Racquel from Reno Joins The Discussion on the Male Student Egomaniac And What He Means to What We Wear in the Classroom.

Nila notes the MSE archetype.
Scranton Suzanna responds.

I absolutely hate when female teachers, or for that matter, any teachers say this: "So what can we do? First, I always teach in professional dress, which appears to me to be best exemplified by a blazer, slacks, a shoe with a heel, minimal jewelry. I wear makeup because I look a little younger without it. I've found very comfortable shoes that have (non-stiletto) heels - height conveys authority. Slacks convey masculinity in a sense. Costuming is vital."

This statement is often given to new female teachers and I think that it only further reinforces stereotypes about us. Dressing nicer is not going to make a difference in the behavior of the class, nor is it necessary. It bothers me to know end that there is an expectation that women must dress professionally, in heels no less, to have the respect of the class. I was told this when I started to teach by a mentor of mine and I ignored it. First, I hate - repeat, hate to dress up. The school I work for, as with most colleges, does not have a dress policy for the teachers. I have no problem controlling my class. I am young, in fact, I am the youngest in our department and I also look younger than I am, so I appear more like a student at first then a teacher. Compound that with the fact that I wear jeans everyday and you can imagine the surprise the first day of class when the students realize I am their teacher. I let the students call me by my first name, or by Professor, but they are strictly forbidden to call me by Miss, or Mrs - I personally hate that. Most call me by my first name after the first couple weeks.

According to traditional advice this combination is a recipe for disaster. I have very few problems in my classes. I do lay out the rules the first day of class and I am a hard ass. They get that the very first day. I don't put up with shit. You are disruptive, inappropriate or whatever else, I kick you out of class for the day. It must not happen very often in other classrooms because the few times I have had to do so, the entire class looks shocked, the student looks embarrassed and it does not happen again. I was told I would not be respected for my knowledge as a woman unless I dressed up - not so. I am very knowledgeable in my field and I have high expectations of my students. They have to work hard in class and it is never an easy grade. While of course, there are complaints about the difficulty of my class - there has never been complaints about me and how I work with the students, nor has there ever been an inkling that a student has suggested that I do not know what I am talking about. Yes, there are occasionally students who try to challenge my knowledge the first couple weeks - I actually enjoy it because I love to debate and I can easily discredit their challenge by that knowledge. If the student wants to try to continue I simply tell them we can continue this debate after class and I will gladly hear them out and discuss it further. Only one student has ever done so and he never interrupted class after that with a challenge. Now, I love questions in my class and I encourage them to ask questions, but besides the occasional student, they are valid questions and not challenges to my knowledge and authority.

In fact, I would like to provide a counter argument to dressing professionally: students respond to me better when I do not dress up. They are more comfortable with me, willing to ask questions, come to my office hours and ask for help when they need it. I am more approachable because I seem more like them than an unnerving professor at the front of the room that they are afraid to ask a question to. When you try to overcompensate in authority you distance yourself from the students and that ultimately hurts their learning ability. So, I guess I wrote this just to prove that although you hear time and time again that women must dress professionally to be respected that is not always the case.

Thoughts on the Winner.

• Okay, okay, so Len's set of fears was better than mine. Was it really better than 140 other people's? Where's the sex, drugs, and Kierkegaard? Surely someone had something spicier than that!


• Bravo Len.


• I hope Len chokes on the first thing he drinks out of that shitty looking mug.


• What Len said was what I feel myself. And that's not the first time that's happened to me. So much of what RYS publishes feels as though it's sprung right from my own brain. I love that this place is a community, and that I feel at home here. Thank you ever so much.


• Where Len is right is his opinion on what college has become, this "must do" line that every kid in America apparently has to check off. It's as if they just get rounded up in cattle cars and deposited on our doorsteps. No will. No desire. No nothing. Just, "Where's my degree, and where's the freaking cafeteria." College has become a joke, and despite already too many years in grad school, I'm using my training for private work...I won't stand in front of the yahoos anymore.


• I think Len is right about the 18/2 ratio. But those 2 students keep me coming back. I'm in my 33rd year of teaching - the first 12 in a private high school. The ratio of students changes every year, and I admit it's getting worse. But what Len needs to do - if he wants to stay in the profession - is let the 18 roll off his back. Don't let them bother you, brother Len. They have their reasons for being in your room, and usually they're bad ones. Treat them and their marks fairly, and they will slowly slip away. But those 2! Len, don't you see, that's what we're here for. That's why I get up - though my bones ache sometimes. I get up because 2 of my students are hungry and waiting, and I can't wait to see them grow. Don't fear that you've wasted your life, Len. Re-engage and continue helping them, 2 at a time, if necessary.

Our Series on Proffie Fear Continues, And In This One, Paula from Passaic Worries For Her Fella.

My deepest fear as a proffie has nothing to do with me. I'm also married to a proffie and my biggest fears are with him.

The self-inflated, "never say I'm less than amazing," narcissism of the contemporary undergrad extends from their papers to their poon. I've seen a crop of little girls in my husband's office flashing him their panties, begging for a grade, sweating their plagiarism charges.

He tells me about awkward situations in classes and office hours and I find myself longing to put my hands around their little necks and choke their very lives out of them. Or at least make them brown out a little. They have no respect for any institution, any authority, any boundaries or lines that don't suit their momentary lust for something. And, my would I love to remind them that might, when applied to things that cannot think above their gonads, does make right.

I love my husband, I trust my husband, but I hold my breath during his office hours, terrified to knock or push open the door the full way, fearing that I'll find some grade-grubbing 18 year old whose IQ qualifies her only to be the bouncer at a strip joint, doing... something. I can't even gauge the full range of what these students will do for a grade. But I can assess how it makes me feel and violence is definitely on the table. So, I fear the oversexed or oversexualized undergraduate girl willing to do anything to anyone for a "better" grade. But I fear more my reaction to her.

Trudy From Texarkana Invites Us Inside Her Brain on Exam Day. (Oooh, It's Messy Up In Here!)

I sure hope Sam doesn’t get his phone out again today, after I told them no cell phones during lecture. I hate to confront them about things like that. I get a knot in the pit of stomach every time. I guess I am just not tough enough to keep control. They cooperate most of the time, but I never know what a day holds . . .

I’m giving a test in my next class . I hope I didn’t leave my locked keys in the office with it. I trust that I wrote the test ok . . . what if it is too easy and they all make As! That won’t work . . . if they all fail, I can curve grades up, but what do I do when I know they did too well on the test for it to be realistic?

Attendance is up today . . . the day I have to lecture on that topic I struggled with all the way through undergrad. Bob is here . . . gunning for me already, I can tell by his smirk. Just because someone is a good student doesn’t mean I like them. I like some of the bad students, too . . . Why are they laughing every time I turn my back today? Why do Jim and Fred keep grinning at me during class? Is my hair messed up? Is there lint stuck on my seat? I can’t do anything about it -- I’m in the middle of a lecture! Oh please Don – don’t ask me that question! I DON’T KNOW! I should know, yes . . . but today I just can’t remember and can’t seem to get it thought through. I don’t have any business teaching if I can’t answer question!

Where are my keys! The test is in four minutes and I can’t get in my office for my keys! The secretary is gone to lunch, the chair is at a meeting, no one within four minutes of me can get me in! Oh good – here they are. Where are the tests! Did I leave them at home! Oh, here they are . . . in my hand, all along.

I hope I made enough copies of the test, the stack looks too small. Oh well, I guess I’ll find out in a minute. Oh great, Pete and Pam and copying from each other again. I hate to start that whole “academic dishonesty” mess going, so maybe I’ll just stand near them during the test. Not that it is going to help their grades any to cheat – when neither of them knows the material. Two empty heads ARE NOT better than one! Oh great, 10 minutes into the test and half of the class if finished. This is not a good sign . . . I’ll have to toughen up the test next time . . . wait! This is the LAST EXAM!

Jen from Jonesboro Just Says No To Grading.

My biggest fear is that they (students, colleagues, my department chair) will learn I never grade anything. Well almost nothing, I do grade exams, but not much else. Sometimes I read papers if I make them write one, which is not often.

Here is how I figure my system works. I teach around 250 students a semester, 4 classes, usually 2 preps but sometimes 3. So I figure, just showing up for class and knowing 20 kids names I am doing pretty good.

But my colleagues all bitch and moan about grading! I keep my mouth shut because, WTF do I care if they waste their time grading. I think grading just means you want them to see the world the way you do and most people don’t like it when students see the world differently. I am here to tell you students see the world totally differently than we do.

So I like to focus my energy on what I bring into the class. I spend a lot of time on prep – even for classes I have taught for years; new stuff, new topics, new ideas, new technology. I figure if the students know I am on top of my game, they will think I am grading everything. I also figure that they are either going to sink or swim with or without me.

I hope that I can motivate students to do their best, whatever that best is. For some it may be a C and others an A. All learning is self driven, so if I have add to their motivation by making class interesting, they will learn.

All the extra work I give has one purpose, for them to be prepared for class. They think they are doing all these cool projects and I am getting them into the text book and notes long before the night of the exam. I figure that way, all assignments that are not exams are given full points and those assignments serve as the curve for the class. All idiots love a curve, so I give them one and they just don’t know it.

Cute Cleo from Calumet City Wants to Be a Squirrel, We Think. (Or Lassie?)

I’m not yet a college proffie—just trying to be one—but that doesn’t stop the creeping fears.

Sometimes my cocker spaniel has nightmares. I watch her as she chases squirrels that she can’t catch, her little feet twitching in agony—her tail starts out wagging but then it goes stiff as the squirrels in her subconscious run far, far away-- and she can’t catch them.

Sometimes that’s how I feel about academic life. My friends from school have all run into the horizon like the Sciurus carolinensis in Poochie’s dreams. They all have jobs and paychecks and resume lines and some kind of greater understanding of the world—or at least they do in my nightmare. Meanwhile, I’m swimming still, running on a treadmill that consists of reading more and more books and writing more and more articles so that others must read them. But no one will, because the only ones who might are too stuck in place, reading and writing industriously to no purpose.

Eventually, I picture all this paper creating walled cages in which we are trapped, like the aforementioned dog stuck in her nightmare, while all the squirrels run free. And some of those squirrels are my students, sitting on the walls of manuscript and throwing acorn shells at me. I can yelp and whine and bark at them all I want, but eventually they too run free, joining the others who have left me behind.

As sad and frustrated as I am myself, I imagine watching the others, their sad coping mechanisms illustrating all the more clearly how pathetic we all are in our attempts to be dogs, when we really would be happier as squirrels. In my nightmare, the dog in the paper cage next to me thinks he is an alpha, but he is just a sad poodle with a bad haircut. On the other side is a Labrador retriever who thinks he is friends with the squirrels but they taunt him as they do the rest. Behind me, there is a sad old sheep dog, running his treadmill industriously everyday just so he can sleep at night. And in front of me is the idealistic collie, who does not yet see the paper walls, and the taunting squirrels, unaware that there is a beautiful squirrel kingdom just beyond the wall which she can never visit.

And I hope that I am looking in a mirror, because the alternative is just too painful to consider.

"So, Who Wants To Be Department Head? Wait, Not So Fast. Where Are You Going?" Mike from Monroe Is Morose.

I’m afraid that I am going to rot in my current position as a “department head” at a CC. I love to teach and I love what I teach, but the resentment I have for the current administration and for the majority of students I come across is palpable.

I have found that the mentality in my workplace reminds me too much of high school, and I’m not talking about the students here. No, amongst the administration and the faculty there are the same sort of cliques that I came across those many years ago. The only difference is that in high school, at least, I felt like my hard work was rewarded (to a degree) whereas in my current position it seems like it is more who you know, rather than what you know or what you are capable of.

Then there are the students. I’m not that old and I constantly find myself wondering at what point did the majority of students turn into these demanding, whining, lazy individuals who think it is ok to do whatever the hell they want in the classroom or act anyway they want to towards the instructor. It’s not just the millennials, either, these behaviors span the generations. Of course there are the students who make it all worth while, but they are getting fewer and farther between as each term passes.

I keep telling myself that as long as I can hang on for about five more years, until the house is paid of and until I am vested with the state then I can quit and go back and get my PhD. Nothing would please me more than to walk in and tell the big boss to shove it up his ass and tell him how fucked up the hiring practices and salary practices are at the institution where I used to love to work. Unfortunately, these days, I find myself wondering if that is such a good idea. I’m thankful to have a job, and it is a pretty good job at that, but I cannot deny the fact that I am miserable. My greatest fear is that I will remain in a job that makes me miserable the majority of the time because of the lack of other options out there.

Some Sunday Hot Links.

• PoliSci grad student arrested in San Antonio. From MySANews.com.


• Inappropriate behavior gets this 43 year old sophomore booted. From Southern Illinois' Daily Egyptian.


• Five Hofstra students arrested in drug robbery. From the Southampton Press.


• Marist College Prof/Porn case continues. From the Poughkeepsie Journal.


• Big Bad Student Travel Agency stiffs students on spring break trips in Southern California. From the Mercury News.


• Breaking news. Teens lie. From the Austin Weekly.


• U Montana sex columnist under fire. Another story. Most recent column.
  

The Bitchy Bear from Boston on Office Rannygazoo!

My uni requires at least 3 office hours a week per class. You teach two classes, you're meant to have six hours. So I do. I carefully arrange my schedule so that I have writing days and meeting days/class/ office hour days; I stagger the office hours so that I don't preclude students with TTh or MWF classes being able to come.

And I never have anybody show up. I know: my classes aren't hard enough. But when I do have difficult assignments or a midterm coming, I just get peppered with emails that say "Can u xpln Wlter Benjamin 2 me? Cuz I dnt get it." When I respond with "Benjamin was a complex thinker. It's best we talk in person. Why not stop by my office Monday?" I get either no response or "Ok thx" in return, and on Monday, I will be in my office, with moss growing all over me, and nobody showing up to talk about Walter Benjamin or anything else.

Alternatively, the answer will be "I cnt cum on Monday, gt clss." Me: "How about Thursday's office hours?" Them: "Nocndo. I need appt." Then my assistant will go through 70 emails trying to schedule this person, between his apparently 4,000 classes a week, his 1,400 hours of work, his volleyball game, and his bunion-prevention exercises, and I will show up, on one of my normal, at-home writing days no less, during the only 30 minutes he has available in the next 72 years....only to have moss grow on me again while nobody shows up.

If my dean is reading this, you should know that I put those hours to extremely good use and the high score I have on Breakquest is entirely coincidental.

The only thing that seems to vitiate the nobody-showing-up rule is if **I** don't show up or even step out for minute to get my mail or a cup of coffee. Then we seem to enter a parallel office-hour universe where simply hordes of people show up just to see me, and I'm not there. If I have to be gone and miss office hours, I will announce it two weeks ahead of time, again a week ahead of time, and post it on Blackboard. Inevitably, like the sun rising in the east, I will receive email after email saying: "I needed help and you weren't theerrrrrrre. I waited and waited and waited." Then, of course, the same comment goes on my evaluation along with a emphatically blackened spot under "poor" for "This instructor was available for questions outside of class."

My office hours only ever have a rush during one time: when I catch some little shithead cheating and it's time for him to tell me his life story as a misunderstood genius whose parents didn't potty train him right/grandma died/abusive piano teacher killed his desire to learn, or at the end of the semester when it's time to badger and grub. Someday I will tell you the story about the student who, impatient at having to wait while another student grubbed, stood in my door and snapped his fingers for five solid minutes to let us know we were displeasing him.

Someone Brings Back the Flashback. Two Years Ago Today. "Busting the Myth of the Older Student."

Hey, whatever happened to my favorite RYS feature (or maybe feature-ette)? I refer of course to RYS Flashback. I always loved that. I mean, there are way too many postings for me to remember all of them, and I always loved how an occasional classic would reappear. Imagine the joy, in fact, if one of your own posts were chosen and it appeared 2-3 years later. What a gas.

So, as I was perusing the archives, I found this one published 2 years ago. I love it. Didn't write it, but the story is right out of my life.

Thanks!

[*]

The attitudes we see in students have nothing to do with their age or generation. I teach adult students in an accelerated program at a small liberal arts college. They are all at least 30 years old; many are in their 40s or even 50s. Except for slight variations in the excuses (problems with jobs, spouses, and kids as opposed to athletics, roommates, and too much partying), I get just as many slackers in these classes as I did at more traditional Big State U.

These students expect that I will drop everything immediately and come up with extra credit assignments for them two days before the end of the semester when they realize that they’re failing. They pore over the syllabus trying to find loopholes that they can exploit to their advantage. They parse every word I say in class about assignments to try and justify their bizarre interpretation of the instructions. If they spent as much time with their textbooks they’d probably ace all the tests and make all this agony unnecessary.

The sense of entitlement in some of these older students may be even stronger because they’ve been told over and over again by the administration how wonderful they are for making such sacrifices of time (and money) for their educations. Thus just showing up for class once a week warrants at least a C, and if they actually crack open a book or do some homework, God help the professor who doesn’t respond with a B. If we give them the grades they actually earn, why they (and their money) might not return next semester. Students in this program pay full price for their credits, so it is a cash cow for the rest of college, which has to offer lots of scholarship money to the traditional undergraduates to get them to come at all. In fact, when I attended my first faculty meeting several years ago, one of the deans actually made the comparison between our students and customers – “It’s been shown that one unhappy customer will tell at least ten other people about their bad experience …..yada, yada yada” You’ve probably heard it before.

There’s a mysterious attitude shift that occurs in a lot of people the minute they become “students,” young or old, and it’s not pretty.

Originally published: March 28, 2007.

Len from Las Cruces on His Worst Fear. (He Wins the Free Mug, and We Hope He Fills It With Something that Will Help.)

The "winner" of the RYS Mug Contest is someone who's not appeared on the page before, Len from Las Cruces. We went into this endeavour with high hopes, and the RYS readership didn't let us down. We received 147 entries, and the three current moderators split the entries up, sharing with the others their top 5. At that point, however, Len's ended up being an easy pick.

One of the things that makes RYS moderatorship so difficult (and we're not including the wild animals that live just outside the compound fence), is hearing these stories. But we hope that in some way sharing these things, these fears, these struggles, we can all recognize the problems in the profession, and one day - oh, we know it's crazy - fix them.

[*]

I can't think of many things within the profession that don't cripple me with fear. So your query is not some fresh-as-a-baby concept upon which I'm stumbling for the first time.

Instead, it's driven and pummeled me throughout my career, grad school to 10 years in.

But the thing that scares me the most, the thing that keeps me up at night in my cups rather than snoring beside Lady Len, is that I've wasted my entire life on a profession, a calling, and a career that isn't worth a drop of my energy or blood.

Is it too strong to say that I simply don't think college works?

I'm one of those humanities proffies who seem to fill RYS's pages, always confused and heartbroken over those students who can't read, write, or think. And of course the same proffies who seem to take a licking on the page whenever they pop their fair skinned domes into target range. ("Humanities? Don't you know we're swimming in ducats over here in the Biz School / Chem Department?")

I fear that my romantic notion (really "Romantic," in that sense) of being a college professor was fueled by all the same silly novels and films that get mentioned on the page. I thought I'd be doing something, making a difference, helping young minds grow rapturous and fat on the vine. But it's all bullshit, as anyone can tell you. I fear that what I thought would be my life's work is no more gallant or noble or useful than if I'd just decided to tattoo people or style hair for a living.

What good comes of it? What good comes for the 18 out of 20 students who sorrowfully spend 16 weeks with me each term? Those 18 kill my spirit, make me want to set myself (or them) on fire. And they fight me from day one to day last. They don't want to be in college, and have 999 reasons for it that I can't even begin to defeat or answer.

Those 18 come in dumb, go out dumb, too. And they've been sold a bill of goods by their parents, the culture, the media, their high school counselors, etc. The way college has devolved is into a sort of grade 13/14 mess of bullshit remediation, caretaking, and babysitting. We don't challenge them because - my god - the customer in them won't stand for it. And after 10 years of fighting this - modestly, I'm no hero - I have fallen into the groove dug for me by my colleagues.

I fear that most of the students I see are not helped one bit by my part in their college "experience." I buy into the bullshit like they do. They must go to college. Someone must teach them.

And so I fear I do nothing for 18 out of 20 students every term. They do nothing for me. It's a sweet deal. It's a wash. Money has changed hands. Sometimes degrees are printed and framed, and it was all just a financial exercise.

Oh, the other 2 in each class. Well, they're in college for the right reasons, on their own, because they want to find out where it takes them. They buy their ticket just the same, but they make use of it. They talk and engage, and in those moments when it's me and them, I'm doing what I thought I would spend my life doing.

But I fear that the ratio is not enough. If it were not for those 2, I'd be looking for consulting work, or a nice shiny revolver to eat. (Don't tell, Mrs. Len, because she's still proud her husband is a teacher.)

Is there anything worse to think? Is there anything more dispiriting than this?

I fear it's all been for nothing.

"Man, I Have a Lot of Math Homework To Do Tonight. I Think I'll Shoot This Dart Gun Instead!" Today's VidShizzle.

Do me a favor, would you, and post this vid. Young "Jesus," not his real name, took a class with me last semester and he was a complete crackup. This is his "advice" video. I think your readers would love it.

