up for him, but that probably would have been unwelcome.

**

I haven't had problems thus far with in class nudity, thank goodness.

I believe that the main reason I haven't had a problem to this point is that I'm quite proactive about the problem. At my own undergraduate institution, the culture was such that once the temperature got above 60 degrees it was nothing but tube tops and tiny skirts. Even at the time, I thought this was a ridiculous way to behave (I never participated in this trend).

Once I started teaching my own classes, I decided that I did not want to deal with that kind of thing. As such, I make what I call my "Cover Your Shit!" (CYS!) statement on the first day of classes as we discuss the syllabus.

This is a classroom, not a bar or nightclub or beach. As such, we would all appreciate it if you'd make sure you are dressed appropriately when you show up here. You don't have to wear a business suit or cover yourself from head to toe in burlap sacks. However, it would be nice if you'd keep all of your bits and pieces covered. They're called "underwear" because they belong under your clothes. Ladies and gentlemen, we just don't need to see your parts. You're paying for the opportunity to learn and it's easier to do that if no one is flashing anyone else during class.

I've never had anyone look freaked out or report being uncomfortable about this statement. It's not in my syllabus, it's just something I say. Generally, they laugh about it for a minute and then we move on. I assume something must be sticking though because they show up with their parts pretty well covered. Even the guys take an extra moment to pull their pants up before they arrive.

It's not a "dress code" per say, nor do I have any kind of punishment for those who don't exactly cover up. I can only assume that calling them out ahead of time as a group helps them realize how silly their behavior is and then they police themselves. Or, they might just be afraid of me. I don't really care what the mechanism is, I'll keep making the CYS! statement as long it works.

"World's Worst Boyfriend" Needs Help Stopping Some Silly Classics Student. An Early Thirsty.

I'm not a professor or a snowflake. I'm not even a gradflake. I was once and I hated it. I went to grad school for a while in a halfway-lucrative field, but I quickly realized I wasn't cut out for teaching. In the end I got a job outside academia, like I should have done in the first place.

Fast forward a few years and I'm dating an undergrad, a major in classics. She's convinced she wants to go to grad school and become a college professor, teaching classics. I forwarded her a number of articles from the Chronicle, saying that nobody should go to grad school in the humanities. She's a smart woman, I told her, there's plenty of other things you can do with your life, things that'll make it a lot easier for you to stay where we live. (We'd been planning to get married when she was done with school.)

For grad school she won't be able to stay in our area, either for school or for a job. I don't know if I'm going to be able to follow her wherever she goes. She is bright, and she does love the classics, but I really don't think she's cut out for grad school, or teaching afterwards. Teaching is a service job, and she's never enjoyed that kind of job. (I wasn't cut out for grad school or teaching either, but I had to learn that the hard way.) And I still have to help her with her homework occasionally. I tried to tell her all this and her answer amounted to, "STFU you condescending prick, I asked my prof from my old junior college, and he got a history PhD from Swizzy U and he said he was able to get a job just fine, and he said there'd be tenure-track openings at the college in a few years when the older profs retire." I felt like saying, "Like hell there will. They'll give the jobs to adjuncts. Old Prof doesn't love you, I do."

Q: Okay, folks--my question. Has anybody out there actually succeeded in warning a student away from graduate school? Because I'm obviously not doing it right. If it's not possible, what do you suggest I tell her? Because the only thing I can think of right now is "Fine. We'll do this the hard way. Grad school or me. Pick one." Oh yeah, and just go ahead and sign me: World's Worst Boyfriend

A: Send replies here.

Prof. Pedro Shares Another Email We'd All Love to Send.

Hello Prof. Pedro,

I have some questions I would like to go over with you before the midterm. Given that the lineup for your office hours will most likely be long, I was wondering if you could set aside, at most, an hour to go over my questions. Wednesday between 11:30am - 4pm works, and anytime on Thursday or Friday. This would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks,
Snowy Snowflake.

**

Hi Snowy.

What do I look like? Fuckin' Phantom of the Opera? Bring your American Express Platinum Card to skip to the Front of the Line? How are you more special, more deserving of my precious time than the huddled masses, your poor peers, camped outside my office?

Speaking of time, it's kind of you to limit your questions to "at most, an hour." Let's see. I've got 360 students this term. There are 168 hours in a week. Do the fuckin' math! How come you didn't show up to the office hours I had over the past 6 weeks? Oh right. Its midterm time. No one shows up for 6 weeks, then everyone shows up, then no one shows up again until final exam time. You guys call it "Just In Time" learning.

What about the hours I already put into digesting the textbook and writing up notes, and screen capturing my lectures so you could watch them anytime day or night? What about the hours proofing and posting the publisher's end-of-chapter question solutions, pulling together the bank of old midterm exams (with solutions!), and the 10,000 questions I've already answered on the Goddamn course discussion board?! Those are hours out of my precious life I'm not getting back anytime soon. One hour spent writing up a "homework helper" document kills more birds than one hour spent with you. "Wednesday between 11:30am - 4pm works." No, it sure as shit doesn't.

I have office hours from 11:00 'til 2:00 (or didn't you read that broadcast message to the class) followed by 1/2 an hour of "prep" (read: go pee, wash hands, and have a quick bite to eat - in that order) before I start teaching at 2:30 and go until 7:00. Take your American Express Plutonium Card and see if you've got enough points to buy yourself a clue. This would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks,
Prof. Pedro.

NYU Protest Video Flood. "We're Using the Democratic Process Here. I Don't Know if You Guys Understand That."

THIS LAST ONE IS THE MONEY SHOT:

Uh-Oh. Wherein We Open Up the Can On Student Athletes, And This is Mostly What We Heard About It.

Is this a joke? That video is no more an accurate reflection of the "athlete-student" experience than the idea that every single one of them is a mental midget with no interest in or ability at academic pursuits. It's a commercial for Christ's sake!

The blatant reality is that Division I sports are run by pretty much every university as a business. Consequently, they "employ" athletes, the "salary" being scholarships and other direct and indirect benefits, not the least of which is that it's often the only realistic option for any young person who *does* want to become a professional athlete. The universities have no reason to give a damn about the scholastic ability and achievements of these employees beyond what is required to satisfy the inconvenient rules imposed upon them by the organisational bodies or to tempt those with a more academic leaning to join. The upshot is that your average student-athlete *is* going to be less capable than a traditional student - how could it be otherwise when academic ability is not the main admittance/continuance criterion and, additionally, they are expected to train for and play a sport at semi-professional/low tier professional level?

I agree it can be annoying to see the many privileges afforded to these teams. But on the other hand, they get treated as if they're special precisely because they *are* special. I think it's (sadly) a safe bet that a top football team does more to heighten the profile of the school, and consequently the fees and donations which ultimately get used to *everybody's* benefit, than the Nobel prize winner in the Chemistry department.

~~~~

I wouldn't normally add my two cents on an issue like this, but since Topeka Totsie and Other-dude-who-can-reference-a-video seem intent on bringing this so close to home (Kansas) then let's get this straight.

The reason the University of Kansas puts out these videos is not to accurately represent reality. The reason films like this exist is, if I may be so bold, produce a image of student athletes that is positive. The video is, at base, a public relations tool. Does this mean that the student/athletes aren't also getting their drink on down Massachusetts Street? Or aren't delighting in their ability to get away with being womanizers or pot-smokers? Of course not!

Athletes, even the kindest, most sincere of them, find themselves in a sticky situation. We all know that Jimmy-Track-Star gets to ride around the country and compete, and Billy-Basketball gets all the girls and popularity but in the end – and this goes for all sport – we all know that aside from a little entertainment that sports, as an activity, has little redeeming social value. This is the reason that cheesy films with the stirring, uplifting music need to be created.

Institutions, especially the most insidious of them, love these kind of films because it portrays their efforts in a noble, stewardly manner. Is smashing heads on the gridiron noble? Is volunteering your time to the local schools for a public relations media event noble? Fuck. I don't know.

What I think we need to get through our skulls is athleticism and academics have a lot more in common than we think. Both of the have turned the exploitation of human ability into something we take for granted. Do I sympathize with the offensive lineman that gets the tar beat out of him and lives his life with chronic pain? Sure. Do I sympathize with the physicist that, despite his best intentions, ends up contributing to the creation of weapons? Sure. You can be a sportsman or a scientist, but either way it seems like we all end up as little more that grist for the machinations of some competing concepts of honor, integrity, and nobility. It's the American Way, after all.
So, next time I take a bong hit with one of the student athletes after class and we get to talking...Are we wrong to come to the conclusion that whether you're an academic or an athlete that someone out there is turning the screws to you? Let's just hope they bring the lube...

~~~~

Oh PLEASE. First of all, let’s set aside the issue of bias in that University-sponsored video. I’m sure the administration and athletic department have no vested interest in the perception that their athletes contribute to the community, if that’s what bowling with handicapped kids amounts to. And as far as whether or not universities care about what student athletes do off the field, the NCAA has compliance guidelines about GPAs, progress toward degrees, etc. It wouldn’t make the dean of academics stand up and take notice (read: two-oh and go), but whatever.

Student-athletes on some of our campuses, mine included, take up space in class, text on their cell-phones, and sleep through otherwise active discussions. Just this morning my contingent of Div-I scholarship football stars were the sole holdouts as far as turning in their damn papers on time. But that’s not what pisses Totsie off, or me either. I’m sure we don’t care that the athletes have their own special gym, their own special parking lot, their own special, university-owned scooters to zoom around on, endangering themselves and everyone else. They can have their own special hookers for all I care—and they probably do. What pisses US off is that in this case they got a brand-new study hall, and yet in our classes they show no ambition towards academics at all.

My students—my other, better students, to say nothing of my commuters and non-trads that probably study in the car, in rush hour—can be seen studying on the floor, in the hallway outside class. They show up an hour before the 8 AM section because the classroom is empty and it’s a good place to do your math homework. But every semester I get no less than THREE special e-mails from the special athletic advisors whose WHOLE FUCKING JOB is to chase me down about what the dumbass football players’ grades are, so they can then send SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE E-MAILS to said football players to motivate them. What pisses us off is that the overloaded advisors who allegedly “advise” our other students put them in mainstream writing classes when clearly they sometimes DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. As in: at all.

Never does a semester go by when I do not have at least three poor kids from Korea who might as well have been standing in Seoul that morning. No doubt they’re smart—you can see it in their eyes and, probably, on their transcripts—but no one bothered to have a five-minute conversation with them to determine that, yeah, this person probably needs to be in a non-native speaker section of the basic writing course, unless you need a college degree these days to work in an illegal Bronx sweatshop. Except: no. And now, that kid—that poor fucking kid, who does not have a goddamned idea what I’m talking about—that kid’s chance to get a good education out of the course I teach is GONE. But someone’s tracking those athletes. Those snoring, texting, tuned-out, late-coming, late-paper-submitting athletes. It’s someone’s whole fucking job. Thank fucking God.

Some days I can even have sympathy for them. Those special advisors don’t give a shit if athletes pass Romantic Poetry or even Badminton I. Their actual goal is to make sure the school and team meet NCAA rules, because if they don’t, someone making upwards of $300,000 a year will get in trouble. The athletes—Special Olympics program and all—are little more than glorified pets, exotic mascots, at these schools. Their sports, and the associated merchandise, makes a lot of money for a lot of important people, and it entertains the teeming masses, who buy a lot of T-shirts and beer on game day. They pay a lot to park on or near campus, and our economy, she is weak.

You wanna talk? Let’s talk graduation rates—not “finished out 5 years of eligibility” rates. Let’s talk degrees earned, average GPAs. In the big sports, please—I’ve had plenty of good tennis players, cross-country runners, and even a left-handed pitcher who brought their A-games to class every day. Don’t bring me this weak-ass, in-house video bullshit. That’s not “evidence.” That’s “advertising.” That’s not how we roll. Not in this league.

Protests and Fallout At NYU.

Students Protest at N.Y.U.
February 19, 2009
By TRYMAINE LEE
New York Times

Several dozen students occupied a cafeteria at New York University on Wednesday night, barricading themselves inside with tables and chairs and chanting a list of demands.

The protest began shortly before 10 p.m. when about 70 students, most of them members of a student-run group called the Take Back N.Y.U. Campaign, gathered on the third floor of the Kimmel Student Center at Washington Square South and La Guardia Place.

The students pushed tables and chairs against the doors, and a woman with a megaphone outlined the group’s demands.

They included a full and annual reporting of the university’s operating budget, expenditures and endowment. The students also demanded that N.Y.U. provide 13 scholarships annually to students from the Gaza Strip and give surplus supplies to the Islamic University of Gaza. On the group’s Web site, it also asked that all participants in the protest be granted amnesty from punishment.

NYU students suspended after two-day protest on Gaza
Feb. 21, 2009
Allison Hoffman
THE JERUSALEM POST

Dozens of students at New York University have been suspended after a raucous two-day takeover of a school cafeteria intended to draw attention to a list of grievances that include the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Members of Take Baacck NYU, the group behind the demonstration, barricaded themselves inside the Kimmel student center on Wednesday night and enumerated demands that included the creation of 13 scholarships for Gazan students.

The group also called on the university to donate "excess supplies and materials" to help rebuild the Islamic University of Gaza, which was damaged by air strikes during last month's IDF offensive against Hamas.

"The people of Gaza, the people of Iraq, the people of Afghanistan, the workers at this university, and all the student brothers and sisters, we're here fighting for our freedom," declared one student, who spoke through a megaphone from a balcony overlooking Greenwich Village's Washington Square on Thursday.

The last protesters left the building on Friday afternoon, apparently after agreeing to leave the cafeteria on promises from university officials to begin negotiations.

University officials did not accede to any of the group's demands, which also included calls for student representation on the school's board of trustees and greater disclosure of budgets and endowment investments.

Participants were suspended following repeated warnings that they were violating the 1 a.m. closing time of the student center, said NYU spokesman James Devitt.

School officials had offered "to sit down and have a dialogue with the students if they left the cafeteria," he said in a statement.

Scuffles broke out early Friday morning as hundreds of students gathered outside the student center banging drums and chanting in support of those inside. One person was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Devitt said protesters broke a door lock and injured a security officer.

It was not clear whether the university would seek criminal charges.

Student / Athletes.

Although I'm *sure* it's not RYS's own bias, Topeka Totsie is just one of many students and faculty I've heard spout complete garbage about student athletes over the years. I attach a video from my alma mater for an idea of the reality of the student / athlete experience.

On the Sundress.

• I've been a rabid critic of this site from the beginning, but I can't argue with how great Doug from Daytona's post was over the weekend. That was really touching and something any "proffie" can appreciate. Well done to him for writing it, and to you for publishing it.


• The piece on the sundress was brilliant. Bravo.


• I loved Daytona Doug's post on the yellow sundress. It highlights so much about the dynamic of professors and students. We forget that these are young people, unschooled in so many ways. It takes wisdom and real caring to help them instead of abusing them. I think Doug is to be commended.


• I want to thank Doug for telling that story. I am a female graduate student in the Midwest and that story resonated with me in a very personal way. I won't go into details, but that story showed real humanity, something which I've seen too little of in my time as a student.

Marcia From Middletown Makes The Case For Students Actually Knowing Something Beyond An Opinion. (Some Smackdown on the Erudition Tip.)

To the snowflake who wrote on my evaluation "You have interesting things to say, but it is frustrating when you ask a question and are obviously looking for just one answer which we had to guess until you were satisfied":

I know that you are told at this selective liberal arts college that your thoughts and opinions are the most important aspect of class discussion, so I can understand your frustration. 80% of the institution tells you that what you think is all that matters, and here is a professor in the remaining 20% who asks you to consider that the authors you are reading may actually have things to say that supersede your opinions. So frustrating, right?!