How to "Ride This Bitch Out." Some 'Helpful' Advice For Yesterday's Thirsty on Economic Entropy.

• Here's some super helpful advice from our budget crisis committee that just arrived in my inbox yesterday: "Stay positive and supportive, especially with our family and friends; exercise, eat healthy and get an appropriate amount of rest; do our best at work and remember that our own attitude is the only thing we can really control during these uncertain times. You should feel free to contact Employee Assistance Program should you feel the need to do so." In other words: 'We're all fucked! Smile and eat your veggies! Remember, your business is rejoicing! Your business is rejoicing! Your business is rejoicing!'


• The best that can be done is to hope for, in all situations, is senior faculty attrition. The hand of nature cannot be stopped, but it can be hastened. Instead of playing the stock market, we often chip in to purchase anonymous complimentary honey-glazed hams, cartons of cigarettes, Scotch, and other goodies for the village elders. Yum!


• If your uni is anything like mine, your prez passed the buck to the deanz, who passed it to the chairs--yours and others. Be helpful to your chair; help her make cuts that don't include your job. If you can live without something, offer it up. Willing to give up conferences next year? Tell your chair you won't put in for anything, and maybe she can trim $1000-2000 off that part of the budget. Take on an unpaid overload. Skip a sabbatical. Get on a lot of PhD (and departmental) committees, so you seem irreplaceable. Make it clear to everyone you're not on the job market, even if you are. Now for the smackdown--if your uni is anything like my uni, you jackass, you have no frakking need to worry in the first place. At the meeting where our chair briefed us on the plan to save 8%, the preface was "of course, faculty lines come from central, so we can't touch those at all." At all. So while "instructional staff" will get another unpaid course, or 38 students in a "workshop" class, or a pay cut, or a pink slip, tenure-track Profflakes will still teach esoteric seminars to 5 people. But wait. A "teaching specialist" or whatever makes far less money in salary and benefits than the tuition generated by their classes brings in, and so therefore MAKES money for the uni. A "professor" who teaches only gradflakes (in my department there are no large lecture courses, only small boutique seminars) COSTS the uni money. So their grand strategy to weather the storm of budget cuts is to cut REVENUE generators, while preserving--actually, this year, hiring one more-- LOSS generators. Let's review: outside funding is down, so cut revenue and increase costs. We're fucked, people. Start storing up canned goods and ammo.


• My position isn't posh. I teach single mothers and ex-cons and all that jazz. They give me $20 an hour to read RYS, chat with students my own age, and occasionally even breakthrough to my students (who are all about as unpretentious as they could be). Have you guys looked around recently? Do you see what other people have to put up with to earn their scratch? My friends and peers (many gifted and even artistically inclined people) are working in warehouses (lame!), throwing boxes (exhausting), working the insurance circuit (banal), tending bar (could be worse - free Margaritas for me!), cooking ($10 an hour? Can I live in the pantry too?) and doing all sorts of servile things for peanuts! You think these Admin Mutherfuckers care about your love of Goethe? Or that you can speak Middle English? Pfffff....... Get out of your campus or overpriced city (or your own friggin head) and breathe in the smooth recession smog...buddy up with the con-men, they're the only ones who're gonna survive this mess....Didn't you figure out that academia is a joke? Laugh, or get laughed at.....Pardon me, I need to light it up before class starts.

Wise Wendy from Watertown Waxes on Hiring Season and Why Some Folks Are Woeful At It.

I am on TWO hiring committees, one in my own department and one in another. We are hiring for a total of 7 position, yet, everywhere I look I see people whining about not getting jobs.

I know why certain candidates won’t be hired. They weren’t prepared. They didn’t know diddly squat about our campus, our students and our programs. Had no idea about the department size or course offerings.

In this day and age, it only takes a quick Google search to get this info. You need to walk in like you are interested in us too. Today, we interviewed someone who had done his homework, and it really showed. He was damn near a rock star compared to the other pool of candidates. Last week we interviewed a hotshot new Ph.D. that knew about nothing except her dissertation. She was clueless as to who was in her audience. Had no idea of our students, the function of our college and community or even what courses we taught.

My suggestion is to get there early and walk around without anyone knowing you are there. Talk to some students. Have a coffee on campus. Visit the library. Know something about us. Do something other than trying to impress us with your brilliance. Show us you actually care.

Virgil from Vacaville on Learning Not to Shrink.

The quiet guy who sits in the corner in Thad's recent post was me as an undergraduate.

I was a real shrinking violet. I never - NEVER - participated in class discussions, I was far too shy, and maybe a bit insecure because I'd been rejected by the university I really wanted, and I felt I wasn't as good as I previously thought I was, and what business did I have sharing an opinion which probably wasn't worth all that much anyway?

Then at a late stage in my undergraduate career one of my classes had a round-table discussion on seminar classes, and the value or otherwise of participation. Some guy pointed out that the students who never contributed, who just sat in the corner and listened to what everyone else brought to the discussion, were, in effect, plagiarists. They got to learn everyone else's insights without having to bring any of their own, and could later use them to improve their own essays. He was pretty worked up about it.

He didn't mean me, but I absorbed the lesson anyway and overcame my reluctance to contribute, and if I hadn't I certainly wouldn't have a university job now, and be able to lead and moderate discussions. I know first hand how shy our precious young charges can be, but I don't think it does them any good to indulge them, just like it didn't do me any good to shrink into corners and pray the professor never caught my eye. It IS our job to make shy people uncomfortable, just like it's our job to make complacent people aware of their ignorance or make barely literate people aware of their poor writing skills. Goddamit, if it's a personality issue, like he says it is, then it's a personal flaw, and we've done them at least a little bit of good by helping them get out of it!

And after all, if education were merely the process of conveying information to a second party, we wouldn't ask students to be in the room at all! It should always be about THEIR grasp of the material and what THEY need to understand critical points or to see their relevance; and frankly, a teacher who doesn't invite his class to speak up and who doesn't want to listen to the points they raise or tailor his approach to his audience's reaction might as well just put his lectures on YouTube and save the poor darlings the trouble of getting out of bed.

"Can I Give You a Little Student-On-Student Action?"

Put down the beer and chips, Compound Readers. This ain't no student-on-student porno. Just a regular undergrad looking for an outlet for some outrage I've got towards my Fellow Learners here at small midwestern college.

Dear Lipstick Lawyer, Spirit Lady and Frat Kid,

We've been sharing anthropology and photography classes together....isn't college a wonderful mind-broadening experience? I think there's still a few things y'all have yet to learn.

Lipstick Lawyer. Every day you bring a soy latte to class along with not one, not two, but THREE packets of Raw Sugar and make a little ritual of tearing each one open and stirring it in. I promise, a little real milk is is worlds better for you than all that sugar. What's really gross is that your lipstick gets smeared all over the styrofoam. I made the mistake of sitting next to you in class the first day and now I can't move because because of the inane seating chart our prof made. (Oh yeah, holla back on that one proffies. Seating charts for 3000-level courses? And you complain that we students treat college like high school.) By the way, could you please wait until after class to hand-feed Lawyer Boy your Kashi nuts and berries? I totally don't care that you are in each other's pantsuits... but seriously, class is only 1hour, 15 minutes...he will not starve.

Spirit Lady. It's really cool that you spent a year living in a mud hut in Arizona. I defer to the hippie cred this has earned you. But please stop beginning every sentence with "When I was living in a hogan in Arizona..." Also, every time Lipstick lawyer makes a derogatory comment about Indian culture you address some native spirit invoking it to open her mind and soothe the soul. She hasn't stopped, so I'm pretty sure the spirits don't give a crap.

Frat Kid. You really aren't bad, just naive to the ways of the college. I'm sure that for you, pictures of the paddle you were spanked with for initiation and the hallowed halls of KGB frathouse are truly sentimental, but dude, you are in college. More than that: you are in art school! The domain of the left-leaning intelligentsia. And commies. Products of your privileged middle-class white existence are not going to hack it here. That sounds harsh, but better you hear it now than learn the hard way. Much of being successful in college is simply learning to produce what your professors want to see.

I'll see y'all in class next week!

This Week's Big Thirsty. How to "Ride This Bitch Out."

I know the load of crap my administration is shoveling to the media and faculty about cuts and the current state of the economy. We're looking at cuts, layoffs, and furloughs we're told, IF we're lucky.

All the while upper administration is bending/breaking rules to be sure their paychecks are safe at faculty/student expense. As an untenured T-T junior faculty, I know my neck is closer to the chopping block than others--except maybe staff.

Q: So, I would like to know what others out there are facing and what the more senior of us recommend to the juniors to ride this bitch out, other than publish our asses off of course (doing that already).

A: Send replies here.

Gullible Gerty from Glendale Goes GRRRRRR! (We Love the Bitchy Bear, But the Mail Has Turned.)

Dearest Bitchy Bear:

I am one of those humanities scholars and, regardless of what you appear to believe, no, I'm not a COMPLETE DUNCE. I did actually expect to get a job with this degree. Why? Quite frankly, because for the ENTIRE TIME I was in college, all of my English proffies--every single one of them--told me that there were plenty of jobs in this field, oh I'd love this field, oh it's so rewarding, it's so wonderful, I'd be great at it, they needed people to do this. It was only after I'd already wasted my life that I discovered that they were merely trying to keep the English department student enrollment up so that they could keep their own jobs.

Oh, you're thinking, why was I stupid enough to believe them? Well...let's see. I was seventeen when I started college. I came from a home background of alcoholism, neglect, abuse, low self esteem, and childhood rape, and you see, when I got to college and somebody was nice to me, it simply didn't occur to me that they might be a lying bastard with an ulterior motive the size of my cellulite-encoated behind, that they might be more involved in keeping their enrollment figures up to ensure departmental funding than they were in encouraging students. I considered other avenues. "Doctor X," I asked, "Isn't it true that an English degree can be parlayed into going to law school?" "Oh yes," Doctor X said, "But you would be far better off staying here and getting an MA in English. You'd be great at this! You should get a PhD!" Hence, my physical illness every time I hear one of my fellow TAs or a proffie in our department encouraging another poor, masochistic little fool to stay in the English program--and yes, in spite of the fact that, as you put it, we're all supposed to inherently know that this field is impossible, I hear my colleagues encouraging students to major in English ALL THE TIME, spouting lie after lie after lie.

Yes, I went to one of those schools that was small enough that everyone was basically "special". Yes, I went to a school where we mistakenly believed that what the proffies were showing us was concern, and not just the need to keep their mealtickets. Yes, it's my fault for ever believing that there is a single person on this planet who actually cares about someone else, without being in it for something of their own. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea mucho fucking culpa.

But before you go riding your high horse, lecturing to the rest of us about how very stupid we were to have chosen this field, about how we should have known all along that we were setting ourselves up for 90 hour workweeks for the equivalent of 1$ an hour, constant competition, constantly feeling that we will never be good enough, ZZZZZZ (as you put it), you might want to think about the idea that maybe, just maybe, not all of us had the same experiences you apparently did going in, nor the same expectations--or even the same opportunity to develop reasonable expectations. Maybe some of us are just now waking up from the stupid little American dream that hard work = success, only to discover that we've been lied to, all along. There's a reason Fight Club, and Tyler Durden's speech about how we're all raised to believe we can be rock stars and that we get enraged when we discover we'll be schlepping burgers for minimum wage for the rest of our lives, is so freaking popular.

Scranton Suzanne Offers Advice to Nila. A Response For Those Suffering With a Male Student Egomaniac.

I don't know what your field is, but I urge you to, among other things, take a look at some of the social psychology research on the intersections of race, gender, appearance, etc and college professing. It's well documented that (tall) apparently white, apparently hetero men speaking unaccented English embody many students' image of 'college professor.' It's who they imagine when they're thinking about the role/occupation. Such characters are much more easily accorded respect and authority and the studies show, have to actively do things to lose students' respect and to lose authority. Others - the short, the female, the "of color," the international, those with accented English (but not Anglo-accented English) - start from a one-down position, where we must work to earn authority and respect. We are not seen to embody it automatically just by virtue of who we are. Looking at some of the research on this (see particularly an article by Gabe or Gabriel Smith about faculty of color and syllabi) might give you insights and may encourage you to know you are NOT alone.

So what can we do? First, I always teach in professional dress, which appears to me to be best exemplified by a blazer, slacks, a shoe with a heel, minimal jewelry. I wear makeup because I look a little younger without it. I've found very comfortable shoes that have (non-stiletto) heels - height conveys authority. Slacks convey masculinity in a sense. Costuming is vital.

Second, my syllabus is groaning under its own weight - 8+ pages and growing every year. I've found different ways to convey the idea that I mean business, from Day One. (My students now complete a syllabus contract to attest that they have read and understand everything in the syllabus.) Some of what's in the syllabus: I don't discuss grades on papers, tests, etc until the student has had the grade for at least 24 hrs and I don't discuss them by email, only in person in office hours (e.g., my turf, both of us sitting down). I am direct in the language and have grown terser and terser, eg, "6 absences? You will be withdrawn from the course." It is easier to begin with some seriousness and an all-business attitude and migrate to something more jocular or loose later in the term.

Third, I read teaching and pedagogy guides, books, and websites with frequency; I bone up during breaks and in the summer. They give me techniques and tools for clarity, order, logic, assessment, etc that have become the backbone of my teaching. I have seen that the more order, logic, and organization I have employed, the more student complaints of all sorts have diminished, and the more this kind of sexist (and racist) posturing has decreased. The work on dealing with difficult students has helped me gain insights into their posturing and conduct as well; though they aren't bringing much more than knee-jerk behaviors supported by a stratified culture, I can at least bring an analysis to the situation (and it helps).

Another thing is that, depending on your subject and the other students in the course, chances are that other students see the Egomaniac for what he is. Employ their help in effect. Egomaniac goes on tangent in class discussion and attempts to puff up his insignificant chest? Flip his comment or question to other students. Open it up to the other students. If a student rolls his eyes when EgoBoy hijacks the class, say, 'I just saw a reaction - you had a look on your face - please comment,' and Eye Roller will take some of EgoBoy's energy out of the room by disagreeing.

I have begun to teach critical thinking in such a way that whenever I have a tool like this, I can always go back to critical thinking and say, "What's your evidence for that claim?" Or "where in the reading is the evidence in support of the claim you just made?" Or "That sounds like your point of view." And then I ask the class, "Why is that his point of view and not an evidence-based argument?" Then they help out - because opinions are blah blah, or evidence enables us to.... This goes back to the whole 'logical, ordered, presenting ideas bigger than mine' approach I referenced above.

I have to be honest and say that I rarely (any longer) get the sort of student you describe, mainly because he is not at all drawn to the subjects I teach, so I am a little out of practice in dealing with the Male Student Egomaniac. But I used to get him and his cousins all the time, when I was younger and felt less of my own authority (nothing like earning tenure). They whipped out everything on me: standing while in my office so that he towered over me, clearly a dominance move, complete with pounding on my desk; threatening me with reports to the dean, the chair, the president of the college; email whines and rants; nasty course evals about me being a "feminazi" (highly original); making sexual comments about me to other students, covertly, during class, as a way to demean me and try to put me in my place, and on and on.

The other thing you should do, if you haven't already, is find a faculty mentor (dept or not) whom you can trust. You need to know that someone in power has your back and that they understand the context in which students evaluate, perceive, and judge us. Profs teaching sensitive or controversial courses (or required courses that are seen as drudgery) need to know that context will be factored into upper-level reviews of their work as they progress toward tenure. If I am a Black woman teaching courses on race where half my students are gen ed requirement-fillers, then chances are that I will have negativity based on my students' racism and sexism. It can be hard to parse out sometimes but I know that someone with more power than I have does have my back and will contextualize my student evals based on knowledge of these unfortunate structural and cultural dynamics.

Newest Syndrome To Afflict Some: Lawn Mower Moms.

I have heard horror stories of helicopter mom's from coworkers in the academic field, from mom's who call professors requesting extensions on assignments to flat out demanding that their little darling get better grades. Very rarely do I come across anything that even shocks me anymore, I before today I would have even ventured to say I was unflappable. However after meeting with Career Services today I have to say that even my jaded self is shocked.

Apparently helicopter moms have brought it one step further and have become lawn mower moms, taking out everything in their path. They are now contacting the potential employers of their little darlings to ask about pay and benefits for jobs their children have interviewed for. These are large companies, such as GM, or corporate banks, that they are contacting without a moment’s hesitation. Even more baffling is the fact that many of these companies are sending out pay and benefit information to the parents of the potential employees they are interviewing! Do they even realize what they are setting themselves up for?

Has the world gone mad? I work in the professional field as well as teach, if a potential employees mother EVER called me and asked what benefit package I was prepared to offer little Timmy I would promptly tell her, “None, we do not hire fetuses incapable of living independently from their mommies here.” I would then cross them off the list! Furthermore if MY mother ever called my potential boss I cannot even form words to describe what I would do, other than perhaps tell said potential boss that she is off her medication and to please ignore her ranting. Are these mothers going to call HR if little Timmy doesn’t get his raise and demand his performance review be sent to her so she can review it? Is she going to go to work with Timmy to make sure he “settles in” alright and no one is mean to him by setting boundaries and expectations?

What the hell is going on? I feel like I am taking crazy pills!

The Sorrow of Sid.

It seems too easy, so much like shooting fish in a barrel. We almost let poor Sid the Student off the hook, but so many folks seemed to enjoy taking a crack. So we picked a few, a little flava, and here we go:

• You should read Brothers Grimm because the stories are great and there is a degree of violence and perversion that should delight the sensibilities of any young student raised on the Friday the 13th and the Saw movies.




• Blaming Hollywood for your academic lethargy? Gender reassigning Jules Verne? Dude, you need your head shoved down the Pierian toilet until you've sucked it up and it "largely sobers" your soulless, solipsistic ass.




• Dear Sid: If “a bad relationship can turn you gay,” you’re already gay, son. And the Brothers Grimm – if you’re talking about the German folk tales – are all about sex and violence. Does that help? Finally, if you’re in my class, you better get a clue about apostrophes – the punctuation kind as well as the Walt Whitman kind.




• Dude, there are so many things wrong with your post I don't even know where to begin. First: if a bad relationship were all it took to make someone gay, I'd be straight 7 times over. Second: the incoherent writing, gahhhhh, the writing. Third: dude, do I have you right that some teacher is asking you to see the movie first and then read the book? Or do you try to see the movie instead of reading the book and then get called out? Fourth: most of the time, the book is better than the movie anyway (exception -- The Sweet Hereafter). Fifth: It is so not my job to cheerleader you into getting the knowledge you're paying tuition to get. Read or don't read, fail, whatever; you're an adult. You can lead a student to the kegger, but you can't make him ... Wait a minute, what was that metaphor?


• You are not as literate as you like to think. Jules Verne and her book? Seriously? Do you even know when that was written? Not a time filled with women writing science-fiction adventure tales. Although given the rest of your staggering ignorance, I can see how you might not have realized. Speaking of things not realized: do you know that the collected tales of the Brothers Grimm... are the collected tales? As in an assortment of short stories? Not directly related to said cheesy movie--which you probably should have realized would be cheesy before you bought the tickets. Now, if you had complained about the plethora of Disney movies based on Grimm's fairy tales, then I might give your anticipation of boredom some credence. Everyone has a different opinion about how enjoyable fairy tales are and not everyone realizes that the original tales are quite a bit saltier than the animated versions. Fair enough. But you seem to think that this book is somehow a novel. A bad novel on which a goofy movie was based. What. The. Hell. Did you grow up in a cave? Don't give me some hoity-toity bullshit about Whitman capped off with a crude allusion. The kids have a word for people like you: poser. You majored in English just to meet chicks, didn't you? I bet you spout off in class and your classmates roll their eyes before cutting you to shreds. Come back when you've got a clue.
  

"Dudes!" Today's VidShizzle.

Where We Make Sure Some Grad Kids - One Named BOOBIE - Get Their Share of the Smackdown!

It is the time of year in my broad shouldered state when the snow starts to melt and the thesis students began to come apart in delightful ways. After years of competing for advisors, fellowships, and recognition, this year's lumbering pack is beginning to stumble. Of course it is now the time for grad student smackdowns:

• Oooooh! A whole summer in Paris, all expenses paid, to market a new beverage in 20-something expat bars IS OBVIOUSLY the to-die-for culmination of your lifetime of education. Yes, of course you may take a leave of absence, and when you return, yes you may submit your Paris journal, in place of the required research thesis, for a degree. But I get to pick the degree, and it is looking like Master of Delusion. C'est la vie.
  


• Welcome back Dizzy! I know it was rude of me to leave your scheduled thesis defense for the airport, just four hours after you were a no-show. Yes, I did hear that you entered the building exactly when all the examiners were also leaving. No, I didn't get your 22 e-mails while I was on the big big airplane, or in the big city far far away. Really. It is because we crossed the international date line and your e-mails couldn't go back in time and reach me there yet. No no, I don't think the external examiners will want to fly back for a "do-over." Yes, yes, you are certainly still in graduate school. The captain has turned off the seatbelt sign. Please get comfortable for a very long flight.
  