Just humor me for a second and consider, just for a second, that sometimes the answer to a question is not your opinion. The answers to those frustrating questions are sometimes clearly, sometimes jargonly, sometimes verbosely contained in what I asked you to read. So when I ask you, oh, some silly question like what change in the relationship between African Americans and labor is central to the argument being made about the role of the Freedmen's Bureau during the Reconstruction Era? The answer has little to do with your personal feelings about the current election, but everything to do with the control of free black labor. Are you starting to understand? Scholars and others make arguments that have nothing to do with what you think. So when I ask those pesky questions that I need to ask in order to assess your comprehension and help you break down the points of the reading before moving to what you thought, I am hoping to hear an answer informed by the text. Not your opinion or what you guess or feel or think or have experienced or have heard.

So yeah, I share your frustration. Can you imagine having to teach entitled students at one of the most expensive colleges in the United States who feel that their experience and opinion should trump anything else? Asking for right answers – like what is the argument? What theories is the author drawing from to make this point? How does the author define X? – may seem irritating. But they are necessary. Perhaps I am old fashioned to think that readings do not exist to serve as an imperfect mirror to students' opinions and thoughts, but to actually help them consider and understand things outside the limited realms of experience and opinion. And perhaps I am out of sync with the times to even entertain the notion that you should be able to read something and to the best of your capacity understand the main points of an argument and how that argument is made.

Topeka Tina Is Back And All Pissy. The Atrium Post.

Our uni is dropping a few million to remodel a study center. Two guesses as to whom can use this particular center, and it ain't the Fulbright scholars.

Oh, it's not that our athletes didn't have a special study center -- they DID. But the old one didn't have a fucking atrium. (and I know that I need an atrium to help me memorize my cranial nerves!) Also, and I quote: "The old center was very open. It was hard to do homework in an environment like that."

Essentially, our athletes are retards who cannot focus on more than one thing at a time. That is: "Oh my god, if I'm not like totally isolated than I get distracted and have to talk / text / goof off. Because I am the emotional equivalent of a seven year-old who constantly needs to be redirected. BUT I CAN BOUNCE A BALL!111"

This is after severe budget cuts to the university, thanks to the fact that our state may or may not be able to pay its workers. Several hundred academic openings will go unfilled. But at least our athletes will have a glorified library to help them cheat their way through school. As in, why the fuck can't they use the library like the rest of us?

And by the rest of us, I mean the OTHER students -- those "non-traditional" students who can somehow manage to raise a family, keep house, work full-time, and go to school all at the same time. Athletic event? Oh, that's excused. Job threatening to fire you unless you show up? "Real life, deal with it." So, fuck y'all.

Shooting Fish in a Barrel.

I'm not looking to make the front page, but when someone lobs the perfect pitch and you swing for the fence, you gotta share.

Quote of the day, from a recent lecture:

Student: "Oh man! Where in the world do you come up with that crazy shit?"

Me: "I read it in a book. It's the same book you've got under your arm. You can find out exactly what chapter this crazy shit comes from by looking at today's schedule in the syllabus."

Looks Like Prof. Z's Going to a Wedding!

Yeah, um, it doesn't have to do with the lecture or the class, but I have my big brother's wedding to go to this weekend and really, really need a date or my parents are going to freak out and think that I'm, like, well, you know, gay or something.

So, if any girls would like to come with me this weekend, I promise to give you all my notes. I come to every class. But, like, Prof. Z., you'd be my first choice. My brother's fiancee is an MD and me showing up with a PhD would at least give me some street cred with my family.

But, really, anyone will do.

On Sex, Georgia Politicians, and Ball Gags.

Oh for fuck's sake, Georgian politicians. 'We shouldn't allow - gasp - discussions of (I can barely say it) oral sex - in our classrooms, at the taxpayers' dollar.' You know, I dig Georgia. I have dug my toes into her red red earth, drunk beers in her grand social experiment called 'Athens,' and screwed my way across her sweet, peachy bedrooms. Some of the boys I hooked up with really could've used a course on oral sex. Why deny people what they need?

Though all of this is true, there's also this part: raising a ruckus, engaging in censorship, and wasting taxpayers' money on sham hearings is not going to solve a 2.5 billion dollar budget shortfall. Maybe the legislators need to get a clue about what goes on in the classroom, snowflakes or not. I teach sexuality courses, and yeah, fo' shizzle, we have a good time, I get to be profane, and there's a lot of laughter. But in between, there's theory, methods, synthesis, critical thinking, close reading of (non-pornographic) texts, and a narrative thread that challenges students to develop an analytical framework for something that clearly is not at all simple, purely biological, or easy to grasp.

My classes don't train people for 'occupations and vocations 101,' or teach them how to write ad copy to sell stupid shit to people who can't afford to spend any of their money, or train people to add columns of numbers and read tax law. But my classes - and those of my comrades and colleagues down in Georgia - just may teach your lovers, your children, and your children's lovers how to be thoughtful, sexually aware, and sensitive to others. Nothin' wrong with that and y'all just may benefit from us sexuality profs.

+~+

Is it wrong to imagine Charlice Byrd (the short, prudish female legislator in the CNN video) in the same mental video frame as a tub of jello? Sorry, I couldn't help myself: she was wearing multiple pearl necklaces.

Is it wrong to wonder when the last time the wife of her uptight fellow tightass state legislator Calvin Hill ever enjoyed a happy ending in their bedroom? I'm sure those odds are shorter than the odds he's enjoyed a lap dance on the taxpayers' dime. Is it wrong to suspect the two of them have a secret stash of strap-ons and ball gags and use them on each other when they are not worried about things that aren't any of their fucking concern? Are these people absolute fucking morons?

What are they gonna do when they dive deeper into the course catalog there and learn that the state is also involved in funding teaching about the history of war, murder, infectious disease ... and legislative incompetence?

"You Don't Want to Piss Off the Bartender." Today's VidShizzle From the National Bartenders School.

Doug From Daytona And the Shame of a Sundress.

Your recent discussions about classroom / student nudity generated a real uneasy memory for me, and I thought I'd share it with your readers.

I had been teaching for 2 years when I got my first real-live look at a student's bosom. It was a singular moment in my life, but not in the way you'd probably imagine.

I was 28, single, and the idea of scooping up some of the sorority candy for myself was always a temptation. I'd never had the courage or the bad sense to do it, thank goodness, but it was a titillating notion nonetheless.

On final exam day, in what remains a confusing slice of time, the most gorgeous student in my current class came to my office nearly in tears. She'd finished the final earlier, and had realized that she had likely failed. She had struggled all semester, but had sought help from the tutoring center to stay right on the pass/fail line. But the final had convinced her she was overmatched, and her story tumbled out of her: abusive father, disapproving mother, siblings who thought she was a stuck up bitch because she was going to college, dope-smoking friends, and a boyfriend who liked to fuck her sister as much as possible.

It was all delivered through sobs, and it was extremely uncomfortable. I said the normal platitudes about "let's see how the grade comes out," and "I'm not a counselor, but I can call someone at the college," etc.

And then it happened.

She was stunning, and dressed in a flowered sundress that showed off her figure, her tan, and her youth. She reached to one strap of the dress and lowered it, showing me her breasts. All the while she continued to sob. I felt a sickness in the pit of my stomach about the inhuman people who surrounded this young girl who'd somehow created an environment where this sort of behavior was an option. I felt such shame for many earlier thoughts I'd had about this student, other students, really mere girls who were not yet women, not yet real adults. The scene felt perverted, ugly, sick, and I hated myself for having been attracted to her and any other young girls in my classes in my short career.

I stood up quickly, told her to cover herself, dragged a female colleague from down the hallway to join us, and we finished a very brief and awkward conversation about waiting to see the final grades before anything else.

The young girl sat in front of the two of us, sheepish, still crying, and then left. She failed the final and the class. I saw her name on my class roster for the next semester but she never showed.

I never saw her again on campus, and never found out what happened to her.

I've never forgotten her, though, and am grateful to her for the lesson she taught me. A semester doesn't go by that a double of hers - always 18, always in a yellow sundress - doesn't stroll through my field of vision in a classroom or on campus. And I think of her, and hope that she is well.

Edna With Some Last Thoughts on Ophelia From Oxnard. "We Have Sold Part Of Our Soul."

The kind of burnout you are talking about has nothing to do with teaching online. Anyone who has had to work on no matter what, as in continuing to attend to the job during a family crisis, know how this feels. So in some respects it is likely the combination of grief and the general lack of ability of students to look at an instructor and cut them some slack.

That said- here’s some harsh words from a woman who has been working forever: personal problems are personal problems whether you are teaching or working in a bank or welcoming people to Wal-mart. These days, I teach. I have a great gig. I’m full time. However, I have personal leave that I’m encouraged not to take. I have sick days that no one wants me to use. I have official office hours, but I’m supposed to hang around all day. I have only one class on Friday, but I’m supposed to be there all day and if I leave early on a Friday afternoon, everyone acts like I’m taking a holiday. So it’s not the stingy online college – it’s the reality that when we sign on the bottom line, we have sold part of our soul.

Students, snowflakes or otherwise, don’t understand this yet. Life is still up for grabs. Nothing really comes to an end for most of them if, for instance, they don’t finish an assignment. They may, or may not, flunk a class. While it will catch up with them, it is more like a pin prick as compared to having a vein opened when you lose a teaching gig or really get in trouble with a boss. Additionally, the efforts of others is nothing to them. I suspect this has a lot to do with the new idea that students are customers. Considering most of us are trying to keep our institutions afloat during an economic downturn, their rising customer status may be true. It still, in my not so humble opinion, comes back to the harsh reality that most of us are teaching various levels of the Entitlement Generation. Whether they are older EGs or younger EGs doesn’t matter. It’s all about them, everybody owes them, and nothing is important unless they are going to benefit from them immediately. They don’t know what it means to be disappointed, turned down or denied. They don’t value learning or understand why it is necessary.

I really think we ought to be able to hit them.

Depressed Donna From Davenport Takes Us to the Movies.

Oh, I know I'm supposed to be grateful for the job, a tenure-track treadmill at a teaching institution. I know my grad school friends would switch with me in an instant, but it doesn't take away some of the angst I feel about the hoops my college makes me hop through.

We're "STUDENT CENTERED," and that means I'm a glorified attendance-taker, back-slapper, pass-the-dunderheads machine. I tried a little tough love during my first year here but just spent more time explaining myself to the Chair and the Dean than I *EVER* wanted to.

So, I scaled it all back and sort of punch the clock and grade the projects and fire up the big Powerpoint machine MWF. It sucks. My colleagues tell me it's the same for them. We trudge in at 9 and trudge out whenever, and we scurry to our homes to get away from a teaching gig that feels a bit more like a factory job.

I play out the following scene from Joe Versus the Volcano in my head most Fridays. And I thought I'd share it with you and your readers.

Oh, How Quenching. Some Replies on Classroom Skin-Flashing.

After yesterday's Big Thirsty on "Strippin' Stephen," many folks wanted to share some scandalous skin-flashing stories from their own classes. We've selected our favorites for some flava:

• I teach at a commuter school in a subtropical clime whose students are as likely to work at a strip club as they are to work at an Arby's. I've never had a student come into class in pasties, but that's about all I haven't seen. Spangled bikini tops with an open button-front shirt thrown over, daisy dukes with 5-inch platforms, thigh-high patent leathers with necklines so low you see the UNDER-cleavage, and girls whose idea of "professional dress" is to show off their their DD boob-job with a wonder bra under a camisole and painted-on jeans. I've been flashed by the pantiless more times than I can count, and I'm a hetero female prof -- I've asked my male colleagues how they handle this stuff and "by din and disciplinary committee, DON'T LOOK!" is the universal answer... which must be very hard, because, well, how do you NOT look when she's sitting in the back row in a miniskirt opening and closing her knees like the mini-golf queen? Halfway through my lecture, I'm mentally lining up my putt.


• I thought I had seen it all. One of my female students had spent part of her day tubing on the river across from the campus with some other students and nearly forgot that she had a pending major exam to take in my class. Realizing that she had no time to go back to her dorm to change, she arrived in my class in her wet bikini, with a Scantron and a pencil in hand. Needless to say, she was quite disruptive to the class. I was quite startled myself. Knowing that our university does not have a dress code (yet), I took the legal-coward route and asked her to take her exam in the adjacent classroom, monitored by one of our proctors…and advised her to go tubing AFTER her exams from now on. [by request, from RYS, 9/22/2007]


• I had a cheerleader who had to be 5 minutes late for every class to make “the entrance”. I can’t lock the door to the classroom, so that thread doesn’t apply. She was fairly attractive and had a head-turning figure. She dressed accordingly. One day, she came in wearing a low-cut top and a skirt high enough for us to figure out she shaves, not trims. I almost asked her where the fishnets were. That probably would have been a bad idea.


• Years ago a colleague of mine had a female student in class who had just had a baby (to be clear, in a hospital, not in class). One day this student approached my colleague, asking if she could go to the restroom. My colleague cordially responded, "Yes," to which this student responded, "Thanks Professor! I have to go pump." She might not have been nude at the time, but the image conjured by that student's completely unnecessary confession still burns my colleague's corneas.


• Last term, I had a student who told me she spent her college savings on breast augmentation. She proudly displayed her disproportionately size D breasts to her at most 105 lb 5 foot 8 inch body. One day, she wore a form fitting very tight cropped short fluffy sweater with a sarong beach type wrap skirt displaying inches and inches of abs. A colleague said he could actually read the size of her bra through the sweater (hence how we know it was a size D ). The display of skin and breast created a disruption in lab. Several male students were nearly paralyzed by the display. A significant number of female students were simultaneously embarrassed for her and repulsed. I pulled her aside and talked about her right to free expression had crossed the line when other students were noticing her mode of dress and were bothered (and offended) by her lack of modesty. I offered a lab coat which she wore. Luckily winter set in.


• While teaching an exercise science lab at a D II school in the Poconos, I asked for a male volunteer to serve as a model for making skinfold measuring sites. I ask for a male because the shirt needs to be off to see the upper body markers. No males raised a hand. Without prompting, a field hockey girl pops up and pulls a Brandi Chastain. I proceeded to mark her up. To make it even more awkward, her lab partners went into the hall with just their bras on to do the lab. I figured if they were comfortable with it, I wasn’t going to say anything.


• Hmm, well today, as it would happen, about 15 minutes into class, a student got up from his seat in a large lecture hall (450+ seats) and yelled out in class, “Who busted ass in this class? It stinks and I can’t stand to be in this class! Who farted?” and quickly left the room. Another student jumped up from a nearby seat, raised his arms and yelled out, “I did it! I farted! Yeahhhhhh!” and ran out of the room. After class, a few students followed me back to my office to get their exams. I asked them if they had seen anything like this in class before: one confirmed what I had suspected. It was a pledge requirement for one of the fraternities on campus.

Today's VidShizzle. Writing an Essay.

Sammie From San Clemente Generates a Few Replies on Gender Regression.

• Hey Sammie, guess who our last four Hires were? We already Decided the Gender, but you can Pick a Race! They're all young and pretty, Hardworking and American-born, from Nice schools and Nice families... but they're not all the same because each has her own Very Special Ethnic Heritage! Our faculty say (shh, Quiet!) that they solicit a new race with every job post, every year collecting the latest t-t Diversity Barbie of the Season! Seriously, these genius women have worked killer-hard and are both helped and hindered by our shady tokenistic hiring practices. It's not easy for any of us. Yet as a white female gradflake, I start wondering: if the political thing to do is to hire female minorities, what am I doing here? My advisor's 'generation' is chock-full of white women, and her advisors were all white men. Am I past my time? Am I too late? Should I get out now?




• Quite a few years ago, I was out to dinner with a bunch of guys from my department (a greater than 90% male field) when a soon to be graduate started lamenting the job market. When my friend across the table added "Well you'll have no problem. You'll get a job before me thanks to affirmative action." all the guys nodded in agreement. I responded "I'll get a job before you because I did your stat. mech. homework." then pointed around the table "your quantum homework and your spectroscopy homework." and that squashed the rest of that conversation.




• Just my anecdotal two cents worth: At the college where I teach (and I am tenured, not that it really matters to this thread), there is an unspoken rule that women and minorities are given preferential hiring treatment, both on the academic side and the classified/administrative side. It has to be unspoken of course due to legalities, but all else being equal, we all see white males go to the bottom of the list. Actually, even if all things are not equal, slightly more qualified white males still go to the bottom.




• But Sammie... it sounds like your problem isn't "graduate students" per se, but your *friends.* See, I've been in grad school for the better part of a decade now, and I've never had a friend who suggested that any of my success was due to my gender or "niceness." Friends are generally people who are supportive and kind, not moronic douchebags who make casually sexist comments. Did you honestly spend all of grad school hanging out with these people? Why?! Why on earth would you do that to yourself?So Sammie, you need to find new friends. Good luck with that.

"This Is My Space. You Are In It. It Is Best That You Act Accordingly." Today's VidShizzle.

This Week's Big Thirsty. What's Inappropriate Classroom Behavior In a World Where Strippin' Stephen Exists?

Yesterday, while I was speaking to a small group during class, something in the corner of the room caught my eye. I turned around to find one of my male students removing his t-shirt. At first I thought he'd meant to remove a sweatshirt and the t-shirt had merely come off with the other garment. That was until he continued removing his t-shirt entirely.

This prompted me to say, "There's no nudity in class."

Strippin' Stephen mumbled, "I'm just changing my shirt."

Somewhat gobsmacked, I said, "My God, people, boundaries!" and went back to my discussion with the other students while he put on another, different t-shirt.

The campus is new and has a fully equipped fitness center in addition to spacious bathrooms--these seem the obvious location for shirt changing. Oddly, the student changing his shirt is one of the quieter, nerdier fellows, so I didn't interpret it as a cry for attention / display of sexual attractiveness. Now I feel like I should have ordered him out of the class to a more appropriate location such as the bathroom. Yet, I am not his mother and therefore I didn't think casual semi-nudity was going to be an issue in class.

Q: Was this as wildly inappropriate as it seemed to me? Do any of your readers have similar tales?

A: Send your stories of inappropriate classroom hijinx (especially involving any nudity) here.

Sex Ed In Georgia Under Politician's Investigation. Today's VidShizzle. It's Like Hard News. (No, We Di'unt.)

Clicking image will take you to the story on CNN.com.

"Student-Centered" Always Sets off a Shit Storm.

A brief bullet point comment from a couple of days ago continues to generate replies, so we thought we'd try to address the issue. Clint from College Station locked up his classroom after three years of putting up with a parade of late arrivals. It made him feel good and bad all at the same time. Some folks wrote in on both sides of the issue, and the last reply went like this:

Pop quiz? Yes, well, that tells me enough about you. Your lack of respect for your students would get your ass canned at my proudly student-centered institution. If I were one of your students I'd take the syllabus and walk it over to the Dean's office. "Dr. Dean, do you see a 5% *teacher is in a pissy mood* quiz on here? No, neither do I." How invalid is your little tantrum now?

Here is a little temperature of what has come in since (the so-called flava):

• I’m confused . . . since when has the pop quiz not been a valid pedagogical tool? I’ve been faced with pop quizzes from elementary school through graduate school, and I don’t see a problem with subjecting my students to them now. It sounds like the “proudly student-centered institution” is actually a grade-inflated diploma-factory where the academics mean nothing compared with student “satisfaction”—exactly the type of place where I hope my medical professionals didn’t go to school. (I really do prefer that the man or woman performing my open-heart surgery to have actually learned something in school rather than being given a good grade to keep his/her self esteem high.) Whoever this author is, I hope to keep him/her far away from my son when he enters school, and I’d love to know the institution s/he teaches at so that I can be sure to steer friends/family/students away from there when they’re exploring their options for higher education.


• This motherfucker and his/her pansy-ass, bend-me-over institution make me want to jump off a fucking ledge. And NOT because I’m overwhelmed with guilt for “disrespecting” my little snowflakes with the harsh, harsh task of completing a pop quiz on the reading every now and then. More because I feel like with “educators” (a terms that has lost all meaning) and places like these out there, I might as well just give up now and allow my body to be buried in the oncoming blizzard. Snowflakes win. I fold.


• Order up a round of gold stars! Run to open the door and invite the latecomer in cordially, perhaps with a nice mug of cocoa waiting!! Hell, let’s show them how much we respect them by not ever grading them in any way at all!!! It’s great because it’s not the kind of respect you have to earn—we just dole it out and hope that all of our insane kowtowing results in some kind of miraculous return. Heaven forbid we challenge the little dears (those quizzes are such a shock to their delicate systems). Heaven forbid they have consequences for their actions (a locked door! how traumatized they must now be!). Fine. You can have them. Create with them what you will. As for me, I’ll just be over here by the window. You’ll know me by the trail of pop quizzes I leave behind.


• Yeah, whatever. When I was an undergrad at one of those proudly student-centered institutions, I was one of those late students Clint locked out. My senior year, I stopped giving a shit and started showing up at both my morning classes late every day. Matter of fact, I put my contacts in while sitting in the front row. Did my profs hate me? Sure. Had they locked me out while applying a 5% quiz, would I have been pissed? Sure. But I also would’ve taken it for what it was, and I wouldn’t have been a whiny little bitch about it. Had I been locked out of the whole class, that’s one thing, but being locked out for a quiz? Puh-leeeeeeze. Now that I’m on the other side of the lectern, I remember my previous life and have mercy on latebirds, but when mass tardiness gets out of hand, then I lay down a super-short quiz--“What color is the sky? What day is today? Did your parents have any kids that lived? What is Chapter 7 about?”--and call it good. Clint’s only failure was making the quiz too long to complete before the idjits wandered in.

"Shitfire! It's in the NY Times So It Must Be True!"

Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes
by MAX ROOSEVELT
February 17, 2009

Prof. Marshall Grossman has come to expect complaints whenever he returns graded papers in his English classes at the University of Maryland. “Many students come in with the conviction that they’ve worked hard and deserve a higher mark,” Professor Grossman said. “Some assert that they have never gotten a grade as low as this before.”

He attributes those complaints to his students’ sense of entitlement.

“I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” he said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.”

A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.

“I noticed an increased sense of entitlement in my students and wanted to discover what was causing it” said Ellen Greenberger, the lead author of the study, called “Self-Entitled College Students: Contributions of Personality, Parenting, and Motivational Factors,” which appeared last year in The Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Post #2000. Wherein the Moderators Find Reason to Celebrate Another Useless Accomplishment.

Oh, we love a reason to celebrate. We always pay attention to our site's anniversaries, and we've even noted some milestone posts.

But this little entry is our 2000th post since RYS began flailing around in November of 2005. It works out to 1.66 posts per day. Of course that's skewed a bit because we take big chunks of the summer off, and in the first year or so a 1 per day posting schedule was normal. (We've averaged nearly 2.5 posts per day since post #1000, which occurred on Christmas Day, 2007.)

So, it'd be much more impressive if we could tell you how many of those 2000 posts were worth a shit. We're betting some of you could guess. Actually, there have been 65 posts that have been "enshrined" in the RYS Ring of DistinKtion, so perhaps that's a bit of a measure. A little more than 3% of all posts have achieved that singular "honor." We'll even post those links below for the completists among us.

Regardless, on today's little occasion we bet someone will write this to us, which is nearly verbatim what we got on the occasion of our 1000th post:

"Big deal. It's all crap. You don't even write them. You have your sycopants do the work, and then one of you assholes smudges up some photo you find in your porn or business supply store catalog, and that's it. Whoopie. I hope you get carpool tunnel disease. ASSHOL!!!!!!"

--~--

Ring of DistinKtion Links:

• 2005-2007
• 2008

Now Our Heads Hurt. A Few Replies to the "Head Hurter."

• Oh goodness. The head-hurter student finally noticed what a fucking freak show the modern classroom has become. Now maybe we'll get some help on things. Faculty has been bitching here and elsewhere about the horrific behavior in most classrooms for years, but now that students are feeling the pain, methinks the bean-counters who run our little service industry will finally wade into the stinky water to help us. Oh, they won't do it well, of course. They'll institute behavioral policies that they themselves will monitor with a former campus security guard who'll get half an associates degree's worth of Sociology classes, but it'll be something they can put in the rest of the bullshit literature they send parents each year. Whoop-De-ah, you know the rest.


• “How in the world can this be fixed?” It can’t be fixed by you. The instructor needs to grow a backbone and take charge of her class. Failure to do so is a disservice to students like you. You can, however, tell the the punks, in so many words, to shut the hell up so you can hear the lecture. Try this: “Excuse me, but I’d like to hear what the expert has to say on the subject. So out of respect for me, will you please be quiet so I can hear the lecture?” You may not make any friends by doing this but you MAY make a point and who want to be friends with a bunch of dumbasses anyway? If someone tries to escalate it into a shouting match, tell him (Am I correct in guessing it’s mostly male students challenging the female instructor?) that you would love to engage in rational discourse but that he has already proven himself incapable of that, and then shut up because you cannot win a pissing contest with a skunk.


• I can say I've never had a class like this, but I have heard of such classes. My first inclination would be to write on the board, "When you are ready to learn, I will be ready to teach," then sit in a chair and quietly wait for the class to quiet down. If at any point they become disrespectful, I'd point to the board and sit back down. It would be the equivalent of giving the class time outs.


• As for what you can do now, please talk to or email this grad student / instructor. Tell him/her that you think they are doing well, and be specific about what they are doing well. I'd bet a bit of encouragement from what must be a very stressful class may be what they need to keep going. You can even tell their supervisor what you think they are doing right as well. But don't neglect to tell the instructor. Also, be advised that this is not necessarily your future. No one acts like that in my classes, not did they when I was an ABD adjunct, because I would never tolerate it.


• There isn't much you -- a student -- can do to turn a class like this around. The class culture has already been established. Short of Cesar Millan making a guest appearance to tame the pack, yank a few chains, and help your instructor assume the role as pack leader, not much can be done. But it would be kind of you to drop your grad student instructor a note, perhaps anonymously, acknowledging the difficulty of the situation. She's probably about to quit. Maybe a kind word from you will provide enough hope for her to soldier on without losing her mind. Even easier, just print out your post to RYS and give it to her. It says three important things that she ought to know: you are on her side, she is doing a good job, and this particular class happens to be filled with wildly self-important idiots. Just bringing the facts to the surface can actually help a lot.

Support for Ophelia.

We've received a number of supportive notes for Ophelia from Oxnard. We've chosen to feature this longer post:

I am sorry to hear about the loss of your mom. My sincere condolences. I'm so sorry to hear that you couldn't take the briefest leave of absence from your online teaching to attend to your mom's hospitalization, hospice stay, death and then funeral. It must have been agonizing to continue online teaching under such stressful circumstances. And I'm so sorry that while you did your best to fulfill your half of the bargain, you students did not fulfill their half of the bargain. I have also taught online and can relate. Your story reminds me that an online professor's unspoken social contract with one's students is tenuous at best.

Those of us who teach online teach naked. The online professor is stripped of the support system that comes with a normal teaching job - namely an office, a computer, internet access, telephone, office supplies, admin support and, last but not least, a community of colleagues. All of that, the support provided as a matter of course to the normal professor, the online professor must somehow provide for him or herself. You have no one to turn to for anything, except yourself. You even have to find a way to pay your own health insurance and fund your 401K. You are teaching without a net, and no-one is there to catch you if you should need some help, as you needed when your mom suddenly got sick. But you tell yourself that teaching this way is going to be OK. An unspoken bargain is thus struck. You will do your job and the students will do the work. When you fulfill your end of the bargain, and they fulfill theirs, things feel alright. You are clothed in the knowledge that, at the least, your efforts are valued by your students, whose questions you thoughtfully answer, and whose papers and tests you carefully grade.

By not doing their work when you -- against all odds! -- did yours, your students exposed the shallow social contract that binds together online professors and students. As you write, "Why should I want to help students -- why did I go out of my way to help them -- if they in turn treat the class like this?" You had already suffered enough indignity in the form of low pay, no benefits, and no support system. The institution who hired you offered you NOTHING when you needed to do something that normal human beings occasionally need to do -- attend to the ill, bury the dead, grieve. The students were all you had left to keep you motivated, and they failed to live up to their part of the bargain. Your grief is entirely understandable.

Ophelia, I am so, so sorry. I wish that we were colleagues who taught under normal circumstances. I would have filled in for you, and you probably would have done the same for me.

I can't offer much by way of comforting words. All I know if that this is not the way its supposed to be.

Today's VidShizzle. Hitler Banned From Wikipedia.

Because we can no longer deny the will of one group of fanatical readers who think this is the funniest clip "evah."

Kennewick Kennedy Gets a Little Old School Punishment.

Are you not keen enough to realize "super keener" is a derogatory term meaning "grade grubbing snowflaky pain in the ass, distinguished from the others by test scores and little else"?

We already know what you're talking about. That's what makes you a super-keener. You think you have super-keen insight on something that didn't occur to us. Yeah, yeah, the mind is the sexiest organ - we know. We had crushes too you know. You acknowledge that you yourself knew not to send e-mail requests for dates - that's what this issue was about. The direct solicitation - not the thoughts in the young lad's head.

Do you really think a super-keener with a crush would send an e-mail request for a date? No, they wouldn't. Super-keeners are annoying, not stupid. It's apples and oranges, sweetie. Someone keen enough to be turned on by their professor's intellectual achievements won't be confused by "the adult-student/professor relationship." Only a horny moron who thinks his teacher is hot and/or needs to get laid is that dumb. In which case, they don't deserve your apologetic super-keener-food-for-thought consideration. They hate you for ruining the curve, don't waste your time making excuses for them.

Now go back to writing something that will make the professor who wrote you one of those recommendations for grad-school put the letter opener down and live to get hit on one more time.

Head-Hurter Of the Month.

I have been reading RYS ever since I've began to harbor thoughts about entering graduate school at the end of my years in undergraduate education. For the most part, you'll have scared the crap out of me and beaten out much of the idealism I once held about graduate education and academia (which is good; I'd rather it happen now than later). However, you do provide an awesome smackdown and ways to deal with the vast majority of students who are snowflakes. Thus, I have have a question for all of you: how in the world do you deal with a whole class full of snowflake idiots?

I'm in a political science class full of aspiring politicians. The instructor made the mistake of detailing that she was still a gradute student on the first day of class. Since then, it has been open season on the woman. She has interesting lectures, treates us with much more respect than most of the students give her, and knows the subject as well as any other professor with whom I've taken a class. Yet, students constantly try to correct mistakes that aren't mistakes, turn a class about national security institutions into one about how much they hate former president Bush and the CIA, and monopolize the class asking "questions" meant to show how smart they think they are, etc.

The worst of it was the day after we all received our midterms back, when student were literally yelling at the professor because they were too impatient to listen to her finish the rundown of the grades. I've been in classes where there have been half a dozen punk snowflakes that don't deserve a place to crap, let alone to learn, but I've never seen it such that a whole class has been like this.

I don't even like going to class anymore, because it is difficult for her to lecture with these punks contradicting everything she says. And the worst thing about it? I know if I complain to anyone, she will be blamed for lack of discipline, so I stay quite. And I pale in horror, because I know that is my future. How in the world can this be fixed?

Today's VidShizzle. "Professor Wikipedia."

Clint's "Lock It Up" Strategy Splits Readers.

• Seriously dude don’t surrender your high ground. If they can’t show up on time, they don’t get to participate. At all. No notes, unless they get them from a buddy. But don’t ask for them from the prof. 2 minutes late there was a quarter of the class outside the solid core door. I alone was brave enough to knock. I heard later that Cap’n Ento told them to ignore the sound at the door as he continued his lecture. 2 Minutes. The grad student who was taking this mingled class knew enough to go find some breakfast because the man was not going to let us in and if he did open the door he would be directly in the line of fire. We all turned and walked away to find coffee or sleep. Stick to your guns Clint.