• No, THANK YOU! Meathead, for failing to give a clear answer for any of the questions the examiners asked at your thesis defense. Yes, it is rigorous that you did not come to any meetings, respond to any emails, or even live in the same city for the last semester, because you wanted to try to do a thesis "on your own." No, I don't think the external examiner meant it when he asked "how did he ever get into graduate school?" He is not familiar with our cash-based graduate admissions process. Yes, I'm sure he was impressed when you mindlessly read off unrelated citations, like a tone-poem, including one from another students' thesis in place of the expected thesis statement. No, I don't know why people giggle when you tell them your presentation went well. Yes, you too are certainly still in graduate school. No, I will not be approving your thesis proposal, but you may have some lovely cookies for your efforts. And please do drink the complimentary Kool-Aid.
  


• That was a gutsy move Boobie, appearing completely immobile for two years and then lightning-fast submitting your horrific incomplete and incoherent first draft directly to the grad school, and then trying to schedule a thesis defense without informing your advisor. Did you think I wouldn't be notified of this, or even be invited to the defense? Fortunately when they called me to confirm, I got to try out all the convoluted obscenities you have muttered under your breath before me. They hung up on me, so I think I pronounced them correctly. Oh, you want to know what to do now? Repeat many times after me: "Do you want fries with that ma'am?"

WTF APAA! (Another Post About Acronyms.)

The item about acronymism struck a chord with me. The last department head I had while I was teaching--and suffered for it--was one of the people described.

He shamelessly tossed about acronyms and buzzwords whenever he could, doing so for several reasons.

One was to convey the impression of possessing arcane, esoteric knowledge that only the Chosen Few have and, thereby, had to be some wizard or a genius. In reality, it was supposed to make up for the fact that he was thick as a plank and couldn't think he way out of a wet paper bag (then again, he was dumb enough to ever find himself inside one). Using terms ending in "-izer" and "-ator" can only get one so far in the real world and would be better suited for, say, a Star Trek script or a science fiction convention. He never fooled me, though he did manage to convince a few people that his pseudo-knowledge was indeed genuine.

Another reason he was so free with the aforementioned acronyms and buzzwords was to convey an air of authority. If he used terminology that only the senior administration knew about, why, he must have a lot of pull in our institution, mustn't he? After all, he knows something that *they* know, right? He was an example of someone wanting to be a big fish in a small pond and this was one way of becoming one.

Most important, however, was that he talked like a senior administrator because he wanted to be one. His desire to be dean was painfully obvious to the department and to many outside it. By using the "secret" words, he was hoping to draw attention to himself and convince the institution's administration that he was worthy of promotion.

I don't think his tactic was all that effective as he was remained as department head when I quit and, from what I've heard since then, still is. Perhaps it was a good thing that he wasn't promoted, though. He may have been a royal pain in the you-know-what and useless as a junior administrator, at least the damage he could inflict was contained to just our department and related areas. I shudder to think what would have happened if he had become dean....

[*]

Welcome to the world of Education Incorporated. We in the community colleges feel your pain because it's been inflicted upon us for many years.

Back in the old days, we thought the outcome of learning was demonstrated in this thing called a grade. But no, the edu-crats decided that our grades were arbitrary and didn't actually measure anything specific. So now we have to prove that our students are learning through a convoluted process that involves explaining in detail what each course is supposed to accomplish. Thus every single course has at least three but no more than seven expected "outcomes" for the student at our college. These are all skills-based or knowledge-based statements, such as "The student will be able to distinguish widgets from gadgets and explain the differences in a well-developed essay."

But wait! There's more! After we developed the learning outcomes, we were told that our grades did not measure whether or not the students had achieved the outcomes. So then we all had to go to special training to learn how to evaluate our students' outcome-based learning on a grid that lists each student, each learning outcome, and the activity we used to determine whether the student met the outcome. We not-so-jokingly called this The Matrix training.

We were told that we had to do all this because otherwise we would lose our accreditation. We redid every single syllabus in our college in less than a month and then created The Matrix in a couple of weeks. The result is a steaming pile of busy work at the end of each semester to satisfy those who believe that more paperwork somehow equates with quality.

[*]

Hi there! What you’re talking about reminds me of HLC – the Higher Learning Commission. HLC hit us recently and while we got a glowing accreditation out of it, we were assimilated into a new language that has left in its midst piles of manuals, binders, papers and requirements.

The “top down” message throughout the preparatory period was that the effort was supposed to be faculty generated, which felt a lot more like bottoms up so we can see how much more work we can cram where the sun don’t shine. At my institution for the criminally inane, everything is now all about student learning and assessment driven. I’m supposed to be able to justify all course changes with analysis of previous student learning results, and all budget requests with assessment data.

Documentation, documentation, someone take minutes and type them up and give everyone a copy; make sure all committees meet regularly; are you pre-testing, post-testing, mid-testing, evaluating and analyzing? Never mind that half of us don’t know what the numbers mean, I’ve got graphs and pie charts in color in a folder that I can whip out of my desk on request. This is no breeze blowing through the trees, it will stop soon, kind of agenda either – it’s here to stay. Hunker down, figure out the language, and learn to code switch – it’s the only way to survive.

[*]

Well, at least they didn't make you sing. We had one of those frigging days and they made us sing and do hand motions to the tune of "YMCA." Good singers won T shirts. I was paralyzed with disbelief. That was the lowest point in my academic career but at least the nearby tap was still in business then providing liquid courage to go on.

There are only two ways to cope with such shit. One, bring a bottle of high proof in a mitten and nip during the entire thing. Since that is sincerely and truly frowned upon on my campus (and I actually like our VP and do not want her scorn) that is no longer the route I take. I do have great memories of fine times in the back rows, however. The second and latest method of survival is to play bingo.

I make bingo cards of the acronyms and give them to my trusted colleagues. The winner gets free drinks for the evening at the next staff meeting held at a choice watering hole. An additional twist is to start timing to see how long it takes to fill up these cards. In years past, it took a while but thanks to AQIP, ADA, and more, at least one card usually fills before the first series of speakers is over. Enjoy!!!!

Oh yes, there was the year we had a duty day dedicated to defining a mission statement. A brilliant committee came up with suggestions so we didn't have to start from the beginning. Not once was the word "Student" or "learning" mentioned. Thankfully my husband called with an actual emergency...he lost his car keys and needed my extra and I left.

Let's Take a Break from Smacking Down the Kids, to Give Some of the Same Medicine to The Parents.

Parents, Your Kids Aren't That Special

by Jack Cafferty

from his new book, Now or Never

excerpt from CNN.com

My wife and I have just been seated for dinner when the maitre d' walks over and seats a young family at the table next to us and the kids start carrying on like orangutans on a leash.

The parents are going, "Timmy, that's not nice, don't throw your food, stop stuffing your mashed potatoes up your nose." Are mom and dad having fun yet, picking food up off the floor, apologizing to people like us, and wiping food flung across the table off their faces?

Some parents still have this attitude that their kids are too special to be burdened by discipline. And the rest of us are supposed to put up with their little mutants.

* Rest of the article.

We Wish We Had One More Pencil. A Big One. Today's VidShizzle.

More on the Value of Forced Participation from Thad in Thousand Oaks.

I've never understood the emphasis some instructors place on forcing students to socialize: reading out loud, "ice breakers," group activities, class discussions, etc.

They can't seem to fathom that some people do not want to be the center of attention and would enjoy nothing more than anonymity. Perfectly intelligent people can be shy/socially anxious or take a long time to get their thoughts organized. Sometimes people are too busy listening to have something ready to say if suddenly called upon, and they don't like being made to look foolish by being forced to say something, anyway. This is a personality issue completely separate from intelligence or public speaking ability.

While my research productivity leaves something to be desired, I never had any problems with the coursework of my Ph.D. program (Behavioral Neuroscience). I've had no problems lecturing in courses I've TA'd, and I competed in debate tournaments throughout high school. I just HATE classroom participation.

On the other hand, RYS is filled with stories of idiots that are more than happy to share their idiotic comments with everyone. I don't need the critical pedagogists to empower my voice or save me from the oppression of learning about a subject from an expert in that subject. Frankly, I don't care what most people taking their second philosophy class think about the Categorical Imperative or what it's like to be a bat.

Furthermore, everyone in a college classroom is an adult or nearly so. Everyone is old enough to know if they have something to say or not. It's not our job as educators to make the shy people uncomfortable so we can pat ourselves on the back for how progressive and egalitarian we are. Especially because we couldn't make some copies ahead of time.

Being socially anxious isn't a learning disability, and it isn't something a socially anxious person would be comfortable bringing you a note about on the first day of class, either. Maybe Silent Sue from a recent post on this site had completely illegitimate reasons for not wanting to read, but it's her instructor who's the one who's getting paid to stand in front of the class and talk. Besides, everyone is capable of reading your handouts for themselves. No matter what, the pace is going to be too fast for the ESL students and slow readers and too slow for the quick, witty people. Frustrating for most everyone.

Boston's Bitchy Bear Explains It All.

OK, so let me get this straight: we've been listening to post after post after post on how it's expensive to go to PhD school and how you're not likely to get a job when you're done and it's all very depressing and oh I'm a chemist so I make oodles and boodles of money suck me you humanities dorks and adjuncting is a very hard way to live....and ZZZZZZZzzzzzzz. Yeah, you heard me, ZZZZZzzzzzzzz. Oh, and I don't want to forget the douchebag who wrote in about trying to convince his girlfriend to forget about graduate school so that she could win the boyfriend lottery and be with him. Boy howdy, talk about your hard choices in life.

Help me understand. So on the one hand, we all in society are supposed to believe that undergraduates need the humanities because college is not job training, per se, and the humanities help us become intellectually better and, dare I say it, more human. But when it comes to a PhD in the humanities, that degree is supposed to get you a job when you are done? Does that strike you as being a bit of a double standard? It does me, even though I fully believe that the humanities are absolutely necessary to intellectual development.

OK, so there's one question, and here's another: how in God's name am I supposed to believe you when you say to me that you are intelligent, supremely, and capable of high-level research, absolutely, when at the same time you are acting like you're shocked that the job prospects in your field suck? How can you not know this? When I went for my undergraduate degree in a risky field (related to art) 20 years ago, my illiterate Grandfather who spoke NO ENGLISH lectured me on how I wouldn't get job when I was done. The man couldn't understand the TV. He couldn't read the newspapers. And yet he knew what a risky field looked like. But you don't? Huh? Ten years later when I said that I was giving up a relatively successful job in the risky field to get my PhD, everybody from my professional colleagues to my family to random Polish diplomats I didn't even know were lined up around the block to tell me how I was throwing away all my financial security to be 'a perpetual student.' Did you not have any of those people saying any of those things? Was it just me? Am I special?

So you might dismiss this as me being my usual bitchy self, and you'd be right. I now teach in one of those high-risk fields, like a lot of professors do. Art teachers, dance teachers, music teachers, acting teachers--we all have students who dream big dreams that are not very likely to come true. Is it our job to tell them they will wind up waiting tables and running to law school in a few years? Or is it our job to push them and support them to the very ends of their talents, ability, and dedication because without that they are guaranteed to wind up waiting tables and running to law school (where, it should be noted, hard work and sacrifice are also necessary)?

For every one student in my classes who has the stones to actually put in the enormous amount of work to claim a degree of mastery, there are about 14 who are in love with the idea of being "a famous X." Most of those 14 wash out, leaving us with a precious few who love what they are doing so much they are willing to sacrifice everything to keep doing it. Some of those who make these sacrifices find their way into the profession and some never find work and have to find another way to make a living, or they subsist taking the crumbs that fall off whatever table keeps them close to what they love so much. Sound at all familiar?

It hurts like hell when you have the talent and the dedication and the world still won't give you a chance. But it's not uncommon. For every Brittany Spears, there are at least (at least) 2000 blonde girls with big fake boobs and nice legs and passable voices in Los Angeles fruitlessly going to auditions while working in "massage" to pay the rent. For every I.M. Pei there are thousands of underpaid architects stuck in city zoning enforcement and sitting through two-hour meetings on parking--the same people who once dreamed dreams as big as Bilbao. Ballerinas are a dime a dozen in dance programs. Most Olympic athletes have poured huge amounts of time and money for a shot that in all likelihood won't pan out and even if it does, their medal wouldn't pass any cost-benefit analysis on the finance side.

Dreams, in other words, are costly, and perhaps they should be. So here's the test that I put to my students. If what you want is to teach adult learners, there are tons of opportunities to do that other than the PhD. If you are in grad school and the hours you spend alone with your ideas are miserable hours, it's time to stop and do something else. If the hours you spend discussing ideas with your students, peers, and mentors aren't among your happiest hours, then stop because this job does not get any better than that. Keep in mind that most of us in grad school are insecure and feel weird and are worried about measuring up. Try not to listen to that; that's just noise. But if all that falls away when you are reading something beautiful, and you are completely absorbed and you love love love your work, then you are in the right place, and you should ride that horse until it kicks you off. And kick you off it probably will. Even the oh-so-in-demand chemists are one head injury away from having the horse kick 'em off. I've been very fortunate all along, and I might not get tenure. Or if I do get tenure the University could eliminate my program. What are ya gonna do? Make the choices that give you joy and ride the horse and quit whining that the horse isn't very nice. If you really truly love what you say you do, you'll treasure the time you got to spend doing it even if you had to start over and even if you didn't come home with the gold.

Win Free RYS Prodo! The New "No Snowflakes" Ceramic Travel Mug!

Yes, we're giving away free schwag, starting with this lovely new prodo from our pals at Cafe Press.

It's the "No Snowflakes" ceramic travel mug. You can buy the damn thing, of course, or you can enter our giveaway contest.

Simply send a 300-500 word post about your deepest darkest fears as a college proffie. Make it lively. Spice it up. Make it sear. Make it hurt. We'll read the entries and award the best one with a free mug (a $21.95 value!) and post the winner on our site in late March.

Send your email entries to us here, and try to include a subject line that says "MUG CONTEST."

Nila From New Orleans Needs Our Help. On the "MSE" Archetype.

Every year, in every class, I come across an archetype: The Male Student Egomaniac. The MSE has the following characteristics:

• smugness
• overconfident body language
• verbal diarrhea
• inability to curb opinions
• inability to parse relevant facts
• desire to upstage authority figure (me)
• desire to prove intelligence
• tendency to reduce discussion to trivial pursuit game
• reactionary response to attempt to curb tangential discussion
• overly willing to argue inconsequential points or factoids

As someone new to teaching, a woman, a minority and being short-ish, I feel like I’m under attack. I have not yet developed an adequate approach to this kind of individual. I am getting very sick of having to deal with these types. Initially, I treated them with kindness and indulgence.

Then I realized that kindness is mistaken for weakness and indulgence is taken for permission. So, now I have taken to cutting off the individual and simply taking the bad evaluation for the sake of my peace of mind and class discipline.

It would be most wonderful to know how others have dealt with such a personality.

Supporting Trish.

I read Trish's story about debt with real interest because I've been exactly where she is right now. My story is unimportant, but in chasing my degree and my career, I mortgaged my financial viability, and escaped by a whisker.

Once I got a t-t job (just 4 years ago), I started to dig myself out. I'm not finished yet, but I can see the light. I wanted to write just to tell her I empathize with her. It's ridiculous that so many of us risk so much for a chance at this career.

[*]

You aren't alone, girl. A lot of us did the same thing. If you haven't already thought of it, you might consider taking a meeting with a credit counselor. The last thing you want right now is for the credit card companies to lower your amount of credit while jacking up your interest rate to 30%. If that happens (and it probably will now that you maxed out the cards), you'll find yourself broker than broke, with a shitty credit ranting following you around like a deranged snowflake. You'll have to cut the cards at the meeting, but it's really not that bad.

Keep your instructor job, since it pays benefits. Go to the fitness center and take care of your health so that you don't fall into a really bad funk. Consider making use of any mental health coverage you might be getting with your benefits, as this would be a good time to talk with someone paid to listen.

Perhaps not immediately, but soon, begin to think about leaving academe for a better paying job. Institutions of higher education are not unhappy that people qualified for t-t positions continue to accept instructor's salaries, making up the difference on their credit cards. It's how they make their budgets work. But now it's time for you to put your financial needs first. You might have hit financial rock bottom, but you have the smarts -- and the credentials -- to turn things around. And know that a lot of us, just like you, piled on the credit card debt, anticipating the full-time position that never came. You are certainly not alone.

Square State Sandra Faces the Recommendation Request With a Little Fantasy Letter and THEN the Real and Correct Answer For These Situations.

Four weeks ago I caught Nelly plagiarizing. Massively. Her entire term paper was from the Wikipedia and other sources, copy & paste. I gave her 0 points for this part of her grade, a stern lecture, and let her off the hook. She thought I wanted to have information about the topic, she didn't realize that I needed footnotes.

Today I have an email from Nelly. Nelly has just found a stipend that she qualifies for. Will I write a letter of recommendation for her?

Man, wouldn't that be fun?

Dear FancyStipendOrganization,

I am writing a letter about Nelly Pinhead, or shall I say Nelly the Plagiarist. She thinks that she is the best thing since sliced bread since she has found the CTRL+C and CTRL+V keys on her keyboard. I just caught her submitting a blatant plagiarism, so I can't recommend her for anything except boot camp.

Instead, I just answered: No.

"Slowdown? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Slowdown." Some Thoughts on the Number of Posts at RYS.

Mid-Career Mike's slowdown proposal generated a lot of heat. The mail was about 70/30 against his "insanity," and a very brief poll we ran on the site was about 90/10 against the idea. Some flava is below.

• Seriously? You're complaining that there are too many posts? You must be new here. There are periods where I have felt like I was parched, waiting for some juicy smackdown goodness to get me through my next class of undergits. The posts slow down to a snail's pace when y'all finish with your semesters. Meanwhile, I must struggle solidly forward through the end of the quarter. While you are sipping your margaritas, I am still writhing with pain from seeing too many butt cracks, from hearing too many poor excuses, and from hitting my forehead on the keyboard due to poorly written emails. Granted, I get to enjoy August poolside, so I can't complain. I get that you think you are precious, Mike; therefore, you must be allowed to answer every post that occurs. Stay up a little later or get up a little earlier. Or better yet, get over yourself. The posts will thin out again, and you'll be able to catch up during the hiatus.




• Is this for real? It's just a blog, not grading. Never use this guy as a moderator, RYS, or he could be crushed under the tragic weight of having to pick two or three posts a day! Give me a fucking break. Thanks for wasting my time with another whiny-ass, worthless post that sounds like it was written by a freshman who thinks fifty pages of reading per class per day is cruel and unusual punishment.




• If you don't visit RYS often enough such that you need to 'race to catch up,' then you're clearly not dedicated enough to deserve reading the fine prose that graces this site. You've got your priorities out of whack. We should leave your disloyal ass behind, and we ain't looking back, so get with the program!




• Mike needs a fucking beating. There isn't NEARLY enough content at RYS. We get three measly posts a day and sometimes one is a video that takes the moderators NO TIME to find and post. I think it's ridiculous how little material is posted. I'd think there should be 10-12 pieces a day, and then the page would be MORE readable because we could pick and choose what we want to read.




• I'm guessing Mike is a setup. Nobody seriously would want less posts. I don't get what the big deal is for Mike. Too much? Don't read at all. Go back to work or something. There isn't nearly enough posts.




• Mike is totally alone. Don't slow down. He needs to learn how toskim -- the internet waits for no-one.




• Hey Skippy, things move pretty fast around here. Try to keep up. And to answer your question, I do have advisees. What, you can’t surf and plan a student’s schedule too? Learn to multitask, brother.
  

[*]

• What a nice change of pace -- something positive about the site for a change. I can't keep up either. But 'tis enough to lurk.




• I think Mike is right. I love the page and feel the issues that are often brought up are too serious and too important to exist in the ether for 18 hours and then be replaced by something else, sometimes a dumb video, OFTEN a dumb smackdown post. (And seriously, how lame are most smackdowns?)




• It WOULD be nice to have more posts, you know, but I often find myself thinking about how difficult the page must be to do, what with sorting the mail that comes in, picking good pieces, doing graphics. And it's EVERY FUCKING DAY! I don't know how many people work on the site, but it's marvelous.
  

The Overnight Replies On Silent Sue & A Surprise Ending!

Here are our favorite replies concerning yesterday's Big Thirsty on our Bartleby-esque character, Silent Sue. We again have to apologize to all of those folks whose notes didn't make it. We occasionally try to make sure we include pieces from folks who don't get on the page a lot, but today most of the chosen replies happen to come from our most reliable and frequent correspondents. Be sure to read the bottom postings as the last couple pick up on some subtle problems with Silent Sue's proffie that very few of our readers picked up on:

• I work in the counseling center of a pricey private college, and have worked in several. I can almost guarantee that your Silent Sue has a social phobia. She probably dreads and avoids "participation" classes to the extent possible, and has come up with this phrase as a way of swiftly deflecting "optional" public reading. When she is absolutely required to read something out loud she has a panic attack and ends up visiting my counterpart at your institution. Depending on the situation, the policies, and the student, she may get an "excuse" to not have to read out loud in classes (or whatever her particular trigger is) or she may enter treatment. Phobics don't like treatment, because conquering any fear involves experiencing it. Chances are that instead, she'll go to the CC, get referred to the Health Center or a local psychiatrist and be prescribed anti-anxiety meds to deal with each separate instance of anxiety(temporary fix) instead of learning to get past it (permanent fix). If she can't get a scrip from one practitioner, she'll shop around until she finds one. Her parents will support her in this quest for meds and always look for an excuse to help her avoid anxiety-provoking situations (instead of overcoming them), because they are the ones who pushed and pushed her to "perfect" performance in the first place so that she now has this anxiety disorder. Of course her work is insightful and well-written. She's probably quite smart; she just freaks out when she's afraid someone might see her as not perfect. In her world, that's not okay. Somebody get this girl some yoga!