• You're the kind of asshole that gives us all of us a bad name. What do you think you're proving by this grandstanding? Do you imagine that students will now suddenly find a way to be on time? Then you're dreaming.




• You are not a failure. You did the right thing, not question about it in my mind. Please let us know how it all washes out.




• You feel like a failure because you realize that you took three years of frustration out on one single class. The only way to make things right is to either give the students who waited in the hall a chance to take a similar quiz or go back and change the grades of every habitually late student you've ever had. Since the second solution isn't an option you know what you have to do. Believe me, I hate tardiness as much as any professor. That's why I have a policy in my syllabus reflecting what consequences will occur if students are late on a regular basis. In the future I'd recommend you add one as well.




• I have done the exact same thing. A modest 5% quiz should get their rears in gear. Too many students see the classroom as a bit of a "drop-in" experience. They are so enamored of the freedom college brings, that they tream my classroom (and yours, apparently) as a sort of educational hangout that they'll deign to visit when it fits into their otherwise busy schedule of "fire extinguisher water polo" and "drink this Patron until you hurl." Good for you, Clint. Next time, press your own face up the classroom door so they know you SEE them looking in and being shut OUT!




• Pop quiz? Yes, well, that tells me enough about you. Your lack of respect for your students would get your ass canned at my proudly student-centered institution. If I were one of your students I'd take the syllabus and walk it over to the Dean's office. "Dr. Dean, do you see a 5% *teacher is in a pissy mood* quiz on here? No, neither do I." How invalid is your little tantrum now?

Sammie From San Clemente on Grad Students and Regressive Gender Politics.

I've recently come to the conclusion that grad students actually are the worst people.

I'm in a discipline that claims to be among the most progressive -- one of the ones that, as Archie said, will eventually have to gather in Judith Butler's basement -- and I cannot believe the shit I'm hearing these days.

Let me give you some examples:

• My best friend from grad school got hired at a very prestigious institution that nearly all of us would fall over ourselves even to be interviewed by. The response of her cohort? She got the job because she's a) nice and b) female. Never mind the fact that she's a fucking Rhodes scholar.


• I got my own rather more modest job, one at which I'm very happy. The response of a male friend upon being told I got it? "Well, you're so nice." (Are you beginning to wonder what "nice" is code for, here?)


• A friend who's on the market has been reporting to all his friends that only women were interviewed for a job he wanted -- and it must thus be the case that the University isn't interviewing him because he's a man. This same friend seems to have a flock of adoring females whose instinct whenever they see me in the distance is to flag me down to tell me how wonderfully clever he is. (He is, actually, but not cleverer than they are themselves.)


• A friend of mine recently gave a job talk to a group of friends in preparation for an interview. Their response? "You have such a nice smile! You're so friendly! Of course they'll give you the job."

WTF? What the fucking fuck? Why is it that every time I'm around a really intelligent, accomplished woman, someone will point to the guy next to her, a guy with half the qualifications, and say, "Well, now he's really brilliant." And if she gets the job, this same fuckwad will tell her that it's because she's a woman. Oh, sorry, I mean "nice." And if she reveals herself not to be, indeed, "nice" by protesting these absurdities, she will then be told she's an emasculating shrew.

What kills me is that my discipline has spent, like, decades deconstructing gender politics. At least, upon tenure, everyone suddenly begins to behave as if those decades of scholarship actually have some validity.

"Dear Undergrad Who's Taking a Grad-Level Seminar..."

It's exciting, isn't it, playing with the big kids? I'm sure you're, like, the shit in your undergrad courses. I'm even fairly certain that you do have useful things to contribute to this class. I admire your ambition, and I think it would be great if more students shared your zeal for learning.

But.

You are annoying as hell. I understand that you feel like you have something to prove. But advising the professor on what he "should read," because it'll be "really helpful" to him? And interrupting other students to insist that we need to "refocus" on what you think the crucial issue is (which... it isn't)? Heaving those great, theatrical sighs and loudly interjecting your would-be thoughtful "Hmmmmm"s and "Mmmhm, mmmmhm"s in what you surely think is the world's most empathic display of scholarly reflection? It makes us all want to kill you, not to mention harbor the prejudices against undergrads in grad seminars that we'd like to think we're above. (Oh, and by the way, all of the faculty in your field knew exactly who you were when "This ridiculous undergrad..." was mentioned in the department the other week. They all think you're a joke.)

Seriously dude, just calm down. Strive for that zen state of mind in which seminar isn't a forum to upstage other people. It's one thing to display your knowledge and reference interesting outside sources. But you, you're something else entirely.Hubris is a color that doesn't look good on most people. So take it off.

For realz,
A classmate

The Curious Case of Denis Rancourt.

The Provocative Professor
by Erin Anderssen
Toronto Globe & Mail
February 11, 2008

A University of Ottawa physics professor who was suspended after awarding automatic A's to his students to protest against the tyranny of tests and grades is receiving mixed marks from academics across North America - some offering high scores, others flunking him.

His case has become a talking point for academic freedom: When does a tenured professor cross the line from exercising intellectual independence - a tenet of university life - to failing to live up to his job description?

The University of Ottawa administration has decided the latter, recommending to its board of governors, in a rare move, that senior physicist Denis Rancourt be dismissed from the school, in addition to banning him from campus. A statement from the university said the reasons include Prof. Rancourt's refusal to follow a grading system, which challenged the "credibility" of a degree from the school and ignored the fact that students need marks to win graduate positions and scholarships.

The decision, however, follows years of conflict with Prof. Rancourt over course curriculum - in particular his practice of discussing politics in science classes - and complaints from many of his faculty colleagues about his conduct. Prof. Rancourt, who describes himself as an "anarchist," insists that properly teaching science requires a consideration of social issues, and that eliminating the pressure of grades allows students to focus on learning.

More Perspective on Rancourt:

• Best site for updated links on the case.


• One of Rancourt's blogs.


• His U of Ottawa website.


• A Rutgers editorial.


• Another version of the story.


• The Stanley Fish article.
  

Edna from Effingham on Cave-dwelling Snowflakes‏

This semester I have snowflakes that were raised in a cave. They are devoid of all sense of social skills. They don’t just openly text or get up and leave the room to make calls. They don’t just talk amongst themselves during the lecture. No. They look at you while they are applying make-up. They interrupt the lecture to say things like “I gotta pee.” They pick the braids out of their hair so that the tangled mass stands on end. They take off their shoes. They scratch, blow their snotty noses, fart and belch without restraint. Their comments surpass the basic ignorance I had grown accustomed to and has moved into a place that deeply troubles me. They have absolutely no clue that it’s not okay to say what they say or do what they do. They are crass and disgusting and it doesn’t occur to them that anything is out of line.

I’m just old-fashioned enough that I still have respect for a certain level of acceptable social behavior. I don’t think students should be seen and not heard, but I do think they should respond respectfully. When a discussion gets heated, I do believe it is my job to guide them through the understanding of true discourse. What I don’t think I should have to do is explain to a student that screaming obscenities isn’t the way to go about making a point. I truly don’t think I should have to say please stop brushing your hair, picking at that sore on your arm, or blowing your nose in a way that’s making all of us gag.

I’m grateful I’m in a community college so I don’t have to sit through a parent-teacher conference with the parents who raised these kids because I don’t know what would be worse. Little Johnny’s perfectly pristine parents sitting there saying “he’s just expressing himself” or a reincarnation of Al Bundy (Married with Children) scratching himself saying “huh?”

Controlling Your Graduate Student. Today's VidShizzle.

Ophelia From Oxnard on Online Burnout.

I teach online, for a mainly online university. For the most part, I enjoy it -- I like getting to teach in my jammies, most of my students are older and more mature, and I have a lot of flexibility.

However, I recently came up against one of the big pitfalls of teaching online, and I am left feeling frustrated and burned out.

Two weeks ago, I received The Call. My mother, 1500 miles away, had been taken to the ER, and it didn't look good. This was a Sunday, so I contacted the school, knowing I wouldn't hear from them until the next day. In the meantime, I had no choice -- I had to grade.

The next day, I received my official answer: There's no way to get a sub. Either I give the class to someone else completely, or I just work through it. Given that I need my paycheck, and I do enjoy the work and would want to return to the class (it was half-way over), I decided to just keep working. But I felt quite frustrated at such a system -- surely there has to be a better way to help online instructors who are experiencing a family emergency?

In the meantime, I had to make arrangements to fly out to see Mom. I did let me students know something was up, though I didn't give them any details. And to their credit, quite a few offered good wishes, prayers, and vibes.

While my mother was dying at the hospice, I went into the family room to use their computers to get some work done. The day after she died, I spent hours (8 or 10) going through her apartment, then came back to the hotel to spend another 3 or 4 hours grading and answering student questions.

When I got home from her funeral (I read "Death Be Not Proud" of course), I was back online, taking care of class stuff.

Now I am home, and trying to get caught up with my work. But my students make it difficult. I find it hard to answer questions that seem to me quite trivial -- if I had less control or more alcohol, all of my answers would read, "Who cares, my mom just died?"

What takes the cake, what has burned me to a crisp is this: They had a huge assignment -- 10% of their grade -- due this weekend, a week after my mom's funeral. I reminded them about it several times, wrote some helpful hints (by hints, I mean answers), did everything I could to make it easy on them (and me). And yet I get the same excuses, the same late papers. One student hadn't turned it in because they hadn't time to answer questions because they'd been busy shoveling snow. And another didn't turn it in because they'd forgotten where the file was saved. And others just didn't turn it in at all.

And I think to myself, "I should care, why?" Why should I care about any of this? Why should I want to help students -- why did I go out of my way to help them -- if they in turn treat the class like this? I spent so much energy trying to get my work done, and students can't even bother to remember where they saved their files?

I don't know what to think. I need my job; I can't quit. I used to enjoy teaching, even though I've had my share of snowflakes. But now, nothing. Maybe it's just grief talking, but I don't even care if I care again.

Keener Kennedy From Kennewick on Crushing Students.

Although the types of students who get crushes on professors vary, I wanted to throw out my perspective as a super-keener in her senior year heading to graduate school in the fall. Since primary school, I idolized my teachers and was a perfect, preening teacher’s pet all the way through high school. My eagerness to learn was the perfect match for both wanting the attention of my teachers and receiving it in that educational context.

For kids used to these types of learning relationships, college can be a very awkward transition. In college, the adult-student/professor relationship is much different than the child-student/teacher relationship. Traditional students are adults living on their own and totally in control of their own decisions for the first time. Instead of their parents or a guidance counselor, the student is now in control of the direction of their education. For those with a natural passion for knowledge, the college environment can be intellectually challenging in a way that borders on intoxication. The big thirsty heading this week used the word playfully, but for some students professors do seem like the gateway to all this dazzling knowledge the student never knew existed. This can result in a kind of displacement.

The desire to have the perceived knowledge of that professor and the passion they inspire in their subject is mistaken in the hormone-laden young adult mind as sexual desire and passion. Although I was never as stupidly bold as the young man mentioned in this week’s question, there were a couple of professors (the first professors in my major) with whom I was disgustingly shameless, following them around like a puppy discussing my enthusiasm with the day’s reading (both out of genuine enthusiasm and as an excuse) on their way to their next class. I struggled with these crushes because I knew how inappropriate my behavior was but it was so hard to stifle myself. Luckily, by my junior year, a combination of maturing a little and finding the sage words of a blogging professor who addressed these issues extensively, I was able to toughen up and become professional with the professors I had classes under and later worked with in the department. I still get crushes, but I recognize these as a desire to BE them, not to BE WITH them, and I overcome my impulses.

There are many types of students who get crushes and in the cases of super-keeners who are generally harmless, I recommend this blog post by Dr. Hugo Schwyzer on learning to affirm and redirect those crushes. If you can encourage their enthusiasm while at the same time redirecting their feelings toward the material and away from you, the situation can turn out as a positive for everyone involved.

The Chemistry of Chocolate & Roses. Today's VDay VidShizzle.

A Valentine's VidShizzle.

"Dr. 29-And-Apparently-Smokin'" Gets Some Helpful Suggestions to Yesterday's Big Thirsty.

We're sorry to those folks whose notes we didn't have space for, but we think the ones below give you the flava of what came in regarding yesterday's Big Thirsty about being the object of a student proposition:

• Why heavens no! This never happens! The rest of us are old and ugly and get nary a glance from the undergrads. You must be the prettiest proffie in the whole wide world! I'll bet my last binder clip that when you get up from your chair, unicorns fly out of your ass. You lucky girl!


• This has been said here before, but probably needs to be said with some repetition because it is so difficult to comprehend as it manifests in the classroom: today’s snowflakes have grown up in the equivalent of a dark cave. They have absolutely no clue when it comes to basic social skills. Think of what they do in the classroom that makes you think “WTF!?!” Remember those moments when, in memory of your second grade teacher, you want to beat the snowflake into a puddle of water. They really don’t know. So, in this particular situation, the student probably has no clue that it is, in fact, inappropriate to do what he/she has done. It’s easiest to say “I don’t date students.” I will point out that the Catch 22 is when you are no longer the instructor, the student may think that removes the barrier. Again, they think it’s okay. One colleague received a poorly written poem at the end of the semester, and a face-to-face request for “let’s get to know each other.” Another, when asked out on a date, responded “I don’t date students,” so the student dropped the class and repeated the request. I’d print out the e-mail for my files. I’d schedule an open door meeting with the student to tell them it is inappropriate to e-mail an instructor in this manner.


• Try replying with this: "Dear Mr. Student, it looks as though someone has gotten access to your email account and is trying to embarrass you by sending a highly inappropriate email message to me. I'm sure the person thinks it's a harmless prank and does not realize the damage that something like this could do to our working relationship if I had believed it. I wanted to let you know so that you can change your password before it gets out of hand. Best of luck. See you in class Monday."


• Two possible paths: a) Do not answer the message. Forward it to your chair. Have your chair contact the student with a cease and desist. If the student insists, denounce him / her for harassment or, b) Go for it.


• Methinks that Ms 29 is a little bit too flattered by the attention of her undergraduate. That’s why her questions are so clueless. She should email the boy saying that his attentions are unwanted and inappropriate and that she will not respond to any further love letters. She should be kind, but absolutely firm and clear. She should then print out a copy of the letter and her response, seal it in an envelope, and give it to her chair to hold, along with any subsequent communication from the student.


• Immediately make a meeting with your area/division chair about it. Print the email and take it with you. And then ask the chair what is the best thing to do. By doing this, you are documenting the event. By getting the chair to tell you what to do, you are acknowledging you don’t know what to do and making your chair feel important. Most chairs like that. But even more importantly, no one can come after you for not handling this appropriately if you are only following directions.


• It’s a phase that you are going through but it will pass. Once you hit the big three-oh, guys of all ages will stop being interested in you. You’ll get the respect for your scholarship you’ve always deserved instead of stares at Betty and Wilma. A few years down the road, you’ll hit a rough patch when students will see you as a grandma-type who could bake cookies for them but you’ll get through it. You might even enjoy the fact that anybody not on Medicare visits your lonely, old person-smelling office. One day, you’ll be so decrepit that students will be afraid to touch you for fear of losing a bit of their own mortality. Your last contribution to academia will be to decompose into a pile of dust while you sleep during faculty meeting, making everybody feel awkward as they adjourn. Hold on. So you’re single? Wanna hook up with me? This could be your last chance.


• I would print the e-mail then run, not walk, to your university's sexual harassment officer or ombudsperson or senior administrator that deals with this stuff. Talk to the experts first, before communicating anything to the student. It might be innocent & harmless. Hell, it might be the student's housemates pulling a prank when he left himself logged into e-mail. But it also might be the kind of thing that could sink your career just as it starts out. If you have to meet with the student, have another faculty member present. Log all e-mail and electronic communication. The guy might not be some psycho stalker, but why risk it?


• Something similar happened to me exactly once, a few years ago. I have a few grey hairs in my beard now, so I do not expect it to happen again. In short, I replied via email that I was in a relationship and that taking up her offer would be inappropriate in any case. She sent a reply thanking me for giving her a dignified response and that was the last I heard of it. It was a bit easier for me, because the course was over by then and I didn’t remember what she looked like, in any case.

Clint From College Station Locks It Up.

For three years I've been threatening to do it, and today I finally did it. Sick of students drifting into my class and in front of the material being projected for image analysis, and tired of being ignored when I've asked them to arrive on time, I finally grew a pair and locked the door. I also offered one of the pop quizzes at the same time. So, as 8 angry students watched through the glass as 5% of their grade evaporated, I was feeling pretty good about going nuclear on them.

Despite the sign on the door that said "Quiz in Progress, Do Not Disturb" they still tried to get in. They yelled. They pounded on the door. They swore when I finished the quiz, collected it, and then let them in to sit down. I'm sure that tomorrow the other shoe will drop and one of the little dearies will blow over to the chair and demand my head on a plate. But how could any chair justify 8 students who would have been disturbing others by opening and closing a door and then crawling over them to take a seat?

I know I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been asking students for 3 years to arrive on time. Last year I even went out and walked our little liberal arts school to see if any of the academic buildings was too far to arrive on time - not one building clocked over 6 minutes at a normal walking pace.

Locking the door felt so good, but I feel like a failure for doing it.

Jennifer from Junction City On Being Treated Like a Proffie.

Fine, fine. Ludmilla and Doris are jerks. Presuming, that is, that they really did get all bent out of shape over such trivial things (women are often accused of yelling and being shrill when they’re just being forceful). And setting aside the fact that we’re making global judgments of jerkiness on the basis of a couple of actions (fundamental attribution error, anyone?) Yeah, okay, there’s no reason to start yelling when students call us “Ms.” and our colleagues call us “Honey.”

But you’ve got to remember how freaking *often* this happens. Every damn week I listen to students call me Miss or Mrs. X (no idea where they got the idea I was married), then turn around and call my male colleagues Dr. or Prof. Every blasted semester I’ve got a new crop of lower-division students who are convinced I’m a grad student, no matter how clearly I introduce myself as Prof. X or how many emails I sign with my title. Why do I give a crap? Because this refusal to see me as a professor seems to be highly correlated with a basic lack of trust of my expertise. The students who don't see me as a professor also seem convinced that they know better than I do what I should be teaching in my classes, what grade they deserve, what my discipline is all about. How many times have I suffered through their bold claims in class that my subject is worthless, their whining in my office that there’s no right answer anyway so they should automatically get an A, and their airy pronouncements that they never do the reading or didn’t bother doing a writing assignment because they “knew” it wasn’t important?

The fact that I’ve spent my entire adult life studying the subject carries no weight with them, and so they learn less than they would if they just trusted me to teach them. Now a lot of them are just clueless about college in general – they don’t seem to understand what the enterprise is about, how it’s different from high school, or what a professor actually is. But some of them know full well what a professor is; they just refuse to believe I am one. That’s one reason I get significantly more grade complaints than my male colleagues. The other reason may be that I’m so afraid of being seen as a jerk that I bend over backwards to be as soft and friendly and non-shrill as I can be. I can see myself just snapping one day, the way Ludmilla and Doris did.

What I really don’t understand is why students have no problem with the concept of a female grad student, only with the idea of a female professor. What exactly do they think all those female grad students do after they graduate? Paste their diplomas in their Martha Stewart “School Daze” scrapbooks, climb up into the stirrups, and proceed to shoot babies out like a Pez dispenser?

"Ignorance IS Easier." We Always Knew It.

I teach the U.S. history survey, and my students are reading Howard Zinn as one of their texts. They were asked the following question as part of their homework on a Zinn reading:

"Why were workers attracted to socialism? Why did businessmen find it threatening? What did it threaten?"

I got this response: "I really do not understand what socialism entirely. The word seems to be thrown around in literature and politics that I really cannot grasp what it's supposed to mean. So to save myself the agony of doing hours of reading, I'm not going to answer this question. Sorry."

Part of me applauds the student's refreshing honesty while the rest of his classmates simply pretend to give a shit while handing in BS answers. But the rest of me dies a little more inside as I struggle to stay excited about teaching students like this.

First, his assertion that the answer would take hours of reading is crap -- the answer was easily found in the chapter they were supposed to have read, and his classmates answered it fairly easily.

But what if I had asked a question that required outside knowledge? Oh, the agony of "hours of reading!" Heaven forbid I ask such a thing!

OMG, I might have to READ stuff...that's HARD...and takes up the time I could be using to play Guitar Hero or mess around on Facebook!!!! :(

The thing that most gets me is that the student identifies socialism as something he's heard a lot about and doesn't understand completely, but probably should. But instead of finding out just what it is and why people are talking about it, he's decided that ignorance is easier. Ah, yes -- a big lesson of college.

Ignorance IS easier, my friend, so drink it in. And I'm sure your future boss will appreciate your desire to only do the easy tasks because the rest of your job is too hard. See how that goes, 'kay? In the meantime, I'm not going to put myself through the hours of agony reading your papers and assignments. I'll just give them an F. "Sorry."

"I Dated My Proffie..." Today's VidShizzle.

A Big Crush Thirsty! Maybe He's Just Using His Attraction to You As a Gateway To More Learnin'.

I am in my first year of a t-t position at a large state school, and I just got a long, inappropriate e-mail from one of my undergraduates, proclaiming his undying love and asking me out on a date. While other students have asked me out for drinks or invited me to functions, this is the first time it has been so blatant. I find myself incredibly annoyed that this happened in February when I still have to interact with this kid till May.

Q: But I'm also pretty curious. Is this happening to everyone or just twenty-nine year old females? Has it always happened, or is it becoming more frequent as students become bolder? How is it best handled? Yes, I know dating the undergrads is a total no-no, but do I just ignore it? Respond in print with a firm reprimand? Respond in person so there is no paper trail? Anyone got any good stories or advice?

A: Send replies here.

Charmaine From Checkerberry Village On Accomodations.

Lyle from Lompoc, who wrote a powerful reply to Proffie Pedro, concerning accomodations for disabled students, generated quite a bit of mail. We had a hard time choosing representative pieces because replies were all over the map. But we think this one most accurately sums up the feeling of the majority of respondents. Please to enjoy:

I feel your pain, man. But back off. You write that it's "Sure as shit not your business to so much as inquire about (the disability)." Not being able to inquire IS the problem. Lack of information is precisely where the problem lies.

The range of disabilities and the lists of disability accommodations grow ever larger each semester. Sadly, no one explains anything to professors or adjuncts. We just get the disability accommodations form, and have to take it from there, figuring out on our own how to deal. If we don't do it right, we get your wrath and the possibility (as pointed out by Patrice from Popeville) of finding ourselves ambushed by students bringing lawsuits.

Disability accommodations are shrouded in mystery, for privacy reasons, obviously. But that means that we professors, for the most part, have very little context in which we can create meaning for the words on the forms we are given. We are thus often perplexed by how the accommodations actually benefit the students. Without information, the default reaction is "This wouldn't fly in the real world."

So you are right, Lyle we are in the dark. We don't know. We have no idea what the student's disability is, or how the accommodations benefit the student. But who is to blame for this sad state of affairs?

Two years ago, tired of all of the uncertainty and guessing, I decided to meet with each student who gives me a disability accommodations form so that I could better understand what's behind the words on the form. I don't question the accommodations or in any way suggest that they are not necessary. What I'm after is a more complete understanding of who the student is, and how they best learn. Some students welcome the opportunity to talk about themselves. Others put up walls. They just want me to take the form and deal with it. I understand. They don't want to be singled out. They don't want to be labeled. However, if I don't initiate the conversation, the students are under no obligation to disclose anything to me. So then it's back to me and the damn form.

I would love it if my students got over their fear of being misunderstood and took the initiative to help me understand and make sense of the words on the form. Any student with a disability could do their professors a real favor by initiating the conversation -- awkward as it may be -- instead of hoping that their professors will read the disabilities accommodations form and just "get it."

Clearly, we don't. Without a partnership with you, we're not going to make much progress.

Pedro to Lyle.

An open letter to "Lyle From Lompoc"...
... from Pedro the Proffie :

Thanks. I deserved that smackdown, and you delivered in an eloquent way. One of the reasons I became an academic was to be constantly challenged and constantly learning. I learn a great deal from my students, and I learned a great deal from you.

You provided a strong voice against my sardonic vitriol. I'll stick to commentary about students making bad choices (e.g. drinking 3 cans of Red Bull in an exam) vs. trying to get a chuckle from those struggling through no fault of their own. Your reply caused me to pause and reflect, to introspect, and to come away with new insight and understanding.

The next time I'm in a meeting an a colleague says "these exam accommodations are ridiculous! How are we preparing our students for the 'real world'" I won't nod in polite agreement, but I'll challenge their assumptions and assertions.

Education is about changing minds and attitudes and I applaud you Lyle for enlightening me.

CALICO LIVES!

The update from Compound Calico is all good.

After a nuclear stress test (treadmill + nuclear imaging), his cardiologist tells him his heart looks "pretty good for a fat guy." (These doctors crack us up.)

The doc also tells him he is in serious need of lifestyle changes, especially nutritionally.

He is a little embarrassed to hear about the flood of supportive emails. He is, after all, nobody you REALLY know. But he tells us to tell you "mighty mighty thanks."

When is it too soon to tell him to get back to the mail?

It's Calico's Favorite Song. (And We're Not Even Kidding.) Today's VidShizzle.

Compound Calico went in for testing at 5:30 am Pacific time and we hope to have some news within an hour or so. Until then:

The mail has been heavy We picked our favorites for some flava below, and will make sure Calico gets all of them WHEN he's home and feeling better.

• We wish you all the best with your recovery. After reading your post, I can’t imagine anybody having any teaching problems worth complaining about today. Thanks for the reminder about what’s important. You’ve caused all of us to give our wives or husbands an extra hug.
• so suddenly it's all about you and this breathing thing of yours . . .be well!
• Calico, babe, peace--really; take a deep breath and feel the peace. Miracles of science and all that. I look forward to hearing the good news. And kiss your wife. Deeply. Madly. Truly.
• I heart you!

From Compound Calico.

I write for myself today, not as a moderator at RYS. (Senior moderator at this point, I might note, though that minx Cricket is actually in charge!)

I spent 14 hours yesterday in two different emergency rooms with chest pains. Lots of EKGs, blood tests, an ambulance ride, a terrible call to the wife to tell her where I was. It was just a miserable experience in about every way.

I spent most of the day sure I was not going to live another one, and at this point, after having been released with strict instructions to not exert myself, my fear remains high.

They let me go home at about 3 in the morning, convinced that bed rest and no exertion at home would be okay before a return to the hospital tomorrow morning for a variety of tests. What looms is that if they find anything that makes them nervous, I'll be whisked right upstairs to the "cath lab," where they'll insert a needle into my thigh, thread it through my body to my heart, and begin trying to repair what damage I've casually done to my poor, black heart after nearly 50 years of high livin'.

I'm a married man, and all I could think of yesterday was, "Don't take me away from her; I'm not ready."

And the RYS schedule worked out that today was my day, my day to read the mail, do the photos, do the logs, put some posts up. I do it because I've always loved RYS. I've loved hearing from all of you about the challenges and disasters of your own classrooms. I love teaching, love my students, and find it criminal how the worst of them just shit on what could be such a wonderful experience. I believe - with all of my heart - that RYS is a good thing, a great place, an academic office cooler where we can refresh and recharge.

But today, I feel selfish. If Mike from Muskogee or Glenda from Galveston have problems today, I just don't feel like dealing with them. Instead, I just want to hug my wife, look into the blue sky outside this window, and pray to "God" - though I don't really believe in one - that I will be here in a week, a month, a year, whatever time it takes for me to let my friends and family know how much they mean to me.

I'd give anything to go back 10 years, 20 years, eat better, take care of myself, not treat my body like the big and bouncy playpen it's been. But you can't do that.

So I'm going to do my tests, listen to the advice of doctors younger than me, people I don't even know, and hope that when my name comes up on the RYS calendar again that I will be recovering, getting better, released from the fear, charged and ready to carry on.

For anyone concerned with heart health, this is a really great site: The American Heart Association.

Today's Vid Shizzle. You Can't Believe How Many People Sent us this Clip Today.

We Don't Know If This is the Type of Response (And Punishment) Finnegan From Fowlers Mills Was Looking For...But Here it Is Anyway.

Dear D*cknose,

I suggest you tap into your no doubt fat pension plan, buy yourself the services of a dominatrix, and let her have at it. It's a real tonic for self-loathing, and cheaper than therapy.

In the meantime, keep in mind that your brilliant young thing hates you too. After all, she's graduating into this horrific economy and job market, where her graduate degree may end up completely worthless.

You, on the other hand, no doubt finished up your mediocre thesis on Hemingway or whatever, whereupon your advisor picked up the phone and told his good bud he had a "Hemingway man," and off you went, getting tenure on what it now takes to get hired in the first place.

Your student may be sweet and gracious, but she no doubt wants to slay you, flay you, and wear your unearned privilege like a mink coat. Like I said, a good dom can help you figure out a thrilling way to role-play all this.

--()--

Dear Finnegan from Fowlers Mills:

I understand your pain, sir. It surges through your body from the soul outward, until your face flushes, your hands tremble, and your loins throb with the promise of what once was.

My advice is simple--if you hate her that much, despite how perfect she is, there's only one thing you can do. Sleep with her. Invite her to your house to celebrate her brilliance, or a recent success, crack open a bottle of impressive wine, and drink deep as you offer her a rosy picture of everything her academic life will soon offer her.

Don't say a thing about how bad it is for you--that will only breed resentment. You might play up how challenging it all is, to scare her a little bit--this will make her cling to you, figuratively and, hopefully, physically. If you have a hookup for weed, this would be the time to use it. Pop a blue pill (if you're a man), and show her all the things you *really* learned in grad school.

Two things will happen, at least: you'll get some of that amazing 22- year old you-know-what, and your pesky self loathing will cease being metaphysical angst and become real and justified. You will have taken advantage of a young impressionable thing in probable violation of college policy.

I'm not sure which is better--that you lose your job or that tenure protects you. The former is an escape from a life you obviously hate, the latter a satisfying intensification of the wrongness of everything. Both are nadirs of a sort, and therefore perfect.

Ewan from Evansville On Gradflakes, Gossip, and Humanity.

Ah, man. I thought that graduate students like myself were going to dodge the shots being fired in the proffie-snowflake wars, but then those two gradflakes had to show up and ruin everything.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the grad students in question have never worked in an office--or even retail. Don't they know that finding out dirty secrets about one's co-workers--i.e.,gossip--is one of life's greatest pleasures and one of the only ways to climb the career ladder? Not only does gossiping go a long way toward replacing the novels and TV shows that grad students shouldn't have time to consume as a source of cheap entertainment, it is also, as Bitchy Bear suggests, an early warning system.

The other two scenarios--the partner in the hospital and the usually close-lipped proffie who starts talking about his dying pet--are not"oversharing", dearies. Finding out that a professor's husband/wife/fellow cultist/whatever is in the hospital is a clue that you should a) make sympathetic noises, b) buy and send a sympathy card, and possibly c) volunteer to do something nice, like order flowers or stop whining about conference deadlines. Even in the most cutthroat law firm, you'd at least say "I'm sorry to hear that." Learning that little fact might even explain why the proffie only read the first five hundred pages of your dissertation draft. In the second scenario, you're being let in to the private life of an obviously private person. Sure, a dying pet is not (automatically) in the same league as the wife-in-hospital scenario, but it's clearly meaningful to the proffie, so you should again be sympathetic and humane.