• I've had this kind of response from students in class on several occasions. I agree that it is indeed quite jarring. I suspect it is partly a function of the fact that students tend to think of participation as going above and beyond the call of duty, rather than an essential part of the learning process. But whatever the cause, there is only one response: put on a big smile and nicely insist that the student weigh in with an opinion. (Basically, I counter the Bartleby-esque reply with one of my own: "I would prefer that you not prefer not to speak." It then becomes a battle of wills, which I inevitably win.) Naturally, I wrestle with whether it is right to cajole grown adults into having opinions (or, more accurately, pretending to have opinions) when they would rather not. In the end, I always come back to the same policy consideration: if students come to class thinking that they can opt out of the discussion, it may well become 'uncool' to answer questions. If that happens, even my keen students may stay silent, and the class would become well and truly intolerable. To avoid non-participation reaching that critical mass, I regularly inform my students that not having an opinion is not an option. It's not ideal, but it's necessary.




• She’s toying with you – probably to see your reaction or gain attention. It’s her game so she makes the rules. That means you can’t win, so don’t bother. Instead, play your game, the game of assigning grades for good performance. You can’t humiliate her in front of her peers, much as you might like to, but at least she’ll learn not to cross you.




• You can't force students to read aloud, just as you can't force them to complete assignments, arrive punctually, study for exams, or pay attention in class. Silent Sue is entitled to refuse to read aloud. Her professor is entitled to deduct points from her grade, if the ability and willingness to read aloud is factored into the students' grades, or even if a more general idea of 'class participation' is factored into the students' grades. Whether reading aloud affects her grade or not, Sue is still entitled to choose not to read aloud. The "I'm not asking, I'm telling" line is useless unless the professor intends to physically force the student to comply. A more reasonable approach would be to tell Sue that reading aloud is a requirement of the course and a refusal to do so will be detrimental to her grade. If that's not the case, then Sue is free to refuse to read aloud without consequence. As to why she would refuse, why doesn't the professor ask her and find out, rather than asking RYS readers to guess as to the motivation of a complete stranger?

[*]

• As an upper-division Art History major, even if things get "messed up," I find that reading aloud in class like a big bunch of 4th graders is pretty demeaning and a ridiculous waste of time. If the prof can't get it together to find something else to do or is uncomfortable lecturing without the aid of another person's published scholarship, let them go and do the reading on their own. Group work is for freshmen.




• Let me translate for you. Sue: "No thanks, I'm good." Translation: "Your pedagogy not only sucks, it's insulting to our intelligence and a waste of our time and money." What are you going to do next, whip out a stack of mimeographed Cloze exercises? Oh, no, no, I get it. You didn't have time to give it to them before Spring break, and you still want to use it, and you didn't want to come up with a lesson plan right after Spring break because you just got back from [insert conference in warm sunny place here]. And you know, going over a few paragraphs of deeply challenging material with a whole class could be useful. Once in a while we'll just pluck out a paragraph and close read it together, line by line. It's good practice and even upper division students need some practice in reading, God knows. But everyone? Going around the room? Paragraph by paragraph? And then you *discuss*? How much discussion can you have after a single paragraph? Jesus, if boredom were money you'd be AIG, handing out huge bonuses of boredom to people who didn't deserve them. It is a testament to the apparent fact that you usually *don't* suck that the students didn't defenestrate you. You should be proud of that, at least: they respect you enough to let you get away with such a clunker once in a while. Sue's just saying, "Hey, prof, don't make this a habit."




• This question sounds like a test of some kind to me. Would we dull proffies, so ready to believe our students are to blame for everything, notice that it's Silent Sue's instructor (who you carefully did not give a name!) who's to blame? Spring break logistics got in the way, honey? You mean you forgot to do the photocopying? So, instead, a dozen people all take turns reading paragraphs out loud in class? What bullshit. I understand the value of close reading and discussion, but what Silent Sue's instructor (SSI?) has done is just thrown a class away. Silent Sue, whether or not she knows it, has stumbled upon the notion that SSI is either lazy or stupid (or both), and has simply said, "I'm not going to buy in to this charade." Shame on SSI. I truly believe he/she doesn't even realize where the blame belongs.

Two Michael Wesch Videos. Today's VidShizzle Two-Play.

We assume most folks have seen this first clip, the rather famous Michael Wesch video called "A Vision of Students Today." Wesch teaches at Kansas State and made the video with the involvment of a 200 level Anthro class. It's been posted on YouTube and other video sites since then and has racked up millions of viewers. We get a lot of requests to post it, and do so today:

Another Wesch Vid, "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us."

Silent Sue Pulls a Bartleby, And Yet Another Big Thirsty Is Born.

In 15 years of teaching at the college level almost nothing surprises me anymore -- and yet today I found myself completely stumped.

In an upper-division Methods course today (11 students, all Majors) I handed out two fairly sizable handouts. In the best of all possible worlds they would have had the reading ahead of time but Spring Break logistics interfered. I therefore chose instead to turn it into an "oral" assignment wherein I called on various students to read different passages out loud and then we discussed them. Just about everyone had been called on and dutifully read aloud when called upon.

When it was Sue's turn I said, "Sue, can you pick up with the next paragraph?" Before I even finished the sentence, Sue smiled at me and said "No thanks, I'm good." I was completely thrown. I had never had a response like that. No animosity or anger just a smile and a "no thanks." I said, "You don't want to read . . .?" She smiled again and repeated, "Nope -- I'm good."

As I'm sure my fellow academics out there will empathize, our larger-than-average IQs don't allow us to process these things quickly so I didn't have the wherewithal at the time to question her decision. We continued on with the class and eventually moved from the handouts to some written material on a website, projected in large letters on the screen.

Again, when it was Sue's turn, she smiled and said, "Nope -- I'm good." I know what you're thinking but no -- she has shown absolutely no signs that she has a learning disability. No letters from Disabled Student Services about her dyslexia, ADHD, etc. Her assignments are always in on time and very well written. She's attentive in class and engaged, often offering up important insights on the written material (including today). So far as I know there is no animosity between me and her so I'm 99.999% sure this isn't personal.

Q: Help me RYS -- what gives? Why would a student who seems quite capable and intelligent refuse to read aloud? And -- does she have the right to refuse? What if I'd had the presence of mind to say to her, "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you . . ." ???

A: Send your replies and suggestions here.

"Oh Sid." A Student Seeks Insipiration.

Do I really have to read Brothers Grim? How important is it for the midterm? I don't know. I just can't seem to force myself to even open it. I read most of everything else -- Werther was a struggle, and at times painful and torturous -- but I am happy I forced myself to finish it because at times I was ready to throw it out the window.

It's kinda like working out: before you dread it and try to think of every excuse to get out of it, once you're finished you're glad you did it. It's like when I forced myself to sit through Gone with the Wind; I barely made it through, but when it finally...ended I was like, ok, it's done, I don't have to ever see it again, but I am glad I watch it.

I can't seem to find a reason to read Brothers Grimm other than the fact that because I didn't read it, it's now going to be on every question of the midterm (because it seems like thats how things work out).

I don't blame you for making me read this; I dont think you are personally out to get me. Instead, I blame Hollywood for making me sit through that horrific movie that made me re-think the artistry in cinema. I was actually ready to swear off movies in general. Similar to how a bad relationship can turn you gay, this is what this movie did to me. I also blame my primary school education for dumming down these stories and presenting them in a such a ridiculous manner that I feel they are forever tarnished.

How can I read Journey to the Center of the Earth, (which I am sure is an amazing book) after watching Brendan Frasier frolic like the talentless hack he is through the most uninventive, 3D digitalized joke of cinematography around? It makes the latest Indiana Jones look like Schindlers' List; Brendan Frasier and who ever else contributed to this poor excuse for cinema -- please apologize to Jules Verne and the thousands of people who will now never read her book.

Ok, sorry I am getting off topic. The point for writing this, other than the fact that I have drank way too much coffee and my brain needs a break from reading Whitman (whose religion I have offically converted to), is that I need inspiration to help me open the cover of Brothers Grimm; cause I do honestly fear -- literally fear, the boredom it is going to cause. However, if there is only a of couple questions on the midterm that deal with Brothers Grimm, then I am ready to cut my losses and leave it stranded in a coffee shop for some unlucky patron; or send it to Terry Gilliam (who directed Brothers Grimm) in case he wants to make a sequel.

Come on man, you directed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas... so, I am sure you love nothing better than reading and responding to lengthy emails about absolutely nothing on your weekends (I plead you to Inspire me). As I persumably dismiss whatever insults my soul (tacky movies) so as my very flesh will be a great poem.

Sincerely,

Sid the Student

What We're Called. What it Means.

Dr. Dickhead -- the one who went to school for umpteen years to get those two fucking syllables before his name -- is/could be one of the professors I used to TA for. What he thinks is "generally liked by students" and receiving "high evaluations" are smoke screens to disguise that everyone thinks he is a giant, constipated asshole. People talk all kinds of shit about him behind his back, from my fellow TAs to the freshmen survey to my own advisor, and stunts like the one he is pulling with his name just underscore his douchebaggery -- he's outright delusional to think that he's being "friendly" and should count up the number of students who registered for his class this semester. He wouldn't even need fingers and toes; his own nuts could work, assuming he has a pair.

By the way, his "generous office hours" are void of students, which he neglects to mention, and he should be lucky to be addressed as anything at all resembling his given name, considering he's about to be known as Dr. I-Am-Never-Asked-To-Be-On-Anyone's-Committee-And-People-Aren't-Participating-In-Any-Extracurricular-Activities-I-Am-A-Part-Of-In-Order-To-Avoid-My-Dickheadedness. Similar to the tree falling in the forest ... can you really be a professor if nobody can stand to be around you long enough to call you anything at all?

{*}

Dear Herr Professor Dr. Corcoran, Ph.D.,

I'm glad you enjoy being called "Dr."--so do I. It is nice (sort of) when people over whom we have power show deference (or at least pretend) after we have demanded it. Ya know what's even nicer? When students (or anyone, for that matter) choose to show respect, not because of demands or degrees, but because they deem us respectable (a likely result of us treating them with respect). Calling out "Yeah, Studebaker?" doesn't show much respect. You don't have to lose face if students do not always show respect--just keep acting as if you (and they) are worthy of it. Because you are--and so are they.

But *demanding* respect is undignified. If you can't get it the hard way, then you can't get it at all. Imagine if the Dean demanded to be called "Dean Anus" rather than by his first name ("Tight", presumably)? No one (but for ol' Anus himself) would be fooled. The Dean should earn the respect of the faculty--either that, or just shut his mouth. The faculty should do the same with their students. Yes, even snowflakes.

Sledgehammer Steve Has Cooled Out. Goes After Student Last Week with a Baseball Cap.

In my Critical Thinking class today, a student in the back was not only sleeping, head on desk, but snoring so loudly that I heard him at the front of the room.

The other students in class were beginning to snicker. So I walked up the aisle, still talking, until I got to his desk. I spoke louder, hoping that he would wake up and notice his professor 6 inches away giving a lecture. Nothing.

I took the baseball cap off his head and dope-slapped him with it, telling him to sleep at home. That finally woke him up.

Bonus part: I calculated that given our tuition rates, Rip van Winkle's nap cost him about $6. Plus getting hit in the head. Lord I hope he complains to the admin. I'll be venerated!

And a Little Acronym Shall Lead Us. (And The Finest RYS Graphic Yet, Though We're Not Insecure About that Sort of Thing.)

Reading unintelligible student papers peppered with text-message speak is bad enough, but what's with the new corporate language of the modern uni?

This past week, I spent a full day in a windowless chamber at a "College-wide Mission Reorientation Day" with the deans, dean-lets, and department heads of my college congratulating themselves on their plans for "efficient implementation of ". Lengthy discussions were held debating whether the SOP manual for OBASL developed by the FOE would work here in the FOLA or whether we needed to review the OBTL platform implemented by the FOMed. There was an extended soliloquy delivered by the newest dean-let on the effective leadership of our HOC and CEO who has centralized and clarified the mission of OBASL for delivery by the HODs, FPs, APs, AsPs, and "Rotating Assignments Staff" (aka adjuncts).

Never mind the discussion of creating "effective targeting mechanisms" to reach "rogue students" by ensuring that we work harder to "bring them into the ranks of the exceptional". The highest (lowest?) point of this was the hour and a half lecture delivered discussing the 42 page "Manual of Operations" for "reaffirming the efficiency indicators of the Quantitative Staff Assessment Mechanism (aka Q-SAM) to better comply with the mission-strategic realignment being marshaled through by the CEO of university operations (aka President)".

What's with this? Is anyone else's university undergoing this sort of change? And, while you're at it, could someone please throw me a bone and explain what "Outcomes Based Assessment of Student Learning" or "Outcomes Based Teaching and Learning" actually is? During the whole day, none of the many self-congratulatory speakers bothered to tell us, the mere audience of FPs APs, AsPs or RASs, what the acronyms stand for. But, we all know that our jobs depend on implementing this in exactly the way specified in the Q-SAM, lest we are PCS'd to another base.

Office Hours: A Drama in Five Acts.

The exam is on Thursday. The exam has always been scheduled for Thursday.

My office hours are on Wednesday. They have always been on Wednesday.

I am already trying really hard to accommodate you all by having extra appointments on Monday. If Wednesday doesn't work for you, Monday should.

I teach three TA sections in a row on Tuesday, and then I sit through three hours of lecture. This, too, has also always been the case. I have been known to meet with students on Tuesday when they beg, but I really don't want to do it, especially since I am putting in an extra two hours on Monday.

Yes, I understand that your favorite workout class is during my office hours. But I don't care. You are making a choice to prioritize your gym routine over your grade in my class. Let me say that again, because I know you didn't understand it: you have a choice. You've made it. I'll be in my office if your change your mind.

VidShizzle. "Could Be a Crackhead That Got Hold Ta the Wrong Stuff."

In the Ongoing Fight Against Cheating, One Prof Turns Hattie Hideous For 50 Minutes. Shame.

I gave an exam last week, and as usual, wrote my standard rule on the board: "All hats off or backwards." There are 150 students in the class, and my TA wasn't there to help me proctor - I wanted to see everyone's shining little face. So as I'm circling the class like a vulture, peering down aisles at backpacks, checking for phones, answering the stray question here and there, I pass a girl with her cap still facing forwards. Let's call her, what else, Hattie.

I tap her on the shoulder and pantomime turning her cap around. "Really!? You mean girls too??" Hattie says, horrified.

"Yes, I mean everybody" I reply.

"But I'll look stupid!" she says, pleading with me to let it go. I look around at the entire room bent over their little elbow desks, bubbling determinedly.

"No one will see you today. Turn your hat around or take it off." (Shit, I think to myself, even I wore plaid pants today, knowing nobody would be looking at me for more than a couple minutes before the test, while they desperately ran through their notes for one last minute.)

Hattie explains, "I wouldn't have worn a hat today if I'd known your rule applied to girls!"

"Really, no one is going to see you. Turn your hat around or take it off."

Finally, with a lot of melodramatic sighs, eye-rolls, and martyred shame, she sort of pushed her hat up about half way, turned it to the side so it scrunched up her hair in a weird way, and then held it there with one hand, askew, the whole rest of the exam, casting baleful glances at me periodically.

Up at the front of the room again, I appraised her subsequently way more "homeless trucker" style, when instead she could have taken it off and looked fine, or even turned backwards it might have looked sort of cute and tom-boyish, and I thought to myself, well, yes, now you do look stupid. Good show.

A Plea for a Slowdown From Mid-Career Mike.

I'm rather new to the page, but was ecstatic to have a couple of pieces chosen for publishing. (Oh, I won't whine about the ones that never made it...but they were good, right?)

But as a now faithful reader, I want to make a selfish proposal.

Could y'all slow down a bit?

I don't see the page every day, and when I do I'm racing through 3-4 posts every day. And the shit is good. I love hearing what's going on in the many academic worlds we inhabit.

But I catch up on something that was posted on Monday on Thursday. I send a note about it and am told that the issue is "passed," or "gone cold." Well, sure, you post some replies to it on Tuesday and a slew of new stuff fills up Wednesday and Thursday. (Do people read and reply every damn day? Don't you have advisees???!?!?!?!)

There's TOO much stuff, all of it good, as I've said. But could you drop the postings to 2 a day or something. I think it would increase the quality of the offerings and would great increase this reader's ability to pay attention to all of it.

As it is now, I'm racing to catch up, and not giving each disparate issue enough attention. I know there are 10 more to read, and 3 more tomorrow which I'll miss and have to catch up with on Sunday.

Am I alone on this?

Todd from Trenton Wonders Why Some Teeter on the Edge of the Academy.

The Fall semester after my Dad had a heart attack, I found myself a bit overwhelmed …and unemployed. I had run through my program’s allotted 3-year funding promise (which ignored the fact that few graduated before year 6), so I needed to find something to pay the bills while I tried to continue with my research and exam prep. By fortune’s favor, an e-mail appeared on the departmental listserv requesting an adjunct instructor at Cross-Town U. CTU was a tech-heavy school, but the class was actually in my exact specialty of study. I was perfect for it! So I applied.

After being contacted by the faculty scheduler, we arranged an appointment for my interview. The building was hot as an oven, and when I made an offhand comment about the hot day, I apparently offended my interviewer. Oops. During the course of the interview, I was informed this meeting was simply a formality, that I already had the job, and that I just needed to make the class fun for the students; I could even let them out early if I wanted! Yes, this was at a “respectable” university that many of you have heard of. I smiled, nodded, and then resolved to teach the course seriously, fully expecting my students to do the same. Don’t laugh.

The first day of class went well, but a student approached me with a problem at the end. See, he was finishing his senior project and he needed to skip class the last 4 weeks of the 11-week quarter to finish it. I was stunned, but since I didn’t know the campus culture (other than to “make class fun!”) I told him I’d have to think about it. I eventually told him he’d have to come to every, single 9 a.m. class session for the entire 11 weeks (except for the allowable absences, which amounted to 15% of the term). He was grumpy, but did it.

Several of the students made the semester hell. One student not only performed poorly, but plagiarized on a paper; I reported him to the higher-ups and he proceeded to stalk me for 3 months. Another student claimed her father died, then handed in a plagiarized paper; it killed me to have to turn her in, but I decided not to fail her, a decision I now regret. Another student stole definitions from online for a paper instead of following the instructions and writing them himself. Other students disappeared, never to return. But, despite these problems, there were a bunch of engaged, involved, motivated students (including one dislocated after Katrina) who seemed to appreciate the rigor. Even Mr. Senior Project wrote me a few e-mails thanking me for making him take the course seriously; surprise, surprise, he actually learned something!

But, I wonder, what would have happened if I had dumbed stuff down? I’d still be employed there, for one; CTU made MAJOR use of adjunct labor, with almost 80% of the courses in that department taught by adjuncts. My reports of plagiarism and student malfeasance did not go over well. Apparently, I’m a bit of a troublemaker…despite the A-students thanking me for opening their eyes to stuff they weren’t taught in their hard science courses. But the pressure to “make class fun!” and grade easily was always there.

I also wonder if something similar happened to the OSU TA who had the meltdown. Was she under pressure from some faculty and students to lighten their load? If you read the comments to the linked article, you can see a strand of “Chem is a stupid class” comments from students. How many semesters of that sort of attitude might it take for any of us to break? For me, coupled with other problems, it was 2 years and I‘d had enough.

I miss teaching. I miss engaging the students who are capable of being taught, who WANT to learn. I miss seeing that light-bulb moment when they get it, like the young Fashion Design major who totally got that complicated sociological phenomenon and revealed it, hesitantly, to the rest of the class with the best example I had ever heard. How many of us are 3 crazy students away from unemployment?

Well, If You ARE Going to Use Your Proffie's Research, At Least Cite That Shit!

You ask, "Do professors like it when you use them as a reference or should I avoid it?"

Just don't do what one of my students did last year -- he plagiarized a paper of mine. And when I say "plagiarized," I mean "inserted several consecutive sentences from a paper of mine, complete with citations to its references, right in the middle of the term paper he handed in to me, after I had repeatedly lectured them on the evils of plagiarism and given them handouts explaining the subject completely." It was one of the most spectacular achievements I've ever seen at Euphoric State (and that was the semester I had another student whose plagiarism was made evident by the fact that her text included a citation of a paper written in 1954, published in a Soviet journal, in Russian. . .)