Anyway, gradflakes, I'd like to thank you for confirming the stereotypes that all grad students are self-obsessed, vain, and insular jerks. How else are we supposed to interpret a line of thought that says "What does that mean for me?" is a justifiable response to another human being saying that something bad is happening in his or her life.

Because If Bart Zings You, You Know It's Real. Today's Vid Shizzle. (Improved Version.)

Ludmilla's a Jerk, Too. Beavis from Beaver Meadows On Respect.

A while back, yours truly, Beavis, was a grad student, and he was busy teach-a-ma-cating a service course in a computer classroom; it was a room of joy and contentment -- mostly because there were only moments left in one of the semester’s first classes and the precious little snowflakes knew it -- but in the meantime, they tap-tap-tapped away at their computers, some more competently than others, until I made the announcement to save their work and log off. Three-fourths of the students turned into vapor and exited within seconds. The hunt-and-peckers, though, stayed overtime, staring at their screens, brows furrowed, trying to divine the hidden mysteries of “Save As,” when Dr. Ludmilla Kropotkin swept into the room, accompanied by her students-cum-acolytes.

Now, I knew Ludmilla, and she knew me. We had pleasant conversations in the halls. All was well between us, but there was no “Hi, Beavis, good to see you,” no “Beavis, are your students about done?”, no pleasantries whatsoever. Instead, Ludmilla rapped out across the room, “Beavis! You need to get them out of here! My class is about to start.” Okay, then…I could see how you needed every second of the then eight-point-five minutes before class time to set down the three books in your arms and get the seven people taking your undergrad class organized. That’s cool. I can tolerate the complete and total lack of professional courtesy in front of my students. I’m chill. I can even handle the lack of common human decency, being spoken to like a disobedient dog. I’m a freakin’ Zen master.

But then one of my slowpokes, Rocky, spoke up, trying to make matters right. He was quite polite -- deferential, even -- and although he and his shadow Bullwinkle had played football far too long and shared a single non-concussed brain cell, he was a nice kid. He honestly wanted to apologize for being an inconvenience, so he turned to Ludmilla and said, “I’m sorry, miz…”

“DOCTOR!”

Doctor Kropotkin stared grimly at the far wall, jaw clenched, chin thrust high into the air. Really, now. You couldn’t be bothered to include a verb and say "It's doctor”? You couldn’t even be bothered to make eye contact? All that you could do is bark a correction at the opposite wall, directed at a student who was genuinely sorry to be an inconvenience?

Decatur Dana, Who We Hear LOVES Both Her Moniker AND Her Photo, Spills Some Live Energy on A Recent Student Eval.

You prissy, petulant, privileged bastard. You do not even realize your own insipid idiocy. I just received your evaluation (yes, they're anonymous, and yes, we can tell):

This is my 3rd sem here, and Prof Dana is my least favorite teacher ever. She is very demanding and mean. She one time said to us "If you don't do yer work, you maze well stay home." SHE DOES NOT GRADE ON EFFORT! [double underlined for emphasis] She grades on if you write like she tells u 2.

Not only does your evaluation's tone imply that you think you have some kind of special importance to this institution's hiring and firing policies ("What? She's your LEAST FAVORITE? She's outta here!!"), but it presents as a scathing indictment what is actually just evidence that I am doing my fucking job. From your evaluation, one can gather that I: 1) expect students to do the work and contribute to class; 2) do not grade based on that which I cannot know, see, or touch (the ever-elusive "effort"); and 3) teach students about writing and expect them to use these new skills, evaluating them accordingly. So you see, you have just guaranteed that someone knows that I am doing what I should be doing. Thank you. But you are still one ignorant asshole.

I only wish that you would have had the chutzpah to say this to my face. I would have added that you in particular could fuck off, since the only thing you succeeded at during the term was being a constant, disruptive nuisance who made college-level teaching feel like the worst baby-sitting gig ever. You're used to teachers who give you grades for just being the childish, immature brat that you are. How dare anyone suggest that your mere groggy, glass-eyed presence and self-reported "effort" wasn't enough to earn you a pretty little A!?

You don't know why you're in college. You don't want to be in college. You do not have the intellectual ability or the drive to be in college. Please leave. Learn something. Read something. Or just go smoke a bowl in a basement somewhere. But don't walk around acting like you belong where you clearly do not. And by the way, you want to know what three of your classmates listed as the class's main weakness? You.

Mitch from the Motor City Writes us From the Learning Ghetto.

"I stand in the ghetto classroom -- 'the guest speaker' -- attempting to lecture on the mystery of the sounds of our words to rows of diffident students....In the face of their empty stares, I try to create enthusiasm. But the girls in the back row turn to watch some boy passing outside. There are flutters of smiles, waves....But only one student seems to be listening....In this room her eyes shine with ambition. She keeps nodding and nodding at all that I say; she even takes notes. And each time I ask a question, she jerks up and down in her desk like a marionette, while her hand waves over the bowed heads of her classmates."

This is the opening to Richard Rodriguez's "The Achievement of Desire." It is also an accurate description of my expository writing classes yesterday, minus the ghetto and the lecture topic and the guest speaker bit. And the windows. Our classroom has no windows.

It's interesting that my classes acted this way when they had done this exact reading for today. Or maybe it isn't, since only five students out of thirty-four bothered to read, as far as I can tell.

I am sitting in my office right now. I am too pissed off at my students to read the essays they turned in a few days ago; I'm worried I'll take my frustration out on their grades, which isn't fair --especially since the essay is unrelated to the reading they didn't do.

I want to throttle them, all of them. I want to tell them that yes, expository writing is a general ed requirement and I know they're only in my class because the college says they have to be. I also want to tell them that I have some knowledge to share with them, and since they show up three times a week (like it or not), they may as well get something out of it. I wish there was some way to get through to them that they can only benefit from doing the reading, paying attention in class, and contributing to the conversation. Why bother getting out of bed for an 8:00 class if you're just going to stare at the teacher like a zombie anyway? And that $35,000/year tuition payment? (Well,OK, that figure includes housing...) If you don't read, don't think,and don't participate, you're flushing your loan money (and the future interest!) down the toilet. And why buy that $60 book if you're never going to open it?

"I got bored."

"It was too long."

"The words were too big."

You were bored by the reading? 15 pages was too long? The words were too big? Excuses. This all means, "I'm lazy." I was doing 15-page readings in junior high. I learned how to use a dictionary in second grade. And you were bored? Oh, no, that doesn't fly. Unless you are brain dead, there's plenty to mull over in Rodriguez: race and class, for starters. If you're completely uninterested by race issues and class issues (especially when you go to school in a small, rich, white community just outside of a big, poor, black metropolis) then get out of college. And what about all the other issues in there? Education. Privilege. Culture. Language. Family. Values. Family values.

I swear, if it doesn't involve a football or Britney Spears, there's just no hope. The weird thing is, this is my eighth time teaching this piece. Never before have I had a class react this way. In the past,though, my students were of a different demographic; this is only my first semester teaching expository writing at my new college. Is it something in these kids' backgrounds, which don't really seem that different from my previous students' backgrounds, that make them react so adversely to Rodriguez? Or is it something in the water?

I guess we need to have a talk at the start of our next class about personal responsibility, maturity, being open to new experiences, challenging ourselves, and what it means to be a college student. How absolutely lame. I may have to stick the gun in my mouth when we get to the part about how they're only cheating themselves.

Lyle From Lompoc Speaks For Our Disabled Students.

We've had a number of lively responses to Proffie Pedro's thoughts on accomodations for disabled students, and we thought this one earned some space.

You're right about one thing, Pedro: you're sure as shit not qualified to speak on the matter.

Speaking as a disabled student, I can tell you that at my institution my "accomodations" were a blend of (1) standard accommodations that the disability office gives to all disabled students (the lengthy list measures all of one bulletpoint - the right to take the test in relative privacy at the disability office, so long as the professor has prior notice for each exam), and (2) the accommodations negotiated between the disability office and the student's physician, unique to each student's needs.

The former is sure as shit not your business to so much as inquire about. Most disabilities grow much worse under stress: every disabled student has the right to maintain their dignity. I suffer from, among other things, a genetic gastric malady and, oddly enough, I appreciate *not* being in the classroom when I start uncontrollably vomitting during exams. Sorry if that somehow offends your idea of how to prepare a student for the work-place: it's not your fucking business to judge, one way or another. Your job is to teach, and to give each student roughly equal chances to succeed in their academic tasks - not to prep them for the biz world. I'm quite sick of teachers pulling out that "it wouldn't fly in business" bullshit. You're not here to train me for the business world, pops: you're here to teach me. Get your head around that. The business world and school are not the same thing. Oddly enough, I don't need to ask for "double time" at work. I can go home and take as much time as I need: I've never had an employer that gave two shits whether I got my work done at home or in the office, so long as it was prompt and of the quality expected of me. Oddly enough, I've never had an employer lock me in a room and set a timer. That is unique to schooling.

As to the latter, you've yet again no goddamned right to judge. Unless your students are frighteningly candid, or your school violates legal protections on disabled students' privacy, you have no idea what conditions these students suffer from, nor what contexts exacerbate those conditions. You have no idea as to the unique burden under which they have to labor, and what that might amount to. For instance, the student that needs the word processor may very well have nearly no physical ability to type. Using the word processor may make a great contribution to bridging that chasm; but furthermore, adding his grammar/punctuation/etc. might add to the length of time it takes to complete an exam to the point where the guy's not taking an exam, but working through a grueling test of physical endurance.

You're not bitching about ridiculous accomodations. You're a healthy person without the slightest clue of what it means to live in a broken body, bitching about something you've apparently neither the ability nor the inclination to understand. When you spend six hours commuting each way to school because the vast majority of public busses have had their wheelchair access broken and unrepaired for years, and then get sat down on a timed test wherein your limiting factor is not the speed of your mind but the alacrity of your fingers, you can reconsider the "benefits" afforded disabled students.

Ass.

So, Is Doris a Jerk, Or What? Results from "Take The Test!"

Many folks wanted to comment on Ditzy Doris, but we've settled on these three, which seem to cover most of the responses we saw.

• Okay, I'll take the test. In the salad bar scene, Doris was being a jerk. It's not her role on campus to correct the etiquette of every student who is impolite. She'd never have time for anything else. It sounds to me like she was annoyed by her day, took it out on some kids, and got called on it. So, yeah, she was a jerk at the salad bar. As for being called "darlin'," well that's a different matter. Women are routinely (and so casually) treated so poorly in the professional world, that I understand her pain there. I'm sure someone will say otherwise, but that man who used the condescending, limiting, and minimizing term for Doris is used to being deferred to, and Doris had every right to be brusque. I'd have turned my back on him and let him deal with the copier himself...he's the jerk in this scenario.




• I think students at a college or university would do well to see their superiors as their superiors wherever they see them. I'm not fond of all the military uniforms running around campus (are the Crosstown Rivals mounting a siege or something?) but the military offers an apt parallel: when the enlisted pass officers, in uniform, anywhere, it's "sir" or "ma'am." Students can tell most of the time when the person addressing them is a proffie--you address them as you would a student, respectfully, but authoritatively--and they should take the cue and reply accordingly. Why? Because it's a good skill to know. They could end up in your class, and you, being empowered to treat them, within broad boundaries, anyway you want, will use just a tiny bit of that encounter to inform your behavior. Later on, they might say something similar to the CFO--and they'll be fired, or passed over, or just gossiped about, because they don't know their place. Yeah, yeah--we've gotten passed all that, right? Well, when it comes to stuff between institutional equals like gender and race, we have. But when it comes to differences of power--real, legitimate power, based on knowledge and/or authority--students could learn a good lesson in identifying, respecting, and responding appropriately to it. If that jerk Barack is in line behind them, and they fart around, they'd better call him "Mr. President"; to do otherwise is just plain rude. P.S. You can call the president Ben or Rick or Mr. Hotpants if you want to, if he says, "call me Mr. Hotpants," but you, too, would do well not to lose sight of the fact that if he decides he doesn't like your face, you're back to writing posts about how much the job search sucks.




• Oh, the disrespect...oh the shame of it. I must tell you that there is so much handwringing in academe about what we're called and how we're treated. Seriously, is this what bugs people? Ditzy Doris surely has something more vital to worry about than if she is called a jerk when SHE COMPLETELY FUCKING ACTS LIKE A JERK. So, it's a kid who reveals this to you? So what. I'm 100% behind the notion that Doris is mad at the salad bar kid because down deep she knows she's a jerk. As for the old guy who called her "Darlin'." Please, get over yourself. That's a locution that in my experience is pretty harmless. Now if he did it with a leer and a bulge in his pants - which I'm pretty sure Ditzy Doris would have regaled us with - then it's something else. But I'm 100% behind the notion that it was just an older gentlemen actually trying to be courteous. I know it sounds strange to some, but I'm from Midwest and we used those terms there when I was a kid, too. I'd recommend that anyone who's on Dr. Ditzy's side on this one - because I wouldn't want to presume to call her Doris! - just relax a bit. What we're called shouldn't get in the way of what we really are.

Lawsuit. Patrice from Popeville And a Litigious Snowflake.

In 2004 I was teaching online at a community college as an adjunct instructor. I had orientation materials for my students to read at the beginning of the class and also had a quiz that they took to demonstrate that they understood the guidelines of the class. These guidelines included 1) they needed to get the book during the first week of the term and 2) I didn't take late work without documentation of an emergency.

Almost a month into a twelve week term I received a phone call from a student (a woman I guessed who was in her forties) who chipperly said, "I just got my book and I'm ready to start working on the class now!" I said that wasn't how the class worked and it was too late for her to get started. She started yelling. While she was on the phone I logged in to see that she had indeed taken the orientation quiz and had gotten every question right. I told her she clearly knew how the class works and that she couldn't show up at that point saying she had the book now and was ready to begin.

She was outraged. She yelled at me for a while and then said that she had a disability and that's why she hadn't gotten started. I pointed her to the syllabus where directions were about how to contact student services and work out accommodation. She told me that she didn't want to tell anyone about her accommodation. I said if she didn't want to talk about the accommodation I couldn't accommodate it and I wasn't sure what kind of accommodation would involve starting the class almost halfway through it. She started screaming at me and I said I wasn't going to be screamed at, said goodbye and hung up.

She called back. She was ranting on the phone about what a horrible person I was. I reiterated that she had originally told me she hadn't gotten started in the class because she hadn't gotten the book yet. That the issue of the disability had only come up when I rejected that pathway and that I bent over backwards to accommodate students with disabilities, but that there were processes and procedures for doing that, and they involved her talking about it.

I can't remember what truly stupid thing she said, but at some point it just all became comical and I made the mistake of laughing. My laughter made her crazed and she began screaming. I again hung up. A bunch of other things happened along a similar vein, many of which I've blocked out - she went to my spineless chair, millions of emails went back and forth. She was bat shit and I didn't back down. Eventually she went away. And then...

She sued me for failure to accommodate her under the American with Disabilities Act.

I was contacted by the dean and then there was a conference call with the attorney at the firm representing the college. Both of them were very nice, apologetic even, but I was absolutely terrified. I was being sued? For failing to accommodate someone with a disability? I imagined people thinking of me shoving someone in a wheelchair down the classroom steps while laughing maniacally or mocking a deaf woman by always covering my mouth with my hand while I flipped her off when she wasn't looking. I thought my professional life was over. I thought everything was over. It was horrible. I stewed in anxiety for weeks.

In the end, nothing was over. I had to turn in all my emails to the college's attorney. In a moment of panic I deleted a line out of an email that I thought made me look like I wasn't being sympathetic to her craziness. I then panicked about that and confessed to the attorney what I'd done. I was deposed twice (everything was done over the phone – I never went to the lawyer's office or a courtroom) where I was asked questions about my class policies and my experiences with her. I could tell from the tone of the investigators that they'd already talked with her and she'd brought out the crazy for them. I was found not to be at fault.