Aside from that. . . I would think the danger of using your professor's work as a reference in something he's going to grade has little to do with ego-boosting. It's the fact that the prof knows his own work better than anyone else's, and may be exquisitely sensitive to any sign that you're not interpreting his work in the way that he meant it. You might misunderstand his work. Or you might understand it fine, but not know the subtle hermeneutical nuances of meaning that exist more in the prof's mind than in the words on the page. What you get out of the paper might not be what the prof put into it, or thought he was putting into it. So be careful -- but I see no reason to cite, or not to cite, your prof's work just because his ego might be stroked.

One of Our Favorites - Whiner or Not! - Richmond Ruby Gets A Little Smackdown.

Whenever I read stories about grad students whining about their low pay, I get a migraine.

You were a graduate student — get it? *Student*. You aren’t supposed to make much more than a living wage as a grad student, otherwise people would stay grad students forever--which I’ve seen.

Yes, it sure does sound like your alma mater is cheap as hell, but guess what? You *chose* to go there. I could have gone to a top-tier university for grad school as well. However I actually thought about the package they offered me to go there. My salary the first year would have been great but it was only for one year and I didn’t think I could live very well on the normal stipend given where the university was located.

So I chose a second-tier place where they pay was adequate. Even then I had to take out a loan (by the way, that’s another option for students — even grad students) towards the end. You apparently chose pedigree over a living wage and then you bitched about your choice once you were there.

By the way—you were in the sciences and had the time to be on one of those useless, whiny grad student government organizations? How unsurprising.

{*}

I have very little tolerance for academics complaining about the life they chose. Just what did you people think about grad school and "the system" that lead to you calling it a "bait and switch"?

When I accepted an offer I knew that I would have to take some classes, teach for a couple of semesters, find an advisor with funding and/or get outside fellowships if I didn't want to teach more, do quals and prelims, and then do research for a few years and write a dissertation.

Turns out that that's what I had to do. Go figure.

How did I know all this? I kept my eyes open during college and asked questions when applying to grad school.

Same thing for finances -- when I wanted to know what the stipend would be (before getting an offer), I checked the department's Web site, where they usually said explicitly, or asked. When I wanted to know how much I'd have to pay in fees, I checked the university's Web site or asked. And I chose to go to a school that paid me enough to have my own nice apartment (and an even nicer one upon marrying a fellow grad student), to live a comfortable lifestyle, to save for retirement, and to travel extensively when I felt like it.

My point in all this is not to tell the complainers how much smarter I am, it's to say that if you commit yourself to six to eight years of grad school without finding out the most basic things about how your life is going to be, and if you come through undergrad without having figured out that the academic life isn't about sitting around smoking pipes, sipping lattes, and discussing your brilliant ideas with your fellow intellectual giants, then it's your own goddamn fault.

Dr. Corcoran from Corpus Christi on Another Variation of the Name Game. (Personally, We're Just Glad Not to Be Called 'Dickhead.')

Somehow, some of my students think it's cool to call me by my last name only. It started about two years ago. I took aside the student who seemed to be the instigator, and told her to pass the word that I prefer to be addressed as "Dr. Corcoran."

It stopped for awhile, but has picked up again. Yesterday, while preparing for a major assignment, a student called out, "Hey, Corcoran!" I walked over to where she was seated, calling out while I walked, "Yeah, Studebaker?"

"My name is Sally," she said.

"Well, my name is Dr. Corcoran," I replied.

"Yeah," she said, with a sneer. "Oh," she added, when she saw the hard look I gave her.

I am generally liked by my students, and get high evaluations. I am friendly and keep generous office hours. But I don't pal around with them, and keep a professional distance from them. I probably didn't work fast enough to nip this latest example of disrespect in the bud, but after yesterday's incident, I've had it.

There Are No Small Roles.

Scene: A small, windowless room. Two tables, placed end-to-end, dominate the room, surrounding by two rings of chairs, one set under the tables, the other against the wall. A feeling of enclosed oppression fills the space.

Three figures enter. The gray-haired Monsieur Bombastic Asshole [henceforth MBA] leads Mademoiselle Lazy Ass [henceforth MLA] and Moi Aussi [henceforth MA] into the room. MBA and MLA sit on one long side of the tables facing MA; Mademoiselle Jackass [henceforth MJ] does not appear on stage. The initials of every instructor mentioned match the degrees we have.

MBA: I want you to know, MA, that we’re all teachers in this room. We do not intend to criticize your teaching, but rather to adjudicate these grade grievances from disgruntled students. We’ve already met with another colleague, MJ, but we need to meet with you to finalize everything.

MA:

Did you hear that? Three other instructors met to discuss these grievances without even asking me to supply my side of the events. But they respect my classroom authority, right? He said so!

MBA: We had some questions about your syllabus…

MA:

My syllabus? Did the students complain about the classroom policies? Nothing in there is all that strange… In fact, most of it parallels what I later found on the “Being an Excellent Student” web-page provided by the Uni. Well, there was the one aggrieved party who apparently thought my “No assignments will be accepted after the last day of classes” policy was horribly unfair, but how can my peers and colleagues?

MA: Sure… What’s would you like to discuss?

MBA: Well, we were wondering why you had this whole page devoted to “Professional Behavior.” Don’t you think you’re treating them like children?

MA: Um…well, many of my students complain they didn’t know those things were expected from them. I got tired of the complaints, so a colleague and I made tha page for all our syllabi. Department Chair really liked it. Didn’t you get a copy at the last meeting?

MA:

…that I was not invited to attend.

MBA: Well, it belittles the students. They’re not children. MJ really thought you needed to lighten up. We all agreed your policies were a little harsh.

MA: How is expecting students to act professionally harsh?

MLA: *Sigh*

MBA: Well, there’s this… You expect student to take notes. Don’t you think it’s unfair to force them to take notes?

MA: I get complaints all the time from students who claim they didn’t know they were supposed to take notes. Or students who claim they didn’t know something I spent two days going over. When I ask them to show me their notes, they usually have none.

MBA: But that’s their problem! You can’t make them do it! If they don’t take notes, they get bad grades. It’s their choice.

MA:

And then they file grad grievances and I get called into meetings like this one.

MBA: And this! You tell them things like they’re supposed to show up on time, not sleep in class… Are you saying you never slept in class? I know I did.

MA: Uh…no, I never slept in class. And neither did any of my friends. I’ve asked. If we had a small class that we cared about, we paid attention and didn’t blame the prof if we missed something.

MBA: And this! You actually expect them to turn off their cell phones? I’ve been in meetings where all people did was use their cell phones.

MA:

And he thinks that was professional.

MLA: I really need go soon. Can we talk about the actual grievances now?

MBA: Let’s look at Aggrieved Student #1. He wants a C. Why didn’t he get a C?

MA: Well, I looked over his final paper, and I have found a way to bump up his grade. He didn’t earn the points, but this will appease him.

MBA: Let’s discuss his case!

Fast-forward past protracted discussion of how the student slept in class, asked what chapters he was supposed to read every week (instead of check his syllabus), wrote crappy papers, and was in general a lazy-ass loser that both MBA and MLA had in their classes …and apparently liked. He didn’t earn a C, but got one anyway.

MBA: Now for Aggrieved Student #2, she claims she contacted you and was given permission to skip class to attend a political rally.

MA: No! Here’s the e-mail. All she did was say she was missing class. She doesn’t even mention the paper. I didn’t even read the e-mail until after class was already over!

MBA: Whoa! Calm down! There’s no need to get upset!

MA: But she’s lying if she says I gave her permission. She e-mailed me at around midnight the morning of the last day of classes I didn’t even get the e-mail until the afternoon. She missed a quiz, failed to hand in her final paper, and had been doing borderline work all semester. She earned a D for the course.

MLA: But missing class to attend political rally is an acceptable excuse!

MA: No, it isn’t. It was the last day of classes. She was missing a quiz and a paper deadline. She didn’t make any arrangements to hand in the VERY EASY assignment early. And she didn’t ask a friend to drop it off. She’d missed about 10% of the classes that semester, including three other quizzes.

MBA: Well, I have a copy of her paper here. What grade did she get on it?

MA: I didn’t accept it. She tried to hand it to me when she took the final exam, but I refused to take it. It was late. No one else tried to hand a paper in late. I had to give several zeroes because they blew it off. As it was, I had to grade the exams, compute final grades, and then submit them within 2 hours afterwards. I didn’t have time to grade late papers.

MBA: But she didn’t blow it off. Here it is! You really need to lighten up…

MA: It was due the last day of classes. She didn’t hand it in.

MLA: But that was an excused absence.

MA: Not for me.

MLA: But I think missing class for a political rally is a reasonable excuse.

MA: Not if you’ve missed a bunch of classes already.

MLA: She has a note from the person who took her to the rally!

MA:

Why are they bending over backwards for this idiot?

MBA: You really need to lighten up and grade this paper.

MA: Wha-huh?

MBA: Let’s take a vote and see if we all agree she deserves to have her paper graded!

MA:

A vote…?

Epilogue: Two undergrads were given grades they hadn’t earned. These two “professors” have VAP positions at the school where I was adjuncting while trying to earn a Ph.D. The Uni has a well-earned, very BAD rep for graduating ignorant, illiterate, and incompetent undergrads, some of whom managed to scrape by with Cs using the exact same strategies illustrated above. All of the department chairs know this, but I doubt anyone tells them what goes on in grade grievance meetings. I still have flashbacks to this frankly humiliating meeting.

On Professionalism and Standards. Some Replies to Our Recent Big Thirsty.

It's hard to enforce high standards, or even medium-high standards. I've had non-stop trouble with this ever since I started teaching 10 years ago. Of course, I see discipline as essential, not just for my students' future employability, but also for my own sanity, not to mention my time available for other obligations, such as doing research.

Modern students do resent discipline, no doubt because they've had so little of it. It helps for you to present a professional image: dress nicely, don't swear, always come to class well prepared, learn names, and try to show how much you do care about students. Don't be like a drill sergeant: many modern students have had so little discipline, they won't know enough to be afraid if you yell at them. It's essential that -everything- you expect of the students be spelled out in detail in your syllabus.

It's also essential that you have higher-ups that support you. This is the tough one: now that I'm department chair, I know I do a much better job than those jagoffs who caved in every time I needed them. Even so, our Incompetent Dean of Students is scandalously easygoing with cheating and plagiarism, much to the dismay of our junior faculty: I make it a point to tell them, "I'm sorry," when he does this.

[*]

I know it's not the final word or final authority, but a note in the syllabus might help. Tell the little birds up front what your expectations are regarding how work is to be submitted. It's akin to telling them that you won't accept anything late, or that late work will receive a penalty, or that nothing is to be handwritten, or that nothing is to be submitted by email (or on paper, for some profs). Then have them sign a 'contract' saying that they have read the syllabus in its entirety & understand it.

The trick is set a policy and then keep it. That might help too. Opening any negotiations furthers the problem. Some things are necessarily non-negotiable. I don't allow students to have their moms write their papers. I don't allow them to turn in papers penned on bar napkins. They can't send a friend to take an exam in their stead. I also don't chat about grades or paper problems at the end of the class in which I return the papers (a three-second response to a grade is hardly rational and will only lead to problems). Some things are NOT negotiable. Don't negotiate. Be reasonable, but.... Having some expectations is important - not just for deadline-keeping or 'real-world expectations' but also because of basic respect. You clarify your expectations and they follow them because of basic kindness and respect. That's good stuff to encourage for all humans who will have to live together in some manner of society.

If you have any doubts about your policies, try asking either a campus ombudsman or the chair or a dean: 'I want to set a policy that . Is this permissible according to campus standards?' Or tell your chair in advance, 'I will be setting this policy, fyi.' Then you've covered the bases ahead of time. Maybe that's insane advice but it might help.

[*]

Your Big Giant Heads should be dragged out of their chairs and shot. Firstof all, you don't get to submit a handwritten or streaky tenure file tothem, right? Second of all, a syllabus is a contract. You read it, youstay enrolled, you consent to its terms. The BGH squad wouldn't ask you tobe a little less draconian about asking your students to do the reading orshow up for the exam, now, would they? Would they? WOULD they? Uh-oh, Ifeel a touch of the vapors coming on....

On Deaf Students and American Sign Language.

We received a number of informative emails in response to a recent post about deaf students and American Sign Language. They mostly covered the same notions, so we've just chosen a few to post below:

I just wanted to drop a comment on that story about the deaf student. I'm deaf myself and in grad school and such, but I can probably offer some insight into why the student wrote like she did. I think the student's first language is ASL (American Sign Language), which has a completely different grammar and syntax structure. If I signed the English sentence the student wrote, that's actually correct in ASL. For deaf students who have ASL as a first language, you really have to look at them like English as a Second Language students. It's not that they're illiterate, it's that they don't have the English skills. I'm not saying that should be an excuse, but I'm pretty sure that's the reason behind it. The deaf students who the person had before probably had English as their first language, like myself. So yes, it kind of is an ADA violation to tell the student she has to drop the course. She needs assistance, yes, but there's a reason she writes like she does and it's not because she's unintelligent. She's just using a different language. MANY deaf people struggle with that same issue and it's a big reason there's not many deaf students at the university and postgraduate levels. Most deaf students end up at Gallaudet University, which is a deaf school, because they can communicate in their native language there. It just bugged me when I read the story. I know the teacher probably just didn't understand what was happening in the situation, not that the deaf person is an idiot.

[*]

Your student probably can put coherent thoughts and sentences together -- in ASL. ASL is a distinct language with its own grammar, not simply a form of English transmitted with a lot of gesticulation. Accordingly, for an ASL speaker, writing down what she thought through by bouncing it off another ASL speaker (let's say) is an act of linguistic translation, not transcription. Try the equivalent some time with your second language.

Not AT ALL to excuse the people who've passed this kid on without helping her develop her writing skills, but rein it in there before you assume that she is intellectually deficient. You wouldn't think a native Chinese speaker was stupid just based on his grammatical errors in written English, and some deaf students are essentially ESL students. This isn't my field at all, but I'm starting to think that everyone who teaches needs some orientation about disabilities. We get the "you must accommodate" message, but plenty of people really have no idea what ADD and dyslexia and hearing impairment really are, practically speaking.

[*]

I have never felt so helpless as the time, a few years back, I was teaching a night course in English composition. In walked a deaf student with two sign language interpreters from our student accomodations office. No problem, I thought. She'll get the assistance she needs, and the deaf, of course, would have to be more attuned to the written word that the spoken one.

Well, was I wrong. I'd dealt with hearing disabled students before with adequate results. But she was totally deaf. Her papers were, as you described--totally incomprehensible word salads, as if she'd dropped a dictionary and the words fell off the page and got tossed with some punctuation as croutons.

I spoke to the interpreters and learned that AMSLAN has a syntax completely unlike English and her struggles were common (Helen Keller notwithstanding). Her deafness combined with merely an average intellect told me she stood no chance of ever succeeding at a college level in a semester. It was more like dealing with an ESL student.

She seemed nice enough: concerned, willing to work, participate, and seek help. But I was at a loss. I'm a poor liar, and there was no way I could say any of her work was passing.

She ended up dropping the course, though I saw her recently at the registration desk. So, admirably, she continues to toil away. Here's the thing, though: For my three-hour class, she required two decently-paid interpreters because AMSLAN is exhausting and they had to tag-team. So be it, if it works. As a taxpayer paying to support those services, I think they're just fine. But someone had to see that, at least at the stage of this student's learning, she would fail. You don't need an English teacher to tell you that "Hat gorilla coat painting bye-bye, gone happy" isn't a college student's sentence. Where was the triage?

I don't have an answer for you, only a shared experience. In both cases, it was an injustice to knowingly allow these students to enroll in the first place.

Chicago Charlie Returns With Good Career News and the Most Vile "Parable" We've Ever Heard. Remove Any Children From the Room.

Chicago Charlie here. You may remember my dispirited post from last August. I decided it was about time to write again. You see, RYS readers, I have a sentiment residing deep in my heart that I want to say, and it's this: "Fuck you!" I got gang-banged last time I posted on this site for being completely burned out at age twenty and change (any of you ever teach 4/4 for less than $20k and no health insurance while the medical bills pile up and the blank stares on snowflakes and snowprofs alike appear to you like the Ghosts of Grad Schools past?). Well, the joke's on you now!

You know who has two thumbs and is tenure track? Guess, just guess... no, not you. You're still an adjunct, unless you've been laid off... Try again. Yep, you got it! This guy! And at the best university in the country no less. I won't tell you which country, but I will tell you that (a) its not the US -- mediocre students who have been serving as mediocre adjuncts with degrees from mediocre schools getting recommendations from snowprofs who should have retired aeons ago don't get jobs in the US, especially when the only publication they have is aforementioned RYS post -- and (b) that country is one in which many of its leaders past and present stood trial or are currently standing trial for everybody's favorite crime against humanity, genocide.

Bear with me for another moment, if you would. My brother used to tell me his favorite parable from the New Testament whenever I was in a bad mood, and I'd like to share it with you (the streets here are not safe after... well, they're never safe, really, so I have plenty of time to write long emails... and god bless whoever invented Skype...). Okay, the parable: a guy is walking on the beach when he sees a woman with no arms, who says to him, "I am so ugly, no one wants to kiss me, would you?" He says sure. Next day, same walk, same beach, same girl, only now she has one leg. "I am so ugly, no one wants to eat my pussy, would you?" Nice guy that he is, he agrees. Next day, same walk, same beach, but now she has no arms and no legs. "I am so ugly, no one wants to fuck me. Would you?" He thinks it over, says, "sure," picks her up, chucks her into the ocean, and as the tide carries her out to sea, he yells, "Now you're fucked!"

So, dear RYS readers (and really, how can I stay mad at you, when your posts are the best part of my day... well maybe second only to the realization that I now live in a country with no minimum age for sexual consent... well, maybe third, because this country also has plenty of pharmacological pleasures which do not require a prescription...), let me post a question to you: which one of us is the man on the beach, which the woman in the ocean?

O! cushy 2-2 TT job in non-racist US city with health insurance and spousal hiring policy (she remains an adjunct in one of the worst colleges in one of America's many festering metrolpoloi)! Will you ever be my Valentine???

And, more to the point, why did I have to get a degree during the Second Great Depression? And when will it end so I can come home again? Did I ask for too much? All I ever wanted was to follow in the footsteps of my own beloved profs at my elite liberal arts college in a city where the sun always shines: read and discuss literature with bright and enthusiastic young people (two or three days a week, not during winter or summer or during a conference for which the university so generously pays, and definitely not before ten am, and also definitely not after noon on Friday), write poetry and novels and paint and sculpt and make love to my fiancee in my leisure time, and make six figures and get to be a big shot doing it. They all made it look so easy, and they were all so encouraging too when I asked them where I could sign up...

Gang-bang that. And, as we say here, "mirupafshem mother fuckers!"

And anybody know where a brother can find some toilet paper up in here?

Trish from Titusville Is Tapped Out.

My career in academia has bankrupted me.

After 4 years of graduate school, I had some serious student loan debt, but the future still looked bright. I found a great job working as an instructor in a collegial, supportive department at a university whose students I adore, in a part of the country I love, and was regularly handed upper-division courses to teach as part of my 4/4.

Sure, I earned so little that my student loans were in economic hardship deferral from day one, but this was an inventment in my future!

Sure, I lived in such an expensive part of the country that I was forced to live in cramped apartments with ancient appliances and keep drumming life out of my now-14-year-old everything’s-wrong-with-it-and-it-don’t-look-nice-neither car, but investment, friend, investment!

Sure, even given the deferral and the cheap living I still couldn’t quite live on what I earned, and I went a few thousand dollars deeper into credit card debt with each year that passed, but as soon as that t-t job (hopefully in a cheaper part of the country!) came through, I’d pay it all off and start building equity somewhere!

Investment, I say!

So I spent three years getting experience teaching and publishing before picking just the most perfect year to go out and look for a job in academia: 08-09, the year of hell. Barely any jobs in my field were on offer; of those I applied to, half were canceled before the interview stage. But then, at the last minute, I received a call: come to the MLA! Is it worth going to MLA for just one interview? I decided in the end it must be, and in a way it was: I booked my last-minute travel plans, bought interview clothes, went, did great, got called for a flyback, and, after dancing the dance of Snoopy happiness, checked my finances. I’m used to being broke, but I’d never been maxed out before. Maxed out. All my credit cards (4 of them) maxed out at about what I earn in a year. Actually a little more than what I earn in a year.

Suddenly I realize I’ve bet the house: if I get the job, I’ll be fine. But if I don’t get the job, I’m bankrupt. I can’t afford to pay my bills. And if I’m back on the job market next year, I have no more credit for plane tickets and hotels – I’ll have to start saving for that now. Suddenly all this “investing” I’ve been doing looks like nothing more than an increasingly deep hole I’ve been digging for myself. Again, I’m doing great work: I’m publishing admirably and teaching great classes, well – I even got invited to sit on a MFA student’s thesis committee, which is unprecedented for a mere instructor! But none of that seems to matter right now, as I find my eyes lingering on the roadside billboards of local bankruptcy attorneys.

I finally got the call: I didn’t get the job. From a professional standpoint I fully understand, and I’m honored to have even been in the running, especially given how competitive things were this year. But now that the dust has settled, one thing has become incredibly clear: my career has bankrupted me. And that's affected me.

Lately I’m having trouble connecting with my students. I feel like my classes are a joke. I haven’t been able to write. I’m demoralized. I’m degraded. I do good work in the classroom and valuable work in my field, but I feel like that doesn’t matter. I’m a broke-ass about-to-go-bankrupt nobody who’s just punching in and collecting a meager paycheck, grateful for my health benefits but scared of losing them. I need to break out of this funk if I’m going to make it, and I will, dammit. I think. But the economy still stinks and next year doesn’t look any better.

Anyone thinking about teaching in the humanities, beware.

Where We Revisit Earnest Ernestine.

But here's the thing: I find every in my program to be, to put it lightly, not that bright. Or to put it not that lightly...incompetent.
From RYS - 3/7/2009

Dearest Ernestine,

I am going to look past the multiple grammatical errors in your post to its content. Listen, my child: every entering graduate student thinks that he or she is the smartest person in a program that is probably beneath them. Everyone, that is, except the smaller percentage who are stark raving terrified and think the program must have made a mistake in admitting them. And guess who are most successful? Usually it's the latter. The former become the bane of faculty existence, and if the attitude continues beyond the first semester we roll our eyes about them in department meetings, ask the staff not to assign them as our TAs, don't offer them graduate research assistantships, and write recommendations full of red flags.

Pause, just for a minute, and consider that these highly trained experts in the field are aware that they might have a student or two who was not born with an academic silver spoon in her mouth but is wicked smart, and are therefore erring on the side of over-explanation at the beginning of things. Step back, a bit, and consider that contributing to the re-education of America sometimes means finding your students exactly where they are and bringing them forward.

Also consider this: in a Ph.D. granting institution, M.A. programs are cash cows and lots of quirky or less prepared candidates are admitted, because their tuition funds the Ph.D. students. Given your rather awkward writing, I am wondering if perhaps you are one of them after all.

[*]

Welcome to grad school! During my first stint of grad school in the mid-1990s, I was a starry-eyed rube who accepted enrollment in a straight-to-the-Ph.D. program that tossed you an M.A. if they didn't like you (although they'd destroy your confidence in the process...gotta love academic hazing). I was placed in direct competition with people who had earned their M.A.s at respected schools from all around the country. My ignorance at the time with just my little B.A. still stuns me, but no where near as much as the program's complete lack of desire to aid me in competing at the same level as my peers. But then I started to notice that the Phi Beta Kappa, cum laude, Golden Star Children in my cohort were a bit behind the ball when it came to some rather basic skills I excelled at, which included conducting library research and compiling bibliographies. The program had an affiliated librarian who guided us through the then-new online resources, and he piled extra work on us that we were supposed to be graded on (but weren't). It was very rewarding for me, and probably the only thing I took with me from that useless waste of an experience to my next program.

The next program? FULL OF IDIOTS. The courses usually had two sorts of students enrolled: the M.A. students who were getting the degree for professional credentialization (and higher income) and those of us in the doctoral program. The M.A. students were notoriously anti-intellectual. They often scoffed at the directive to do an exhaustive lit review for one of the core classes. They bitched and whined about the reading load and the lack of a book to buy for the course (as if reading copies of the original, classic research was somehow bad). And many of my M.A. "friends" revealed a complete lack of ability to compile a bibliography and use a proper citation style (like MLA or APA or Chicago). One remarkable young scholar always complained about her inability to access a certain academic journal that held every article she needed for her research. Imagine my surprise when our department librarian told her, unblinkingly, that she had the entire series right there in the department, and even the University library catalog would have told her so (if she had bothered to even look).

Now, this whole situation might be laughable if for the fact that, since my field has a strong professional track in addition to an academic track, recent hires at my R1 institution have all been former professionals. But, upon looking at their degrees, many of them have a B.A. in the right field but then topped it off with an MBA or Management Master's degree or even a Master's in Liberal Arts. In short, these new tenure-stream professors (with offices and full benefits) lack the academic credentials to bolster their apparently impressive professional experience. This irritates me because many of us were specifically told to focus on our schooling in lieu of getting professional experience so that we would still be seen as serious research scholars worthy of TT jobs. So, while my peers and I were slaving away teaching socially retarded undergrads for the equivalent of minimum wage, our contemporaries were out making three or four times as much money, with benefits and job security, and then able to jump onto the academic gravy train when they got tired, fired, or whatever.

The moral of this story: Ernestine, your friends are right about the M.A. being the new B.A. Along with your apparently very profitable career, you need this degree to stay viable. But, you have the perk of being able to look on this as a bit of a lark. Someone else is paying for all or most of it thanks to your scholarship/ tuition reimbursement combo! Ignore the dullards, and beware their sycophantic tendency to ask you for help. One of my grad school friends had problems doing his own research so usually called 5 of his friends for help with little pieces; it wasnt until we started comparing notes that we realized Perry the Parasite got each of us to help (meaning, do it for him!) with a piece of his research--some people even sent him their bibliographies just to be helpful! Being helpful is fine...and collegial. But collegiality doesn't mean being a sucker. So, keep your head down, do the work, network, get your degree, and see what happens next.

The downward trend started a long time ago, and I don't see any way of stopping it now.

We Always Thought the Lab Work in Chem Class Was Optional Anyway.

Chemistry TA fired
Ohio State U Lantern
by: Gina Ferrentino

An Ohio State chemistry teaching assistant told the students in her lab last month that she didn't want to be there, was going to give them good grades and that they could cheat on their assignments.

Beginning in early February, in week five of the quarter, students in a lab section of chemistry 122 were introduced to their new TA, Melissa Stredney. The previous assistant had gotten ill.

Professor Rosemary Bartoszek-Loza, lecturer for the class, and professor Robert Tatz, director of the course, introduced Stredney.

Loza said she had worked with Stredney before and had a lot of faith in her to run the students' lab section, according to people familiar with the situation who asked to remain anonymous.

It was shortly after Melissa "Missie" Stredney's first lab section that her unusual behavior began.

She told them during the first lab that she hated being there, sources said.

She told the class that "what they wrote on the lab write-ups was irrelevant, and that they could write funny stories at the end of the lab reports and it would not matter," a source said.

The following week, on Feb. 10, Stredney entered the lab and told the students, who had already set up the lab, that she wanted to go home because she was sick.

Before leaving lab, Stredney told the class exactly what to write on their lab reports and said it was unnecessary to turn in any graphs for the data.

The rest of the article.

We Have No Doubt He's Your Favorite Proffie, But Calling Him a "Fat, Santa Claus-Looking Motherfucker" Sort of Ruins the Whole Sentiment. VidShiz!

Just a Little Old School-Styled Smack.

J: Yes I dropped you for not taking the exam, and no, I don't find the fact that you need the class to keep your insurance a compelling reason to let you back in.

C: Yes, I am treating you fairly. My "late PAPERS are accepted for half credit" policy only applies to PAPERS. Exams are not PAPERS.

T: So you lost your basketball scholarship at upstate U and are now coming down to slum with us, and that's why I should let you into my full late-start class? Do you really think I want a known failure in my class and I would go out of my way to let one in. I mean, normally I can't do anything about it, but in this case I do. Kick rocks.

J: Remember at the beginning of the semester you came to my office and begged, literally begged, to be let into my classes which had already started and were full. I got you into another section of lecture, and my lab section, you were so happy and grateful you almost cried! Remember how I spent hours upon hours with you helping you with the material, trying to boost your confidence, smoothing over your fears? Remember how I went WAY out of my way to help you at every turn? Thanks for dropping without even a word. I enjoy being slapped in the face. Thanks. But unlike you, I CAN learn, and so I won't be making this mistake again.

A, A and M: Why are you still here? The three of you often snicker and pass notes while I lecture, which explains why you have all consistently earned the lowest scores on every assignment. This is high school sweeties, you will fail this class and the fact that you've been here every day won't get you that B.

More on Grad Student Poverty From Richmond Ruby.

Ah, grad student poverty. One of my favorite topics.

When I was a member of my school's grad student government, we tried a passive-aggressive tactic to impress upon the Deans the inadequacy of graduate stipends. At the time--and this was just a couple years ago--the "University-Stated Minimum" was $12,000/year, which was just $100/month too high for grad students to qualify for food stamps and welfare.

However, the term "Minimum" was misleading. It merely meant "the minimum that any NEW grad student could be paid." Existing grad students were allowed to retain the unraised stipends they started out with, some as low as $8000/year. These students did qualify for food stamps and welfare.

I should point out that this was a fairly prestigious, extremely wealthy private research university--the kind that's wealthy as a mofo when it's convenient to be wealthy ("Billion-dollar construction project? Sure!") and poor when it's convenient to be poor ("But we haven't the funds to pay a living wage! Sorry!").

So a grad student government posse approached a dean and said, "Could you help show us how to get on welfare? A lot of grad students qualify." We hoped the dean would be outraged that grad students at this fine institution were being paid so poorly (when our University President was making $1.6 million/year, the highest salary of any University President in the country--oops, hope I didn't destroy my anonymity). Instead, the dean brightened and said, "Sure! We can set up a website with links to information about welfare and food stamps. No problem!"

I was fortunate enough to be in the sciences, making enough to barely live on. I don't know how the Anthro grad students lived on $8000/year, but I do know why they took a decade to graduate. Gotta get a part-time job or two. Either that, or live in a box.

A Big Thirsty on Professionalism And the Little Shits Who Won't Follow Any Guidelines.

A recent post dealt with students’ penchant for submitting their drafts, unbidden, via e-mail—I have this problem, too, and others: no staple, streaky or faded ink, handwritten drafts, etc. I tend to think all of these issues stem from a general lack of professionalism. Students don’t know what’s expected of them, or have been led to think less is expected of them, or something. In the past, I’ve done things like refuse to grade past page one (in the case of the missing staple) or ignoring a draft that comes in via e-mail—stuff that basically amounts to operant conditioning, or a reciprocal lack of respect.

Q: My question: is there any kind of consensus about the appropriateness of this kind of “discipline”? In my experience, modern students tend to resent it and rebel all the harder—the last time I refused to take a paper because it was late, handwritten, and unaccompanied by the required, supporting documents (revision statement, rough draft), I ended up in a seemingly endless power struggle that involved several meetings with Big Giant Heads in my department. Throughout the process, said BGHes implied that while they would back me up (everything was on the syllabus), I was being a little unreasonable, draconian, and/or pointlessly strict about this stuff. My argument was that since an improperly formatted résumé or cover letter isn’t going to make it past the circular file, I’m actually doing my students a favor by “teaching” them to do shit the way the person in authority wants shit done. After that trauma, I’m not so sure.

A: Send replies here.

Ooooh, We Love It When You Send In Little Play-lets. A Drama For All Those Kids Who Leave the 100 courses For Their Senior Year.

"I'm getting an 'F' in my last semester...and it's in a 100-level course."

- From the March 9 Vidshizzle

Let's play out two scenes from her past that got our video starlet to this low state. Join me in the Way-Back machine as we journey four years into the past to this National Merit Scholar's meeting with an advisor before her first semester:

Well Meaning Advisor: "You've got some good course picked out but you need to go ahead and take the ONE Math course required for your major now. The longer you wait the more you'll regret it later. Math isn't something you do 'every day' so the longer you put it off the more you'll forget (of what little you actually gleaned from high school)."

National Merit Scholar: "But like, I don't like Math. Do I have to? I just want, like, a break from it."

WMA: "I'm telling you; the longer you wait the tougher it's going to be."

NMS: "Hmm. I don't think any of the Math courses will fit into my schedule because I really need to take 'Intro to This' with Kimberly this semester. We went to high school together, you know?"

WMA: "There's other times available for Math. Look. Here's one that fits right between 'Intro to This' and 'General That.'"

NMS: "Umm. That won't work. I have something else to do then. I'll take Math next semester. Really. I promise."

WMA: "I can't make you take Math this semester, but you need to know you'll have to have it. I strongly recommend getting it out of the way."

NMS: "Nah. This being my first semester, I don't want anything too hard."

WMA: "Just know that you'll have to have it eventually."

NMS: "Oh, I know. I also know I can do Math but I just don't want to this semester."

WMA: "Don't wait until you're about to graduate to take Math. I've seen it happen too often that a NMS such as yourself will put off Math until their last semester and end up struggling in it or even failing it."

NMS: "I won't wait. I'll do it just as soon as I can fit into my schedule."

Back into the Way-Back machine and we head back to the future, but not all the way back- just to the registration period before her last semester. NMS is now going over her degree plan with a Faculty Advisor:

Facult Advisor: "Everything seems to be in order, Former National Merit Scholar now Fair-to-Middling College Student, except you need a Math course to complete all your degree requirements."

FNMSnFMCS: "Math?! No one told me I needed Math! I haven't done in Math since high school. At least it's a freshman level course so it'll be a blow-off since I hate Math anyway."

FNMSnFMCS leaves.

FA: "Those dirty, well-meaning advisors. Why don't they tell students they need Math their first semester? They sure aren't doing them any favors over there."

And... scene.

How To Deal With a Professor's Vanity & Research. Some Quick Replies to our Early Thirsty.

• Yummy question. I have one obscure book in my field and every semester some diligent digger of a student quotes about 30 passages from it, and then 6 words from the HEAVY HITTER IN THE DISCIPLINE. God it makes me feel good...then I give the student a D because he or she did such lousy research.


• Definitely use him as a source. Do the math. See how much he's contributed in relation and use him as a source proportionately so.


• Definitely don't cite the professor, but realize you're in a no-win situation. Do a LOT of research and cover the field. Nothing's worse than being thought of as a brown-noser.


• Oh, the key question is do professors "like it" when they're cited. Of course we like it. But we don't like you because we know you're an ass kisser.


• Well, unless your proffie is one of the acknowledged experts in the field, it's best to stay away from the minefield. What if you quote a section of his book he doesn't approve of? Do more research.


• I like it when students read my work, but when they give me an essay loaded with my own ideas - some 30 years old and since disproven - I know they're bucking for an easy grade. The penalties are severe.


• Are you really that much of a dumbass? Professors are usually scholars first, teachers second. Your prof is an EXPERT on that subject...even you acknowledge it. Stop being a retard and cite him or her as the expert he or she is!If you're really uncomfortable, then read the stuff, make an appointment, and go talk to the prof about how much or how little he or she feels you should cite the work.Citing an expert is not brown-nosing, even if it is the prof grading you. You're not in high school any more.


• If he's a leading expert in the field, you'll have to cite his work.If he's written a smaller piece that supports a point you want tomake, again, you'll have to cite it. However, if his work isn'tdirectly related to your argument, or if the point is made betterelsewhere, don't cite him. In other words, make your decision basedon content, not authorship.


• Don't cite him if: a) you never want to work with him again; b) you want him to think you're an idiot; c) you want to insult his life's work; d) you want him to find a reason to pass you off to his worst enemy to advise you; e) you think a recommendation from him will doom your chances for a job. Otherwise, you'd best cite EVERY book he's written on the subject, and his latest articles, and, if you can figure it out, his academic heroes' books and articles. Trust RYS, he's not one of the very few modest profs who doesn't enjoy the ritual academic ass-kissing to which he is entitled from having "written a great deal on the subject."

"Please Stop Sending This Video To Us. If We Post It, Will You Leave Us Alone?" RYS Succumbs to Blackmailing Bobby From Baton Rouge.

Southern New Hampshire's No Frills Branch. "It Doesn't Matter What It Looks Like." A VidShizzle from CBS.

Who's To Blame; Who Suffers? Toni From Twin Falls Sends Us A Story To Ponder.

I taught at an open-enrollment university in the South for 3 years. In my last year there, I had a deaf student, one who arrived in U.S. History 101 the first day with the standard form from Disabled Student Services saying she needed a sign-language translator and extra time for assignments and exams -- no problem.

Well, actually, big problem. Because she needed so much extra time for assignments and kept giving me excuses for turning them in even later than her allotted extra-time, I never actually got an assignment from her until a day or so before their first ESSAY exam. Oh boy -- I could not believe my eyes. She was practically illiterate! I am not exaggerating when I say that she handed in a short writing assignment with sentences like "Man colonist tree England ship America." It was utterly incomprehensible.

I have had deaf (and blind) students in class before who were perfectly capable of putting together a coherent thought.

I bled all over her assignment and wrote in my comments that there would be no way for her to pass the essay exams and I did not know what to do (make a whole different objective test just for her? that seemed unfair to the other students) but that she should probably drop the course. The next thing I know I get hauled into my chair's office who tells me that her father has complained and threatened to file an ADA complaint against me.

My chair said she had been an excellent student in high school and had done well in her other intro classes at our institution (someone at the university gave her an A for English 101!) I then produced the assignment in question and my Chair practically fell backwards in his chair when he saw it. I said, "Clearly this kid has more going on than deafness." Then he says, "Well, according to her father she does have some slight learning disabilities."

SLIGHT? "Well, I was not informed, and, as you can see -- she's illiterate. This kid's been patted on the head and socially promoted for 13 years -- but not by me. How can I pass her? How can she possibly take and pass an essay test?" My chair sympathized, intervened with the father and all went by the board. The kid dropped and I never heard anymore about it.

But, I wondered -- who would do this to someone? She has no hope of making it on her own in the outside world if she can't even put a coherent sentence together.

The Ballad of Smoky Joe.

Smoky Joe was a thorn in my side since the first day I met him.

It was the last day of the ADD period for the school where I was teaching. (I never noticed until now the irony of that word in that context until I capitalized it.) I was hired to teach two of the three sections for the class I liked to call Remedial Composition for Communication majors. See, the program I taught for knew their undergrads somehow graduated high school and got through freshman comp without being able to write effectively, so they paid me a pittance to teach 51 of their best and brightest (NOT!) about thesis statements, the basic tenets of argumentation, rules of punctuation, and general library research and citation styles. This course was necessary so the well-heeled professionals-cum-adjuncts teaching such things as Copywriting and Fundamentals of Journalism wouldn’t have to waste their precious time on the basics. The course was essentially a weeder designed to get rid of the talentless hacks who are drawn to Comm departments like moths to a flame. I had strict orders to “Fight Grade Inflation!” so designed the entire course so that minimal effort and talent earned a C. If a student got a D or F, they needed to take it again; few were happy when this eventuality happened.

Smoky Joe “need[-ed] this class this semester!” --or so he said when he knocked on the door mid-class on that last day to add the course to his roster. A student had just dropped, so I couldn’t lie and say there were no spots. But, I did direct him on up the chain, hoping someone in charge would send him packing. (Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.)

Guess who showed up next class? He was on time, asked for a syllabus, and I told him to get notes. First sign he was trouble: He borrowed a classmate’s notebook AND KEPT IT THE ENTIRE CLASS SO HE COULD COPY NOTES WHILE CLASS WAS GOING ON. I made a mental note and moved on.

A week later I did the whole “break out into small groups” thing (to appease the participatory pedagogy crowd) and guess who refused to interact with his group? Uh-huh. I didn’t see him speak a word to any of them or even look at the group project they were supposed to be working on. As I was wandering around the room, encouraging all the little cherubs to engage the project (which the vast majority of them did), I found Smoky on the lab computer checking his e-mail. I got fed up. I reminded him he had a group project to participate in, that the group work was important for him to be able to do the first big writing assignment due soon, and that I was starting to regret allowing him into the course late (cuz, really, aren’t the vast majority of late adds just a nuisance?). He rolled his eyes, logged out, and then proceeded to do nothing with his group again. At least he was offline.

His behavior got worse as the semester went on. He was constantly late for class. I often caught him napping. He was often using the lab computers for something other than classwork. He often arrived to class without his homework printed. For one class, he arrived 15 minutes late, somehow convinced a classmate to loan him her computer because he couldn’t log onto his, then spellchecked a paper that had been due at the start of class while she stood WAITING for him to finish…all while the rest of the class completed a short in-class piece of writing due by the end of class. I have no idea why she let him get away with it!

Just before Spring Break he informed me he’d be out an extra week because he was going on a diving cruise to the Bahamas! Except, well, we had a paper due the week after Spring Break. He assured me he’d be back in time. Guess who went AWOL not only the class before Spring Break, the entire week after Spring Break, and then 2 days the week after that? “I got sick,” he claimed. No e-mail. No doctor’s note. No paper until 7 days after it was due. And it was AWFUL. (But so were most of the others too. Never, EVER give a paper assignment due after Spring Break. The little flowers need at least 2 weeks to recover.)

But he was going to make it all up by doing an excellent final paper! You see, he had revealed to me that his father was a teacher (he may have even said “English teacher“), who apparently wasn’t happy with his grades that semester. So Smoky Joe was gonna pull his act together by the end! He drafted his paper early, and it was actually pretty good. I gave detailed feedback for improvement and he had plenty of time to make changes. He wanted a pre-grade. (Cuz, you know, if it was C-worthy, he probably wouldn’t have done a thing to it.) I refused to grade it until I had everyone else’s too. He was disappointed, but made some (but of course not all) of the suggested changes. (I put the thought right out of my mind at the time, but is anyone else thinking Daddy helped him…or wrote the whole damn thing for him?)