And it turned out that she was also suing the financial aid department for some unrelated grievance and had written a book on how to sue. Too bad the school's attorney told me that after my hearing rather than before.

Years later I can still feel the pure hatred that ran over the silence when I laughed at the sheer absurdity of her insanity. The rage she had towards my unwillingness to bend to her will was a thing to behold. I think she might have really hurt me, given the chance. And even though it was horrible being sued, I'm still glad I laughed. Now I only wish I'd laughed harder.

Me and my bad ass syllabus: 1. Psycho snowflake: 0

Trish from Titusville Waxes a Bit On RMP, RYS, and Our Stumbling Experiments With YouTube.

Rate Your Students takes its name from Rate My Professors, which is one of those loosey-goosey websites where anyone can write anything, true, false, funny, cruel, whatever -- and can do so entirely anonymously and with the lack of inhibition the Internet often brings.

Rate My Professors came out when I was in grad school, and we thought it was funny. We (an English department full of student teachers) used to harass each other by writing outrageous things about each other on there. But those comments are still up, about all of us. And now some of us are actually professors, and we know our students and our bosses are looking at those comments, as well as all the ones our oh-so-qualified-to-judge-us students write. (And it's hard to tell the difference!) There's nothing we can do about it, though: we're living in the Internet age.

The genius of RYS is that it is NOT one of those sites: sure, we can send things and publish anonymously, but we know that there's a person on the other end of our emails who DOES have our email address and who IS choosing what to post. There are no comments on the RYS blog, of course! Imagine if there were! That would defeat the whole purpose. Because the point is, we who teach a generation of entitled, empowered, immature adults have no control over our public images: our students can record us (photo, audio, and video) without our knowledge and do anything they want with our images or voices. They can not only affect our jobs through official student evaluations, they can use professor-rating sites and YouTube and other means to vent. Every time I've ever failed a plagiarist I've looked online afterwards and found a foul comment about me on Rate My Professor -- coincidence? Of course not. The student can be totally in the wrong -- she didn't even finish the class and get to do a school- sanctioned teacher evaluation because she'd been summarily failed and kicked out of the class for cheating -- but she can still write things about me designed to make other students avoid my class and make my boss question my relationship with my students.

We who teach these powerful but irresponsible people feel helpless a lot of the time, and RYS gives us a greater feel of order and control -- not to mention community. RYS is "safe" for us in part because students can't come here and crap all over the place with their comments -- which is why RYS was playing with fire the second it started linking to YouTube videos: by linking directly to a site that DOES allow anyone to log in as anything and say whatever they want, RYS was opening the door to the fray -- if the teacher puts on a miniskirt and goes to the frat party, she can't really be surprised when she gets ass-handled by a former student with puke hanging from his chin.

Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning a Masters of Ph.D.

Your recent TMI question from some grad students made me remember a great book that I used as a sort of bible as I went through an MA and PhD program in the humanities. It was dog-eared and dog-tired by the time I got finished, but I turned to it often.

• Most guides to grad school cover the admission process and stop there, leaving the new student at loss on the first day of school. Peters' guide is useful throughout. Reread sections as needed to keep you focused as you progress towards your graduate degree. Plus, Peters' wonderful sense of humor and cartoons add life to the text and make it feel like a conversation with a caring mentor. Grad school isn't always user friendly, but Getting What You Came For is.
  
  
  
• As a doctoral student in History, I picked up this book with a fair amount of skepticism, especially after I learned that the author had earned his Ph.D. in Biology. With all the differences between various academic fields and between institutions, how could a book meant for all graduate students give anything but vague generalizations? Yet, after studying graduate programs in the various fields and interviewing students, professors, administrators, graduates and grad-school drop-outs, Peters presents a firm course of action that could indeed be valid for all students, whether in the Humanities or Sciences.
  

Bitchy Bear Gives Some Gradflakes A Little TOO Much Information About Why They're Such Dolts. "TMI? OMG. WTF!"

Yesterday we posted a question sent to us by a couple of grad students who were afraid their proffies sometimes overshared a bit - a little bit too much TMI. Well, here's a bitchy Big Thirsty response from one of our absolutely favorite longtime correspondents.

So let me get this straight, just to make this clear to me because I am a proffie and it's pretty clear that we don't understand boundaries the way these ultra sophisticated grad students do.

So I'm supposed to read your 400+ page dissertation on Latour's dandruff--in a week before your defense because you couldn't get it done sooner-- and give you lots of comments to help make it publishable--and write 40 letters of recommendation for you--and call all my friends to open opportunities for you---and start fights with colleagues over scarce dissertation year funding to make sure you, my student, gets a share-- and find ways to fund your conference attendance--and try to find ways to introduce you to leaders in the field--and give you authorship on my papers even though your contribution was laughable and I had to fix fully 80 percent of the jibberish you put down--but you can't be bothered to know about my partner in the hospital?

So you expect your proffie to sit there and listen to endless personal excuse after endless personal excuse about why you still haven't got your work done ("my mom was sick, my child was sick, I got a pimple on my toe, I wasn't feeling up to work this week, I couldn't figure out the difference between serif and and sans serif"), but you think it's 'awkward' to have to listen to something that is on your proffie's mind?

Frack you, you dolts.

This is not a professional relationship. It's an irrational relationship. If it were a professional relationship, most grad students would have been shitcanned a long time ago because ya know that whole myth about us meany proffies stealing grad student work? It's the man bites dog story, kiddies. As a group, grad students are time-consuming to faculty, and fully 90 percent of you aren't worth either the time or the money we spend on you. Many who do graduate do not get jobs, and of those who do get jobs only a small fraction get tenured. That makes you a bad bet by any professional measure; it makes some worthy few of you a risky investment at best and the vast preponderance of you a charity.

That inconvenient thingy you don't like--that TMI thing--like OMG, WTF--is called human conversation. It involves reciprocity, and it's what colleagues do for each other. If I'm telling you about my colleagues' indiscretions, I'm telling you for a reason: a) so that if s/he's handsy and inappropriate around grad students, you learn to stay the hell away from him/her or b) I don't want you doing the same fool-ass shit. Departments like every other human organization are cesspits of emotion, gossip, and drama.

Now shut your cake-hole and get back to work--for a change--instead of sitting there thinking about how faculty should do their jobs better if they just stopped wasting your precious time, gradflakes.

Finnegan from Fowlers Mills Begs For Salvation. And, Apparently, an Ass-Kicking.

I have a second-semester senior in one of my classes and I hate her. Why do I hate her? Oh, let me count the ways: she is whip-smart, she is kind and respectful towards her peers and towards me, she writes with a clear and concise style that would make a grown man weep (and has) and, worst of all, she is fully aware of how smart she is and yet she is still a good and decent human being. She already has been accepted into several top graduate programs and has interviews with several more. I have helped her write applications for prestigious fellowships which I’m sure she’ll get, and she even wrote me a thank-you note.

I hate her!

I write to you, dear friends, because of why I hate her. It is a hatred born of self-pity. A jealous hatred of her youth, her intelligence, her poise and her abilities. A hatred for what I once had, or thought I had, and have lost. Every year I get older and more bitter while they never age. Every year is one more year I could have done something but never quite found the time, while they make excited plans for the next great adventure in their lives. And every year I am still here, while they step out into the bright sunlight of a May afternoon and are gone.

What I ask from you, my dear friends, is that you bitch-slap this self-absorbed pity party right out of my head. I need you to take the hot knife of your wit and cauterize the bleeding arrow wound of my self-loathing, just like that old cowboy did for his young sidekick on the TBS movie I am watching with the sound off. Be the Mike McKean and Christopher Guest to my Paul Shaffer and “Kick my ass, just kick my ass.” Maybe, if you can stop the bleeding, I can find the strength to finish out the semester. My students would appreciate that.

Phillie of the Plains Just Wants to Say...

Well, the new semester has started, and the students are wasting no time in buckling down and trying to drive me mad. The first assignment was, possibly, the clearest and most straightforward assignment I've ever seen, as student or teacher. They were to outline a very short, very clear article. That's all. Just an outline.

Out of fifteen students, I received:

• three actual outlines
• three unorganized lists of items
• six prose summaries of the article
• one prose summary of the wrong piece.

What's truly sad here is that I'm almost comforted by *mere* ineptitude, rather than, say, meretricious snowflakery.

"Take This Test! Am I Crazy, Or What?" Maggie From Muncie on Terms of Address, Salad Bar Etiquette, and, Darlin', What to Call Folks.

I spend most days trying to think up new features for RYS. I figure if I do you'll eventually publish one of my fantastic posts!!!! Anyway, while reading one of my favorite academic blogs - and I won't tell you which one - I found myself saying, "This is a world gone mad!"

The situation described and the blogger's response seemed so out of whack with each other that I thought that somebody had to be crazy...either me or the blogger. Now I know I'm aiiiiright, but I still wanted to check.

Okay, said blogger, let's call her Dizzy Doris, recently complained on her blog about being called names. In one case she got called a "jerk" by a student, and once got called "Darlin'" by a professor she didn't know. Okay, context.

Dizzy Doris was waiting in line at the salad bar or whatever, and some students in front of her were taking their own sweet time. Doris was in a hurry because some major literature research had to be done, or her cat had to go to the vet, or whatever, and so she says (in what she admits was an "annoyed" voice to the assembled students): "It's impolite to loiter in front of the salad bar when there are people waiting."

So one of the dears said, "You don't have to be a jerk about it." She didn't know the student, but fixed the perpetrator with her eyes in case he ever should have the misfortune to darken her classroom door.

Take this test! Am I crazy, or is Doris really a jerk?

Obviously I'm a proffie, too, but in the lunch room, walking across campus, doing the stair-climber, I'm just another denizen of Campusville. Is it possible Doris was in full teaching mode in a situation where she should have just waited 9 more seconds for a crack at the crouton bowl?

In the other name calling incident, Doris was doing her business in her department's work room when another professor (one she did not know, and who, presumably, didn't know her) asked her help operating a piece of equipment, copier, Scantron, whatever. He used the term, "Darlin'" as he asked. Okay, he's in his 60s. Doris huffed and puffed, gave a "brusque" response, and then fretted the rest of the day away at the man's impertinence.

Take this test! Am I crazy, or is Doris a jerk on this one, too?

I'm old enough, and from a part of the country where it was common for "Darlin'," and "Honey" to be thrown around, man to woman, woman to woman, even sometimes man to man. Someone who's 60 might conceivably have been using the term in this way, friendly, even a form of "Southern polite" and not as some kind of gender-rich attack on Ditzy Doris.

I happen to be in a new position after 7 years at another school where forms of address were remarkably stilted and professional. (I had one colleague who called me Dr. Maggie whenever any student was within a nautical mile of us!) But at my new college - which I love, thank God - people are pretty informal. Students use first names on proffies who offer the opportunity, and I call the President and Dean: Rick and Ben.

I know some profs are sensitive about being shown a proper amount of respect, whether it's the form of address or whatever, but as I read these 2 stories I just felt that I was missing something. Help me if you can...

And if you don't publish THIS piece, then you're jerks, too... (No, kidding...really, Darlin'.)

A Couple of Grad Students Pose A Big Thirsty on TMI.

Sometimes our advisers overshare: their partner in the hospital; their colleagues' indiscretions of all sorts. Others never offer information beyond "Fine, how are you?" And sometimes one of the latter variety up and starts talking about their dying pet. Awkward.

Q: So, what's your take on personal boundaries and personal information? Where do you draw the line? Do you keep your relationship with your grad students on strictly professional terms? (And do y'all talk about OUR personal lives??)

A: Send replies here.

Proffie Pedro From Plattsville On Testing Accomodations.

I respect that some students have learning disabilities and I also respect that I'm not qualified to diagnose them. I'm a Biz School proffie and not a learning disabilities consultant. But in the few years I've been teaching it seems like the accommodations made to these students are getting more and more extreme.

Here are the exam accommodations for Larry Learner:

• extra time: 20 mph on all exams (FYI: mph is "minutes per hour")
• use of word processor
• small classroom setting
• disability will be taken into consideration when the exam is being marked for spelling, grammar, and punctuation

Doesn't the 2nd one negate the 4th? If Larry gets to use a word processor to write his exam while the rest of his peers smudge away in pencil and pen, why should I be forgiving of spelling and grammar mistakes? Is it so heinous that the spell checker won't catch it?!

Larry's buddy Lucy Learner has these exam accommodations:

• extra time: 60 mph on all exams (Double the time everyone else gets!)
• totally separate exam room
• breaks as needed
• one exam every other day

One exam every other day? I guess that has to happen because of the first accommodation of doubling the amount of time to do the exam PLUS extra time added for breaks as needed. We already get flack for scheduling exams on evenings and Saturdays so that all the students can write at the same time and these sorts of considerations make matters even more complex.

Part of my frustration comes from the fact that Larry and Lucy are B-School students. How are we preparing these biz kids for the "real world" post graduation?

Boss: "Lucy, here is a project, I need it done in 3 days."
Lucy: "But boss, I need double the time to complete it and breaks as needed. By the way, I can't work in this cubicle farm; I require a totally separate room."
Boss: "I'll give the project to Larry."
Larry: "I'll have it done in 4 days and it will be all typed up nicely"
Boss: "I've seen your typing. I'll do the project myself"

-()-

Previously Pedro has regaled us with these gems: Pee-pee & ID.

We Try to Quench Froderick's Thirst On Lawsuits.

Yesterday Froderick wondered if any of our readers had ever actually heard of a real live student filing that real live lawsuit for something. It's one of the great urban legends, it seems. And one of the most hollow threats the poor snowflake turns to when things get rough. Most of our mail was of the "Nope, I've never heard of a student actually going through with it" variety, but we've given you a little flava below of some responses that might be interesting:

• During my time in the post-secondary educational system, both as a graduate student and also as an instructor, I've never heard of a lawsuit being filed. On the other hand, I knew of numerous complaints filed by "dissatisfied" snowflakes, er, students. I remember one who went to my boss at the time and asked if he could get his money back for a course he took from me. I never found out who he was but I suspect it was one chap who simply sat there like a useless lump and expected me to do all his work for him. ("Why aren't you doing the assignment?" "Oh, I'm having a bad day.")


• I've work at various levels in student services for over 14 years. When I was the campus disciplinarian I was regularly threatened with lawsuits over my actions/decisions. No attorney with any knowledge of higher education law will touch 99% of the lawsuits students feel they have, so as soon as a student started hollering about getting a lawyer I smiled and told them, "We're done here, then. Have your attorney contact our house counsel," while I thought to myself, "And, by the way, good luck with all that because the one we keep on retainer is located in the state capital and is used for lobbying purposes." Their attitude changes quickly when you call their bluff.


• I've been an academic Dean now for 15 years at a 30,000+ student uni in California, a litigious state if there ever was one. Not once have we been presented with an actual lawsuit over anything academic. Oh there are threats. You can't dodge the threats, but in my own experience simply noting to the student (and usually his/her parents) that you're going to stand behind whoever they're trying to sue (90% of the time some poor prof), it eventually all goes away.


• I once had a sweaty older student scream about how I was going to be hit with various slander and defamation lawsuits for telling him that I'd found his entire essay on a free student essay website. He did it all in front of 20 students and it went on for 2-3 minutes. The student didn't return, but did make appearances in my chair's office, the office of the Dean, and (most famously) in the President's secretary's office. I was contacted each time and each time I sent over photocopied evidence of what I'd found. I'm still waiting on that lawsuit.

The Lizard King Just Wanted to Go To College. Today's VidShizzle.

Ruby From Richmond Wants Tampa Terri the Downtrodden Student To Lift Herself Above the Occasional Shoulder Shrug.

Dear Terri from Tampa,

You cannot honestly tell me that the only obstacle in the way of success is your prof’s tendency to sometimes belittle today’s youth. Disagreeing with his viewpoint is fine, but using it as an excuse for your defeatist attitude is not.