The real kicker for me though happened during course evaluation day. I teach at one of those “You can’t be in the room or else we’ll kill your kitten!” sorts of schools, who see these customer surveys as sacrosanct epiphanies from Heaven that accurately reflect my pedagogical worthiness. As I was out wandering the halls, using the little professor’s room, and taking a drink from the rusty water fountain, who should I spy outside the door taking his good old time smoking a cigarette? Smoky Joe! (Thus his nickname). Well, golly, that explained why he was always reeking of cigarettes when he finally wandered into class late. Instead of getting to class on time, he sat outside on a bench for 15 minutes having a nice, long, nic fit. He didn’t even hurry after he saw me spot him. Oh, but he was in a hot hurry to fill out a course eval! He wasted another 15 minutes of class time doing that (since I wasn’t allowed back in the room to despoil the little snowflakes’ chances of defaming me anonymously). Gotta love the fact that his evaluation of the course and my teaching counted the same as someone who had been there twice as much as he had been that semester

"I Don't Know How You Feel About Stealing." The Poor College Chef Makes a Cheap Salsa - By Stealing Packets from Taco Bell. Today's YUMMY VidShizzle.

Early Thirsty on Professor Vanity.

I'm currently working on an essay for a professor who has written a great deal on the subject. There is enough information out there that I can get by without using him as a source, but I'm wondering if I should be ignoring books by him?

I don't want to seem like a brown noser but on the other hand, I don't want to make out that I'm slighting his contribution to the field.

Q: Do professors like it when you use them as a reference or should I avoid it?

A: Send replies here.

When Students Really Need Us, They Email Us.

Hello, I just wanted to update you all about any of my class absences this week - my cat became very ill on Monday afternoon and I have been having to monitor her habits closely in between all of her vet appointments. She is hopefully getting a final diagnosis this afternoon, so I should be able to attend all of my classes next week without interruption if it is something I can medicate. I'm keeping tabs on the class websites (for those of you who have them) and will get any missed notes from my classmates next week. My apologies for the absences.

[*]

Hi, My name is ******, and i'm in your Literature and Composition class on tuesday and thursdays. I know our poetry essay is due tomorrow, but i just found out that i have to attend a funeral back home in **** and i'm leaving tomorrow to it. And i was wondering if there was anyway that i could hand in my essay on monday. If you could let me know asap that would be great. Thank you

[*]

I am a student in your class. I apologize for sending this essay via e-mail. I am out of town for work until tomorrow night. If you wish, I am on call for work, however, until Thursday night and may not be attending class on Thursday. Also, due to more conflict with my work and school schedule, I cannot attend class next Tuesday

[*]

Hello, I just wanted to let you know that I won't be in class again today, I missed Tuesday as well. My cousin whom I use to live with and spent every summer with passed away unexpectedly over the weekend and the funeral is today. I don't want to have to talk to you about why I was away in class in front of anyone.

Pickin' on Sarah.

"What it all comes down to is that public school policy is made by parents: parents on the school board, parents who complain to the superintendent, etc. [...] So back the fuck off, academia. We deal with many of the same problems as you do."

3/6/09 - School Teacher Sarah

And therein lies the problem, Sarah. Public high school teachers don't deal with the problems. You put your collective tails between your legs, point your collective fingers towards the parents, and say "whoops, not our fault!"

It's very easy to point to parents and blame the faults of the education system upon them.

Yet what about other stakeholders associated with the school systems? What about the integrity of the school system itself? What about the integrity of the community who will have to deal with these mouth breathers once you socially promote them across that stage, where they'll grab a diploma, then walk off to a life of mediocrity? There are only so many burger places that need people to flip beef patties and process baskets of fries... Where do we put the rest?

Public school teachers are among the most pampered in the American educational caste. Though still low by society's standards, public school wages top those in higher education. Benefit packages are more comprehensive and stable. The social prestige and public appreciation dwarfs anything given to us in higher education.

Have you done your taxes yet, Sarah? Those "educator" deductions on your 1040? We can't take them, though many of us spend just as much money as you do buying things out of our own pockets to assist our teaching. Ever have to shell out money for a DVD aimed at the academic crowd? It's not Best Buy pricing, Sarah. Though we spend most of our careers fixing the broken students that you socially promote through elementary, middle, and high school--effectively making undergraduate schooling "13th grade," we're not K-12 teachers. We don't count in the public eye. Last Saturday, in my home state, every major city had protest rallies about the reductions in the state's public school education budget. The media came out and lapped it up like mother's milk, throwing out images of communities rallying behind the teachers, and series of interviews wherein community stakeholders gushed about the poor, hardworking, K-12 teachers. When is the last time you saw similar protests when higher education took similar cuts? The media would go on about how those "lazy" professors and researchers could use some belt tightening. Good! Let's take that money and put it into our K-12 schools, where it "needs" to go! Let's face it, Sarah, public school teachers are their own best martyrs, and they now how to play the role well.

Public school teachers love their martyrdom. They wrap themselves up in it like a tattered, urine soaked, child's favorite blanket. "Oh, don't mind me. I'm doing this for the kids!" as an adoring public and media cheer you on as heroes. You get to be the ones that the kids adore because you cut them breaks. You give them that fifty percent of the credit for doing nothing. You get to show them compassion by promoting the seventeen year old with the fifth grade reading skill set to a senior year in high school. You tell them that with dreams and fairydust, they can do whatever they want--and use films about that one "special" teacher who succeeds as a means of inspiring them. We, the ones in higher education, then have to be the hardasses. We have to be (gasp) mean. We have to tell them that there are no breaks in the real world and workplace. We have to tell them that doing no work reaps no points for an assignment, the same way that doing no work for an employer will bring no money. We have to tell that (now) eighteen year old with the fifth grade reading level that he or she has two semesters of remedial courses to learn to perform at a college level, or he or she progress no further in college. We have to tell some students that no amount of dreams and fairydust will make some of their career hopes come to life--sometimes, Hollywood is just that, a fabrication.

You're the cherished ones. You kid-glove children and adolescents through the education system, then passively blame the parents when you're called out on your own failures to prepare them for post-secondary education as adults. "It's not my fault! You don't understand!"

Now I see where my little snowflakes get it from--learned behavior from their elementary, middle, and high school teachers. You model learned helplessness and victim mentality for them.

Grow a pair, Sarah.

Go back and find those ideals that you had when you started teaching. They're probably hidden back in that dusty storage cabinet in the back of your classroom. You know the one--the cabinet that has all of the curriculum material that you've been storing since you started teaching, only to bring it out once each year, for the same four week unit you've been teaching since you started working? Go find those ideals, reflect on them, and re-embrace them. Go find that fight, that drive to change the world by shaping our young people, and reignite it! I honestly hope that you realized the challenge of this job when you began to pursue education as a career--even if you're an alternative certification teacher who came into the game after college, someone who may have been laid off from their primary career and thought that teaching was an easy plan-b...then stayed around for five, ten, or fifteen years because it was safer than the corporate world. If you honestly thought that it was just going to be scenes from _Stand and Deliver,_ where the kids all listen, they are all motivated, they all do their work, and they all adoringly crowd around you at the end of the day, you came in destined to fail. If you honestly thought that you'd encounter no resistance (much less garnering enduring support) from parents, just because you were that figurehead--the teacher--you came in destined to fail. If you honestly thought that the job was just thirty six weeks of thirty five hour work weeks, plus a week at the beginning and the end to prepare and pack up your classroom, you came in destined to fail.

Teachers and administrators are the guardians of quality in our public education systems. They are the front lines who repel blatant attempts to soften curriculum. They are the referees who moderate and inject reason (you know, all that educational research on students and curriculum that we use to fuel and justify our craft?) into unreasonable parental requests. They are the ones who model high standards that arm our students with the skills they need to succeed after they graduate. I spent two years teaching in the public school system (a charter school in an affluent county), trying to change things, and both my peers and administrators were so afraid of the parents, that the kids had a blank check to do with as they wished. "Give me this, or I'm going to have mom and dad complain to the superintendent--our family friend. And if I still don't get what I want, I'll transfer out and take my $12K of seed money to my zone school!" Yet in spite of that, I dug in. I said no. And a majority of the time, I won because I knew how to play the county rules and regulations right back at them. I wasn't popular--with my peers, administrators, some district employees, and a few of the lazier kids--but I was respected for holding to my beliefs and ethics as a teacher. And when my seniors graduated, then went to college, some even came back to thank me for not kid gloving them, and actually holding them to standards, as they watched their friends wash out that first semester.

You can say no, Sarah. Someone has to do it.

And if you can't do it, step the fuck off and let a new generation of teachers and administrators--ones who will stand up to the parents--get in to those classrooms and bring some standards to our students that might prepare them for more than just transmuting oxygen into carbon dioxide, filling out the same worksheets that you've been cranking out of that textbook publisher's CD-ROM (that you've secretly coveted for the last ten years), and bubbling in practice test after practice test for the state exams. As the US continues to slip further down the global educational ladder, we need teachers and administrators who will stand up to bulling parents in the private sector and on school boards, not drop their trousers, bend over, and happily growl "thank you, may I have another?" as these parents weaken and water down our public school policies and curriculum.

Because every time you say "I can't help it; it's the parents' fault!" all you're doing is teaching our primary and secondary students the very learned helplessness and victim mindsets that they carry into our college classrooms.

"You can't polish a turd. You can't make chicken soup out of chicken shit." I call bullshit, Sarah. There would be no turds to polish and no chicken shit to turn into soup if public school teachers would stop dropping their shit in the first place.

"When I Went To His Office He Really Made Me Feel Stupid." Well, What Are Office Hours For Then? Today's VidShizzle.

Tell Us Something We Don't Know.

As a post-doc in my 2nd year on the job market, I can tell you what I learned from my 6 interviews this year.

1. One third of the search committees were looking for someone they already had because they chose internal candidates--frustrating, but possibly an explanation for some of your rejections.


2. The infamous "departmental fit." I thought "fit" was some vague term designed to make candidates in the #2 & #3 spots feel better. I think I learned that "fit" goes both ways--I need to think about how I fit with the department. Not to sound like an arrogant prick, but I think that I did not fit into a majority of the places I interviewed. This was partly due to my own inability to step-back and objectively assess my strengths and abilities without overemphasizing my weakness. I am now better able to muddle through picking and choosing jobs ads.


3. I personally think that committees are often schizophrenic and capricious (from speaking with those who have sat on them). They form opinions and camps early and for no apparent reason, or sometimes for internal political reasons that have nothing to do with the candidates.

Before You Pick Your Field. "What's In Your Wallet?"

In a perfect world, a person who has struggled through the pains of earning a PhD should have the chance to move on to a job where they in turn get to research, teach, and serve. Even though I am in the sciences, I see people who have produced good work in others fields in the “fuzzy subjects” and I have seen their struggle to earn wages as PhD’s that our GTA’s would barely consider working for. It sucks.

The reality is that our current system is almost entirely market driven. A PhD in Chemical Engineering is a scarce degree and it commands a great deal more dollars in the market. University faculty in some departments are dealing with a supply shortage of available faculty, so the incoming assistant professor can negotiate a great deal better than a person where there are literally 300 applicants for each position.

Economics really should be factored into the graduate school equation: unless you are independently wealthy, studying in certain fields might very well result in the real answer that you will not be making a decent living. To pretend that all PhD’s are equally paid is a fantasy. Some research technicians here at my University (a large Midwest R-1) make more and are far more readily employed/employable that an English or History PhD.

Some biology researchers make three times the starting salary of an assistant professor in Sociology. I respect the liberal arts, but I was advised very early on that the grim economic reality was that I should STRONGLY consider studying in a field where I could make a fair living. A good paycheck certainly helped me choose organic chemistry.

Grad School Bait & Switch.

Had someone told me of what was really involved in being a grad student and what actually awaited me once I finished my degree, I may well have considered a different direction in my career. I bought into the Hollywood image of advanced studies at university was portrayed as and found out very quickly that much of it was complete balderdash. I believe the term is "bait and switch."

Unfortunately, the system won't permit anyone inside it from speaking the truth. It's main emphasis is on money-harvesting and maintaining steady revenue. During the open house sessions at the place I used to teach at, we would receive visits from prospective students, often with parents or spouses. I urged them to consider all their options, even if it meant enrolling at another institution as I wanted them to make a decision about their studies which was best for them. I sometimes had students in my courses who didn't want to be there and weren't interested in what they were studying as they really wanted to do something else. I wouldn't have been doing anybody any favors if I convinced them to enroll at the place where I was if that really wasn't where their talents or ambitions lay.

I received a few dirty looks from my colleagues for what I did. The idea was to get people to sign up and to sort things out afterwards, preferably after they paid their tuition.

After I left that school, and before I quit teaching altogether, I did interview with a few other colleges. In some of the sessions, I was asked about this very issue: what would I do to convince someone to attend the establishment in question. When I answered that I wanted to have students in my courses who wanted to be there (implying that anyone who didn't should study a different area or go somewhere else for their education), I knew that I was saying something that the interviewers didn't want to hear.

So sign 'em up, folks--just keep the money rolling in!

The PhD Is An Exercise in Masochism? Why Do You Think We Love it So Much? Barry from Bismark on Grad School.

I don't know what advice to give students considering grad studies. I landed a visiting faculty position before finishing my PhD, although that means that I have the triple threat of teaching a 12-hour load, making last-minute changes to my thesis, and preparing for my defense. My adviser had told me that there was no chance that I would get an academic job ever, but I did. She is still astounded. Even if I didn't land an academic job, salaries for PhDs in my field range from $150K-$250 in private industry. That is certainly more money than one can hope to earn in the field without one, unless one starts his own business and it turns out to be a Microsoft or a Google.

A friend of mine from when I was getting my masters degree asked me whether she should go to graduate school about a year ago. I didn't know what to tell her. A masters degree can certainly give one a leg up professionally, but I was making six figures a year without one before I went back to grad school. Getting a PhD is an exercise in masochism and there really are not the opportunities for new PhDs in most fields to justify the six years of servitude. I do not think that I could in good conscience urge someone to get a PhD unless I was sure that he or she was really devoted to the field and wanted to do research in a subspecialty. PhD programs are all about heartbreak, from trying to get a paper published to trying to get a job. I have done well in the latter respect, and I managed to get papers published after pigheadedly sending them off to conference after conference and revising time after time. Some very bright grad students don't do so well in either regard. Some really bright grad students don't graduate at all. There are many qualities other than intelligence or potential for research that one must have to succeed in grad school.

I would advise students in my field to get a masters degree simply because degree inflation is making their bachelor of science degrees worth less and less. But as far as getting a PhD. I don't know. Even if you get an academic job, that is still a hard life. You can land at a teaching college like I did and have to prepare and deliver twelve hours of lecture each and every week, or you can land at a more research-oriented school and have to submit five or six papers to competitive, prestigious conferences every year just to get the two or three published that you will need to keep your job and get tenure. Either way, it is a hard life that leaves little room for anything else.

Five I Hate.

Kelly Keener - An extremely hard worker, contributor to debates. But here is the thing; she only focuses on what will earn recognition. She desperately wants to succeed, but apparently has no genuine interest in the content. She wants to be a prof.

Fashionista Frank - I wish I had a photo. It's the 6th class of the semester. This is the first time he has graced us with his presence. He is wearing normal clothing, with the exception of a dirty, frayed, florescent green bungee-cord as a belt.

Biggins From Buttfuck - A big star from a small town. He is very upset that he does not have special privileges. Classes don't fit into his busy schedule.

Curly Caitie - She likes her iPod. She sat near the front row and watched a movie on it during class. Afterwards, she accosted me to to say she had not done any of the readings because she could not afford the book. Clearly I should find her a copy and give her my own notes so she could catch up. iPod = sign of wealth. So she tried a new tact: "There is too much reading... It's impossible." The reading is about 20 pages a week. The book is in the library, and the students were informed they could buy it soft cover for under 30 dollars from Amazon.

Twitchy Tom - He does not want to be here, and he makes that abundantly obvious. One can see the pain generated in his face when he has sat relatively still for more than ten minutes. This rarely happens though, usually, he arrives (late) and stays five minutes, and then wanders away, leaving his stuff in class. He comes back about 40 minutes later. He expects full attendance credit no doubt. It's a participation grade, not a grade for simply arriving.

Is It Still Copying If We Use Different Pens? The Ballad of Missy and Maude.

I assign a number of out of class assignments, mainly questions that would make the little snowflakes melt if they were under the time constraint of an exam. Each semester I start by introducing these assignments and talking about the difference between collaboration and copying. My syllabus has a detailed discussion of academic honesty and specific examples of “cheating” (plus the consequences for such decisions). I even give them a pass on the first assignment and point out answers that are a little too similar between students, with a warning on their papers and a general warning to the class. All of this is to no avail as the second assignment always seems to bring out Maude and Missy.

Maude and Missy are best friends, who study together all of the time. I grade one of their papers and there is some weird turn of phrase that catches my attention. Somewhere down the pile I find that same phrase in the other’s paper. I take the time and put the papers down next to each other, highlighting the identities in the papers. In the end, the papers are probably more than eighty percent identical (some answers are 100%). I hand back the papers with a zero score (as outlined in the syllabus) and a note to see me.

The students always tell me how they worked together and that is why their answers are similar. I ask why the answers are not only similar, but identical (down to the spelling mistakes in some incidents), and they shuffle their feet about how they both came up with the answer. The conversation usually goes on for a few minutes and from the differences in protests I can figure out who most likely did the work, but both are guilty of cheating. In the end I ask them to “look on this as a learning experience, and move on.” They leave upset, but get over it, usually not repeating the mistake.

This semester the twist to my tale is that Maude (this semester’s likely copier) really wants to be a journalist.

So, Grad School Is Full of Incompetents? How Is This Unlike The Rest of the World? Earnest Ernestine Ponders Her Place.

I just started Graduate School. I'm 28 and right now I'm an MA candidate. I chose to decline a PhD candidacy because I have a career that I got off to a flying start a decade ago already. I love my career and don't think I could be a fully functioning human being without it at the moment. But I also love academic research. Since I got some scholarship money/tuition reimbursement anyway, I decided to dip my toe into academia slowly.

But here's the thing: I find every in my program to be, to put it lightly, not that bright. Or to put it not that lightly...incompetent. My friend who has spent many years tenured and comfortable at an Ivy, and my friend who has been in the trenches of the community college for his whole career have both offered to me the same explanation. According to them, the B.A. is the new high school diploma and the M.A. is the new B.A. Is this true? My personal anecdotal evidence seems to support this theory. But I'm floored. Ever seminar I attend, I'm even more floored. I was not expecting to sit in the opening lecture of one of the most highly respected scholars in the field and being asked if anyone in the class knew the difference between a "primary source" and a "secondary source" or "a peer reviewed journal" and a "popular periodical." This was just after the program's orientation mind you where myself and 19 others watched the Dean's powerpoint reviewing his self-compiled metrics proving this is the best graduate program in the country in the discipline.

I don't know what to do. I'm disheartened and disillusioned. So can you confirm for me if this observation is standard, and one can't (or shouldn't) assume anything, even in a graduate program? If it is true, I feel a slight call to action. How does one contribute to the re-education of America before the "dumbing down" process is completed with dangerous consequences?

I want to be on the right side of the fight.

Where We Share Some Replies on Stanhope's Query about the Quality of Life At the Community College.

Well, it was a big night, mailwise, as a number of folks wanted to address Stanhope's questions about teaching at a community college. But a lot of the mail covered the same material, so we're going to share just these 4 with you. The first 3 represent the majority of the mail, but the nut at the bottom is there because we did get enough mail of that sort to make us think that voice should be heard as well. We also want to direct you to a previous Big Thirsty and its replies, where community college students in particular were discussed. Perhaps that will shed some light on Stanhope's query as well. Please to, well, you know, enjoy:

[*]

I've been teaching full-time at a community college for going on six years now, where I am contracted to teach 45 credit hours over 175 days. Trust me, the grass is much greener over in your 3/3 pasture; I easily teach twice as many classes as you do with probably three times the number of students when it's all said and done (I had 82 students in 4 classes last term---and oh yeah, we're on a quarter system to boot...hooray! 12 week courses!).

The "boom" at community colleges is purely in enrollment and seatloads, not in the number of classes offered, quality of instruction or positions hired. At my fair institution, headcount went up 15% last fall but our funding from the state is going to be cut a cool $50 million over the next two years due to a budget deficit that is over a billion dollars at the last guesstimate. In essence, demand has never been higher, resources never lower.

The net result is our college will be laying off both staff and faculty, cutting course offerings, ballooning seatloads in the courses that do remain, freezing new hires, and raising tuition; what's more: we are being asked to forgo the cost of living increases we thought we had guaranteed ourselves when we last negotiated our contracts, there is the looming threat of further pay cuts, and no one's job is safe, especially if that job is in the humanities. Our administration has made it very clear that our institution's primary mission is to provide workforce education, and has put its money where its mouth is by advertising graveyard welding classes on campus next term, running from 10 pm - 2 am.

Yeah, you read that last part right. *10 pm to 2 am*.