Because he says vaguely hurtful things about students in general, you throw up your hands and stop trying? Really? People have dealt with freaking Nazis, you know. Actual Nazis. Many without having their spirit broken. I assure you, you can withstand one semester of shoulder-shrugging.

Seriously, odds are he’s hoping to be proven wrong. When student work that’s actually smart, professional, and mature crosses his desk, it probably makes his day. Be the student who gives him a good day.

(Step one, for God’s sake, is to proofread. In your short post on this site, you misspelled such difficult words as “your” and “who’s.” This—the fact that the previous generation knew how to spell those words in third grade—is part of why he shrugs his shoulders.)

**a previous note from Ruby.

Chuck Chesterfield From Charleston On UK/US Grading and Testing. (We Love it When People Say "Whilst." It's Nice.)

One of the things I find most annoying about the American University system is the high grade boundaries. I was educated in the UK. Our universities have four "grades" which are roughly the equivalent of A through D. The passing grade is typically 40%. A "first," the equivalent of an "A," is 70%. When I tell my students this, their reaction is usually "Are people really stupid in England?" They miss the point, of course.

Whilst the grading may be slightly stricter, mostly the difference occurs because university exams in the UK are designed to test more than the ability to memorise and regurgitate facts and algorithms. Exams in science and mathematics usually consist of two types of question. The first type is standard book work - questions almost identical to those covered in class and homework (in other words, the questions on a typical US final exam!) This type of question typically makes up enough of the exam to get the equivalent of a high C or a low B. The second type requires just a little creativity, the ability to see how their knowledge can be used to answer something they probably have not encountered before. It's these questions that separate the outstanding students from the rest.

I have tried to give questions of this second type to my students in the past on both exams and homework. The reaction was negative at best and sometimes even hostile. When given as extra credit questions, they were simply ignored. I have heard many Professors bemoaning the inability of students to be anything other than unthinking automatons, but how can we expect otherwise when we do not demand anything more of them?

As I see it, this system has several benefits. First, it ensures that every single student in the class is stretched. How boring and frustrating must it be for those who score in the high 90s? They surely recognize that the course is not extending them in the way it could, and probably should. Second, I think it ultimately assigns the higher grades more fairly. When the boundary for an A is 90% or even higher, it's far too easy for an excellent student to fall below because they simply have a bad day (it happens) and make a stupid mistake they would usually almost never make. Third, and I think most importantly, it encourages students to try to understand as opposed to memorizing and begins to get them into the habit of applying their knowledge creatively.

What do you think? Would Americans benefit from this approach to testing in higher education?

"I Couldn't Make the Final Because I Wasn't Finished With the Rock Wall Back At the Dorm."

Two readers noted this great photo gallery in Time magazine about the evolution of college dorms. One of them wrote:

Goodness, the newer ones are nicer than my apartment. The next time someone bitches about the rising cost of tuition, remind them how much rock climbing walls, pool tables, dorm swimming pools, and Coldstone Creamery on demand cost.

"Tallahassee Tassle Tosser." Today's VidShizzle.

Another Suspect In the Case Concerning High Grades.

It is not as much fun to write about perhaps, but one major contributor to grade inflation is late drop dates.

At my school -- a relatively selective public university where most students were in the top 10% of their high school classes -- many students who are earning less than a B just drop the course in the 9th week of the term. They take longer to graduate but exit with higher GPAs. I know some students who drop if their grade is less than an A. It is illogical to impose a bell curve on the final grade distribution if the lower third of the curve has dropped the class.

That said, I still don't give credence to folks who claim that a majority of students in their lower-level classes deserve As. I tell students that they start with Bs and you get a B if you do everything you are supposed to do with a reasonable level of competence. If there is "nothing wrong" with your work, that is a B. If you exhibit major gaps in knowledge, you get less than a B.

I tell them that As are for people who stand out as really knowing the material, who are not just feeding back to me what I said but can exhibit true mastery. How I measure that depends on the class, but when students know what the rules of the game are, they (mostly) accept them, or drop.

Froderick Offers Up an Early Thirsty.

An affable old administrator at my university says that students often threaten him with lawsuits, most often about not being able to graduate when they want because they don't have enough credits. He also says that never once has a student actually sued over any academic matter, including being caught cheating or plagiarizing, failing a course, not getting a desired grade, etc.

Q: How often DO students or their parents sue faculty or universities, particularly over academics? Has this happened to anyone who reads RYS? Is it true that although universities are notorious for chickening out when threatened with lawsuits over cheating, there never has been a case that successfully changed a grade (that did not involve cheating)? If so, I'd like to hear about it.

A: Send any stories, replies, or apocrypha here.

Facebook Adventures, Proffie-Style.

A number of readers have sent in a link from the Chronicle concerning some recent "misadventures" of a Dartmouth proffie who's a little too forthcoming on Facebook. It's an issue we've discussed before here, but we'd imagine today's story will send many of us scurrying to our FB pages this afternoon, ready to excise a good portion of what we've shared as well. While many of you likely read the Chronicle like the bible it is, we thought we'd share the link and some flava below:


How Not to Lose Face on Facebook, for Professors
By JEFFREY R. YOUNG

Venting to her friends on Facebook one night, a religion professor at Dartmouth College updated her profile to say that she had just consulted an online encyclopedia entry on "modernity" to prepare for her class the next day.

"I feel like such a fraud," she wrote on her profile. "Do you think dartmouth parents would be upset about paying $40,000 a year for their children to go here if they knew that certain professors were looking up stuff on Wikipedia and asking for advice from their Facebook friends on the night before the lecture?"

Her profile featured other comments as well, including a dig at her colleagues: "Some day, when i am chair, we're all going to JOG IN PLACE throughout the meeting. this should knock out at least half of the faculty within 10 minutes (especially the blowhards) & then the meeting can be ended in a timely manner."

"If We Were a Good University, We Wouldn't Have a Commercial." Today's VidShizzle.

Don't Play the Grade Game...We Mean, Unless it's What You Enjoy.

Angry Archie needs to grow a pair.

If he truly gets some enjoyment and satisfaction out of watching his student grovel for grades every week, then that's fine. I think that all teachers deserve some sort of diversion to lighten their days, and if playing grade-tag with B+ students is Archie's thing, then more power to him.

But, if the day truly does come when he no longer has "the energy to push back for 14 long and lonely office hours of pleading and protestations," then he needs to stiffen up, tell the precious snowflake that the grade is final and discussions about it are over, and point her in the direction of the formal grievance procedures. Let her try to navigate the paperwork and the bureaucracy that such procedures usually involve, and force her to make her case in front of the Dean or the relevant committee.

At least it might help her prepare for law school.

Terri from Tampa Wants Dr. Shoulder Shrugs to Get Out of the Past and Teach Her Now.

I know you won't use this, but I'm a fan of our website. But every professor who writes here acts as if they're the greatest, and that they've never made a mistake.

Well, my professor, he of the always shrugging shoulders, has made plenty. His biggest one is how he continuously reminds us that we're not as smart as his old students, the students he used to teach a hundred years ago.

He complains about the country, how it's gone poorly, how the economy sucks, but mostly how bad college students are compared to students of the past.

Well, whatever.

I mean it. What am I supposed to do about that? I want to work. I want to graduate so I can get a good job. But if my professor already has decided that I'm not worth anything, then how can I have a better attitude?

Tell him and others like him to quit living in the past. Teach whose in front of you now and give us a chance.

Eddie From Eastern Mediocre University Takes Issue With Decatur Dana's Policy on Old Dudes.

Dear Dana,

Thanks for the exquisite satire. You could have called it "A Modest Proposal," but you left out the part where you dine on the flesh of unworthy students. I really loved the part where you tell students to STFU about anything to do with their previous experience because you "don’t value [their] opinion any more than that of the snot-nosed eighteen-year-old sitting next to [them]." Yeah ... that's what really makes a class go -- keeping the discussion purely in the realm of things that eighteen-year-olds know. Like you, most teachers really much prefer to deal with the uninformed views of someone just out of high school than to grapple with the messy reality of someone who might know a little more about certain subjects than we do. Of course, as masters and mistresses of the mighty CC classroom, we do know everything and we cannot be bothered by any advice, no matter how helpful.

By all means, it is critically important to make sure that all students know that they must show "deference to my opinions, practices, and pedagogy." Like you, I really like the constant sucking up of students who always agree with me. Heck, that way I can say any old thing in class and get rewarded with warm waves of appreciation for my acumen. They even laugh at my jokes and keep telling me how good I look! Yowsa! It is truly good to be the master or mistress of the CC classroom.

Of course, one does need to take a little bit of care. I had a twin, call him "Freddie," who went back to get his PhD as a 50-something. He already had two masters under his belt and had taught full time at a university for several years. He had to retake the PhD stat sequence because his previous quantitative work was too far in the past, but that was OK with Freddie -- he figured he needed the refresher. He was always very attentive and polite, took careful notes, did all the work, and respectfully called the instructor "Professor." The only problem was that Professor X was truly hapless at teaching statistics. Usually unprepared, unclear on the concepts (truly bad on multivariate stuff), and would give long examples which often ended in "oh, well, it works better when you use the software" because of mistakes made 20 minutes earlier. Freddie tried a couple of times to point out errors as they happened, but that seem to upset Professor X very much, so he respectfully remained silent in deference to the Professor's social and pedagogical superiority.

Anyway, the rest of the class took to gathering with Freddie after class, and Freddie would spend time re-teaching his classmates the concepts that Professor X had tried to teach. Lo and behold, all the class passed the course -- a first for that particular Professor. Freddie never said a word to the Professor or the department about this, but his classmates spread the word far and wide about how they had passed the dreaded stat sequence, and lo and behold, Professor X quietly left the next year "to pursue other opportunities."

That aside, I really like Dana's approach -- it does make things a lot easier when you can keep the discussion to banalities, and making it clear that you expect the entire class to keep their lips in contact with your butt really does wonders for your ego. But you have to watch out for the Freddies of the world. Old age and treachery can sometimes triumph.

There's No Part of the Pie Set Off For Drinking. Epic Fail.

A companion piece.

The Book Flood.

Last week we asked for folks for some "essential" books for academics. (And, no, anything by Jackie Collins didn't really count, though you couldn't tell Ethel from Edmonton that without an angry reply!) It was a TERRIBLE idea. We got so much stuff we don't even have the foggiest idea how to arrange it or present it.

We're such boobs. We got far too much field-specific stuff, like Successful Teaching Strategies of American College Trombone Professors (and we didn't make it up), and so we've let this list stay focused on items that seemed to be useful across the disciplines.

Books at the top of the list were mentioned more frequently:

• The Elements of Style by Strunk & White
• Generation X Goes to College by Peter Sacks
• Academic Job Search Handbook by Julia Vick
• What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain
• What's Wrong with University by Jeff Rybak
• Straight Man by Richard Russo
• Advice for New Faculty by Robert Boice
• Tearing Down the Gates by Peter Sacks
• The Art and Craft of College Teaching by Robert Rotenberg
• The Last Professors by Terry Donoghue
• The Adjunct Professor's Guide by Richard Lyons
• The Joy of Teaching by Peter Filene
• How Professors Think by Michele Lamont
• The Professor's Guide to Teaching by Donelson Forsythe
• 147 Practical Tips by Robert Magnan
• Lifting a Ton of Feathers by Paula Caplan
• My Freshman Year by Rebekah Nathan
• The Effective, Efficient Professor by Phil Wankat
• The Course Syllabus by Judith O'Brien
• From Student to Scholar by Steven Cahn
• What Matters in College by Alexander Astin
• One Hundred Semesters by William Chace
• Rights and Wrongs in the Classroom by Rocheleau & Speck
• The American Community College by Arthur Cohen
• Trembling in the Ivory Tower by Kenneth Lasson
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Ivory Tower Blues by James Cote
• Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss

* Note: Ordering directly from these links will provide RYS with a 6% referral fee, from which profits go to the American Red Cross.

Two Rather Different Reactions to Purgatory Patrick's Take on High School English Teachers. Or Maybe Not. We Didn't Read Either Carefully.

Waiwaiwaiwait a minute here: Purgatory Patrick thinks the problem with high school english teachers is that they're "drippy liberal coulda-been-a-contenda lit majors from college who didn't have the stomach for real research..."?

Right--because it's the RESEARCH skills of professors that make them good teachers. I keep forgetting that. It's not the desire, administrative support, and time to take kids who are struggling aside and show them where their mistakes are, to talk to them about comma splices and independent clauses. You're right, what high schools need are more bitter Ph.D.s with unreadably dense dissertations on the seven-hundred forty-fourth paragraph of the Dutch translation of the beside notebooks of James Joyce's third cousin--or more likely these days, the response to the filmed version of that paragraph via the interweb 2.0. I know, I know--you'd love to do a stint in the public high schools, but you've got to take a sabbatical to talk to other dorks with no marketable skills about something nobody gives a shit about.

..."and are venting [their] frustrations and the remants of [their] ideals on people who are, largely, prettier, smarter, and more ambitious than [themselves]"...

You realize this part of the sentence refers to high school students, right? I think you might be so distracted (hung up? legally?) by those deep, dark eyes that you started seeing intelligence and ambition in the glitter. These are the people who don't realize that a document that runs to multiple pages ought probably to be stapled before it's handed in to a real honest-to-god professor. Who, when they do know that, expect the professor to bring the stapler to class. Who grade-grub, and snivel, and whose parents call us, and, and, and... oh, just read the site, okay, and then sit there in your wrongness and be wrong.

Oh, one more thing: East Coast winters? Please.

*-^-*

I have to take issue with Purgatory Patrick's generous sketch of the average high school English teacher. In short, it is far too flattering. Contrary to his kindly assertion that these teachers are "coulda-been-a-contenda lit majors" who couldn't "stomach real research," most of the Future Educators of America that I graduated with about five years back were flaky, stupid, sorority/fraternity socialites who couldn't tie their own shoes.

These "educators" spend all of their time with their equally brain-dead professors fawning all over them as they learn the following essential skills: how to use the paper slicer ("My bulletin board is gonna look sooo awesome!!"), how to sit in a circle and talking about their feelings ("I'm just so psyched about how awesome all my placement students are!! They are truly little miracles."), and how to get a feel for what it really must be like to have a disability (evidently, you spend two class sessions blindfolding each other and trying to pour water--life is hard!!). Then, the rest of the semester they learn about IEP forms and how to make pretty, peppy PowerPoint resumes for themselves so that someone will definitely hire them. Because--make no mistake about it--it's ALL about appearances.

These are not "wannabe Lit majors"; they don't want to be Lit majors at all--or any major for that matter. That would require thought, and they do not want to have to do that. They want to learn how to be liked while mastering the basics of interior design via construction paper. When these people would show up in our English classes, they would give the most vacant, surface-level answers possible (though they always did it with a big smile!!), and the rest of the students would collectively roll their eyes. Their papers were riddled with cliches and insane numbers of incredibly troubling ("What is a fragment, anyway?") grammatical errors. So it's no wonder that their classes are jokes. They had classes that were jokes and fostered the development of menial tasks over any kind of critical thinking--and that's exactly what they're going to put back out there.

So here's the obligatory disclaimer, blah, blah, blah: I had a great English teacher when I was in high school, and there are exceptions. I also have to disagree with Patrick's assertion that the students are "prettier, smarter, and more ambitious" than the teachers. Yea...no. First of all, all the education majors at my school were nothing if not attractive--I will not deny them that. Secondly, I have no doubt that high school students are every bit as trying, vacuous, distracted, lazy, and ugly as they are in my college classrooms--probably more so.

But until Education departments start demanding that their students actually be highly intelligent, thinking, skilled, informed beings and stop acting like this is a career best suited for those with severe mental retardation (sorry--those who are "Intensely But Beautifully Different in the Head" or whatever the correct euphemism is right now), how is it that we think these teachers will demand intelligent thought from their own students--not being capable of it themselves?