Still feel like climbing the fence, Stanhope? Bring your own thermos of coffee and make sure to scrawl your name on it with a Sharpie. And don't even think about cutting in front of me to use the ditto machine. I don't have tenure in the same sense you have it, but I do have a pretty nasty right cross.

[*]

If you really meant what you said about wanting to TEACH, you should seriously consider a CC. I taught at one for 17 years and after moving, taught at three different CC's as an adjunct. Some of them were wonderful places and some were pretty bad. I am now working at a large research institution full time and the wonderful CC part time. Here's my opinion:

Yes, you'll have to teach too many classes. I taught 6-7 sections every semester (and 8 one memorably hellish semester). Five a semester is considered a full load at most CCs. In addition to your teaching load, you'll most likely be expected to serve on committees, advise students, and possibly lead or coach an extracurricular activity. There will be no shortage of opportunities for you to influence policy and procedure at a CC, mostly because they tend to have fewer layers of administration to deal with.

I was shocked to find out that many of my University students are no better prepared for college than my CC students were. I truly thought that admission standards might make for a better prepared student, and while standards do weed out the truly illiterate, they don't rule out folks who aren't ready or willing to learn or study. What my CC students lack in preparation they often make up for in motivation to get an education. Many of my CC students are non-traditional and have led extremely difficult lives. Their willingness to show up to class and work hard after they've put in 12 hour days at some factory has always motivated me to deliver a quality lesson. Also, my CC students are invariably more respectful of me than my University students, who are much more openly contemptuous of my efforts.

I found my experience as a CC instructor as rewarding/frustrating, interesting/tedious, lively/dull as any other teaching experience. If you love to teach, it's a great place to be. At a good CC you'll find an environment that supports efforts to improve instruction, and colleagues who, corny as it sounds, really care about their students and the institution. At a bad CC, well, it can be pretty awful, but the students are always interesting and challenging.

[*]

If you want to work at a community college, the first thing you need to do is educate yourself about we do, and I don't just mean asking a bunch of strangers on RYS. Go to your local community college. Take a look at the course offerings, talk to the students, visit some of the service departments, and get a feel for what it's like. Of course, just like universities, we're not all the same, but you'll at least get a general idea.

Second, you'd better really love students, teaching, and committee work, because that's what we spend our time doing. Any research agenda is most often practical, related in some way to student success. You need to be able to reach students at all levels from barely literate to Harvard material. You need to be able to teach just about any course in your discipline that a CC offers. Your teaching load could be anywhere between four and seven courses per term depending on the college and any desire you have for overloads. You need to be prepared to hold lots of office hours, make lots of phone calls, attend lots of meetings, and offer lots of encouragement.

And finally, you should be aware that community colleges are increasingly adopting corporate models. We participate in all kinds of initiatives that use statistics to measure how effectively we do our jobs. All the while, faculty know that most of what we do isn't measured in how many students graduate or what some stupid survey says about "engagement" or "satisfaction."

[*]

I'm dying to read the other replies, and I don't even care if you use this. I suspect that you'll get a bunch of earnest underachieving faculty who will talk about their LOVE of teaching, their actual fucking love of it. Like it was a juicy treat or a fine piece of lamb. You'll hear about the students, the wonderful students, the welding kid who just needed a chance, the mother of 5 who is working at Denny's and taking 32 hours. (I think Octomum takes classes here, because the lobby of my building is always full of mewling, screaming kids.)

Yes, the community college proffies have the biggest chips on their shoulders. They eat shit and like it, and can't wait to tell anyone who'll listen how MUCH they like it, and how much BETTER that makes them than Dr. 2/2 load across the state. Oh God.

Anyway, use this or not, but it just makes me feel so good to write it.

I made the transition, Stanhope. I went from a mediocre regional university to a community college because that's all that was available at the backwater place I had to move to because of my horrible ex-spouse (not a story for today). Anyway, when that "love affair" ended, what with me getting the felines and he the canine, he the SUV, me the ... oh well, really, I don't need to tell you.

Anyway, I got here to a place where the students, and I know how politically incorrect this is, are just fucking retarded. They aren't mentally retarded in any sort of clinical way, they are just lazy mouthbreathers who come into the "junior college" knowing they aren't college material, but convinced they can make it because of the glossy TV commercials that run on channel 27 all fucking day and all fucking night. (Our commercials are made by students AT THIS COMMUNITY COLLEGE, and they're so bad that you don't even need to lampoon them. They are right there already.)

So, the students are horrible, or at least the ratio of retards to good ones is unseemly.

The colleagues? What colleagues? Nobody has any time. We're all too busy teaching 5/5 loads. I have 4 preps for my 5 classes, and the ignoramuses on the textbook committee throw me a new book every 3 semesters, so no resting on my laurels.

Oh, the cafeteria. Well, I have an uncle in prison in Tennessee, and the food is almost that good.

I forget what other questions you asked.

It's like digging a fucking ditch, but here, the administration and the students keep pushing the dirt back in the fucking hole.

BUT, I do make $37k. And, let me tell you, in this dump, that puts me in the leisure class.

Any other questions? I've sort of run out of steam. It's because I HAVE TO FUCKING GO TO BED AND GET UP IN 4 HOURS TO TEACH AGAIN!

---+---+---+---

PS: As of this morning, a number of folks have asked us to tell Stanhope that the "bible" of community college life is Arthur Cohen's The American Community College.

Seventh Grade Schoolteacher Sarah Shares.

As a public school teacher, I started reading RYS about a year ago because you do something that I love to do as well: complain about and rip into incompetent students. I’ve sniggered at your lovely snowflakes who can’t form complete sentences and who blatantly and shamelessly lie to you. While my problem students are a bit different (seeing as they are 12-14), I feel your pain. However, my blood boils when your site or others blame public school teachers for all of your woes. Now, I can’t speak for all of us, but I can honestly say that I do the absolute best that I can with what I’m given.

Don’t blame the public schools for society’s problems. Society at large is so obsessed with the preservation of self esteem that schools aren’t able to do what they need to do. I am not allowed to give a kid below a 50 on a report card, no matter how abysmal the grade actually is. Who do you think wanted this policy? Parents of stupid kids and superintendents who are afraid of parents. God forbid their babies feel inferior to kids who can do well. I have to attend endless “special education” meetings to try to help kids with special needs succeed. For some of these kids, there is actually something abnormal going on and these meetings are a good thing. Other kids are just so lazy or stupid that it’s not worth the time. Parents just can’t come to grips with the burger flipper they have produced because then THEIR self esteem would be damaged, so we label their kid as “learning disabled” and then I’m not allowed to fail them, period. They’ll pass through the system because “it’s not their fault” that they suck at life and will end up with a high school diploma.

What it all comes down to is that public school policy is made by parents: parents on the school board, parents who complain to the superintendent, etc. Parents have their baby’s emotional well-being in mind more than their academic prowess. Do you think teachers like giving out 10th place ribbons? Hell no! But if only the top two students in the class get a reward, the other students will feel bad. This is forbidden. So we roll our eyes, make the damn 10th place ribbon, and grab a margarita after school ... But in a neighboring town, not our town, because it would be shameful for our students should stumble upon us acting like real people!

Two sayings come to mind: “you can’t polish a turd” and “you can’t make chicken soup out of chicken shit.” The same kids who drool on your desks once drooled on mine. I was obligated to give modifications and attend meetings to help them succeed. I emailed with their parents and held lots of tutoring sessions before, during, and after school. Their parents didn’t give a rat’s ass. There is only so much a public school teacher can do. Bad students are a result of their family and community more than the school system they went through.

So back the fuck off, academia. We deal with many of the same problems as you do.

Nobody's Beaten the Hell Out of School Teachers Recently. So, Here We Go.

As a graduate teaching assistant, many years ago, I taught several extension classes. These were classes not taught at the university but in different locations around the state. This particular class was a graduate level class on learning in which we discussed several higher level learning theories. After class one night, as I was readying myself for my two hour drive back to campus, one of the students came up to me with her textbook.

She said, "I can't understand this material. How are you going to help me?"

I replied that she could e-mail me with her questions.

"I don't use e-mail," was her response.

I then said that she could give me a call.

"No, that would be long distance. I don't want to waste a long distance call on this."

I then said I could stay after class for a bit to explain things. "No, I can't stay," was her reply.

How I wish I'd had the presence of mind to come up with a stinging rejoinder at that point. Unfortunately, I think I just weakly shrugged my shoulders. This "student" was a 47 year old middle school teacher.

A friend of mine from graduate school has a slight stutter that becomes more pronounced when he's nervous. He was also teaching some classes through university extension. These classes tended to be once a night and go for two to three hours. Given their length, he would give the students a break half way through the class. One night, during the break, he happened to overhear two of the students exaggeratedly mimicking his stutter and laughing about it. These "students" were two elementary school principals in their 50's.

I've been teaching both teachers and education majors for more than ten years and I am comfortable saying that the students least interested in learning are NOT undergraduates in education school but K-12 TEACHERS! A whinier more arrogant group of students you will never encounter. I, too, fear for children in public education.

Stanhope the Snob From Selma Poses a Sniveling Big Thirsty. "Is the Life Okay at a CC?"

I always marvel at the wide variety of profs (do I have to say "proffies"?) who frequent this oasis.

It's truly a remarkable experience to peer into the problems and challenges of professors at such different places. It's taught me a lot about what I want to do with the remaining portion of my teaching career.

Because of some bad decisions personally, I left a good tenure-track position and am now on the market, woefully unhappy and underemployed teaching some part-time classes at a gigantic state university's regional campus. It's not the greatest gig, and I don't make enough to pay all my bills. But, I've not had much success this year with the humanities job market - what with its tiny offerings and high ratio of cancelled searches.

But I keep reading about the boom in community colleges and there happens to be a community college with a position open in my field in the city where I'm currently working.

I have to confess that I've been pretty snobby about CCs in the past, thinking that they were beneath me. (Okay, so I'm snotty, etc.) But in my current situation, the idea of full time employment means more to me than some sort of padded-elbow-twead-coat-wearing fantasy I had when I was a mere pup.

Can I get on my knees, sniveling, not-so-snotty, and pose a big thirsty? I love teaching, and miss doing it full time. I want to feel a part of things, and contribute to a department and a college. But the current job market tells me my chances for the kind of job I "thought" I was supposed to have are not good.

Q: What is life like as a community college prof? Is the teaching load too much? (For reference, in my tenure track position I was at a "teaching" university, and taught 3/3.) How are the students? (I know how stupid I sound.) Is it a rewarding life? Have any of you CC profs made a similar transition?

A: Send replies here.

Emails To Kill Yourself Over.

1. Hell, this is **** from your Tuesday/Thrusday morning english class. Today thrusday the 2d I was not ble to come to class because I had a dentist appointment this morning. I was wondering if you have a tutorial day or s.Something so i can find out what i missed today. P.S. i finished this weeks reading.
   


2. I have English with you every Tuesday and Thursday at 8 a.m., but I have recently joined the cheerleading team and the practices are every Tuesday and Thursday till 8. So a heads up, I will a few minutes late in the morning for your class.


3. Its **** from English regarding the assignment due march 10 i wanted to oknow if i could meet with you just to ask a few questions to see if im following the right steps that are required im not sure where you will be even if you are there all week. Please let me know if i could meet with you. Thanks. I understand how do the MLA and all, but what i dont understand is what im suppose to overall , im a writing like 3 Differnt quoets with a new MLA set up each time, or is it in an essay, thats the part im confussed about

Three Dears.

Early Edith: When the in-class announcement and class-wide email both state "hand-outs will be available at NOON" (emphasis actually in originals), when you show up at my office at 10 AM and ask "Where are the hand-outs?" you are not demonstrating to me that you are keen and enthusiastic about the course - you are demonstrating to me you are a fucking moron who can't follow instructions.

Connie Cleavage: The plunging neckline on your tight-fitting tank top is very becoming, but, no, I'd rather not take you on as an honors thesis student, I generally don't recruit students who get D's on exams. I don't have to wonder much why you wore said ensemble for the class where you asked me for a thesis slot, when ordinarily you wear loose-fitting wool sweaters.

Demanding Dora: There were only 5 students brave enough to take this advanced class. Seeing as you are the only one in the class who made outrageous requests, such as demanding large-scale changes to the syllabus, halfway through the course, when an 'anonymous' letter is circulated to the Chair, Dean, and VP-Students complaining I am unresponsive to "student concerns" in the course, it's not too hard to figure out authorship. As 'procedure' requires a followup from admin, after just a very short chat with the undergraduate coordinator, I think there is now a large red asterisk beside your name in the departmental office files.

One of Our Diligent Readers Just Couldn't Leave the Silly VidShizzle Alone. The Real Story Behind the "Drunken Pirate."

First, it wasn't the "drunken pirate" photo that kept Snyder from getting her degree.

Second, all she failed to get was an education degree. Millersville U. actually bent over backward to "move credits around" so that she could graduate with degree in English, but apparently that wasn't good enough for her. She literally had to make a federal case out of not getting a BSE.

Amazingly enough, the Fox News version of the case is not fair and balanced - it is skewed toward sensationalism. Quelle surprise!

If you read the district court's opinion , you'll see that there were substantive complaints against Snyder throughout her stint as a student teacher. Her supervisors criticized her competence and professionalism:

"Throughout the practicum, Reinking [Snyder's "Cooperating Teacher" at the high school where Snyder was a student teacher] criticized Plaintiff’s competence -- especially her ignorance of basic grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage -- her inadequate classroom management, her poor understanding of the subjects she attempted to teach, and her inappropriate manner with students. . . ."

The ignorance referred to is borne out by a sample of Snyder's writing:

"Secondly, It is necessary that I present not only an apology to those involved, but also all present the positive experiences . . . I have excelled in my own personal life by interacting with the community, especially with elementary-aged functions . . . All of these experiences . . . show essential qualities of a teacher: professional interaction with staff and students inside and outside the school duration . . . I look forward to seeing each and everyone of you to discuss and elevate this issue."

The court's dry commentary: "The grammar and usage errors in Plaintiff’s letter disturbed [supervisor] Buffington."

So here's the *real* reason Snyder didn't get the education degree:

"At trial, Reinking, Girvin, and Buffington all testified credibly that they believed Plaintiff had acted unprofessionally in criticizing Reinking -- her Cooperating Teacher -- on her webpage. . . . Conestoga Valley [High School] decided to bar Plaintiff from campus because Buffington and Reinking believed that Plaintiff:

1. had disobeyed Reinking by communicating about personal matters with her students through her webpage;


2. had acted unprofessionally by criticizing Reinking to her students in the May 4th posting; and


3. had otherwise performed incompetently as a student teacher.

No one at MU had anything to do with that decision. Once CV did not allow Plaintiff to complete the practicum, however, MU could not award Plaintiff a BSE degree."

Snyder was offered the opportunity to withdraw from the teaching program, and here's the bending-over-backward part:

"Wenrich told Plaintiff that she had spoken with English Department Chair Schneller, and they had thought of a way to 'move credits around' so that Plaintiff would receive a BA in English 'instead of just no degree at all.' . . . On May 13, 2006, Plaintiff graduated from Millersville University with a BA in English."

But Former-Snowflake Snyder still wasn't happy:

"On May 15, 2006, Plaintiff met with Wenrich and Bray to appeal the decision to grant her a BA instead of a BSE. Bray explained why she could not overturn Wenrich’s decision: by failing to complete Student Teaching, Plaintiff had not fulfilled MU’s state-mandated prerequisites for obtaining a BSE. Apart from Plaintiff’s failure to complete the practicum, the unsatisfactory evaluation she received on her final PDE 430 also constituted a failure of Student Teaching. Accordingly, Bray denied Plaintiff’s appeal on May 15, 2006."

The district court held that Millersville didn't have the authority to grant Snyder a BSE "because MU cannot give her a passing grade in a practicum she did not complete." Makes sense to me.

Then the court explains that Synder chose not to sue the high school for not allowing her to complete the practicum - a strategic decision that failed. It doesn't think much of her First Amendment claim, either.

Is there something unfair here? I'm not seeing it.

"I was booted because I was incompetent and unprofessional and did the precise opposite of what I was told to do with regard to the MySpace page" doesn't sound nearly as good as "I was denied a degree because of a photo! A photo of me holding a beer and wearing a pirate hat! Can you IMAGINE?!"

Someone Goes Old School On a Student Long Gone - But Not Forgotten.

He’s now three years in my past, but I still have flashbacks. He was an athlete who, for some reason, had arrived at our college despite the fact that we did not field a team in his athletic specialty.

From the first, he made a point of expressing his disdain for the class material. I tried everything I could: I met with him, I met with him and my department chair, I assigned his essays to others for grading (so that I could maintain the appearance of objectivity): although he would display eyes the size of saucers in our meetings and express his willingness to accept the course material and objectives, his behavior grew worse.

When we were studying a personal essay recounting years spent in a concentration camp, his contributions to discussions amounted to “I don’t buy it. Why didn’t they just kill the guards? That’s what I’d do.” When we were discussing a famous and highly regarded novel (if multiple movie/television adaptations are to be accepted as evidence of cultural esteem), he made of a point of flashing his copy of the Cliff Notes in class. When we were studying a play recounting the main character’s experiences with cancer, he again voiced his inability to “get” why “she was making such a big deal about it.”

The only thing that helped me keep my sanity with this student was a line from an old, old Nichols and May sketch: “Information cannot argue with a closed mind.”

In the benefits column: recently, I had a job interview in which I was asked to recount how I dealt with a difficult student. Guess who I talked about? The panel listened with sympathetic responses and, at the end, one asked, “Why didn’t you just kill him?” I got the position.

"I Like Romance And Need the Course to Complete My Lasar Requirements." Today's Student Email. (Oh, And Those Fucking French!)

I am sorry to write you this. But, I would like to talk to you about the class. I have been missing lately a lot of classes and that is because I'm not feeling that comfortable. I have to tell you it is not you because you are a wonderful professor. It's that my native language is not English and things has happened that I don't feel much comfortable speaking English. I know you might say that you don't care about it that if I dont do my work I'll just fail. But, that's not the point.

I'm taking this course first because I like romance (I thought it would be interesting and fun) and second because I need the course to complete my lasar requirements. And right now I'm struggling because I know english but there is something that keeps pulling back that I cannot express myself in English. Fluently the way that I want it to be.

Last semester I registered for Renaissance and the professor was great but she was used to speak so fast and ask us questions and my classmates talking...I just couldnt keep up. I felt horrible because I wanted to express myself but I couldnt. So, I just dropped the class. And now I'm taking literature again with a new hope. Last semester i didnt speak with the professor, but now I have to do it because I want to pass this course successfully. I used to be a good student, always dedicated to my work. But, I have that barrier that is the language that keeps following me even more and more. You know what, last semester I was so desperate I have never seen myself like that before. My life was running out of my hands and by the time I tried to do well in the literature class and I couldnt do it, it was like the last drop that spilled the cup.

I had to withdrew all the classes I was taking ahh because I was struggling with biology too. It was A LOT of reading and also I couldnt understand the teacher because his french accent.

But anyways, what I'm trying to tell you miss is that I dont want to fail. I need your help. If I can do extra work I'll do it but dont let me fail your class. As you probably will notice, in terms of writing i'm more open than speaking which is weird. I would like to know if i can count on you. If you're like those professors who doesnt care if the students learn or no. They just teach and that's it. If the student learns learns if not if their problem.

I guess what makes a good teacher is his or her passion to help students learn. But, either way, I'll respect your answer.

If We Had a Dollar For Every Drunken Pirate Photo We Have Around The Compound. Today's Cautionary VidShizzle.

Motor City Mitch Wonders Why Students Can't Just Hand Him a Freaking Paper in Person. (He Likes to Keep the Email Inbox Clear For Chain Letters.)

Receiving student papers in my email inbox, without warning, is my teaching pet peeve. The attachments don't open, I have to truck up to my networked printer three floors above my office, students skip class because they've turned their papers in electronically. The list of grievances goes on.

My syllabus very clearly says, "DO NOT EMAIL ME YOUR ASSIGNMENTS." In fact, I think I'm pretty nice about it. The actual policy is, "I will not accept any e-mailed assignments unless you have made prior arrangements with me. Repeat: I will not give you credit for e-mailed assignments unless I've given you explicit permission to send the assignment." In addition, at the start of each semester (and periodically throughout), I say in class, "DO NOT EMAIL ME YOUR ASSIGNMENTS." And yet rarely a day goes by when I don't receive some sort of homework in my inbox.

Don't get me wrong -- if a true emergency crops up, I will accept your emailed paper. I had a student whose mother died this week. I did not bitch when she sent me her paper without making advanced arrangements. But the kid who has emailed every assignment for the past two weeks, despite my reminders not to (and my not turning his work back when I hand back papers), is not so lucky. "The computer lab doesn't recognize my flash drive" is not an excuse. E-mail it to yourself, son! If my college email account can open your attachment on a college computer, I bet your college email account can open the attachment on a college computer too. Let's call this what it is: Lazy. I'm sorry you don't have a printer, and I'm sorry that you have to skip my class to leave campus early so you can spend the weekend at home with your girlfriend who is still in high school, and I'm sorry it's inconvenient for you that our class meets in the basement and the computer lab is on the third floor. But guess what: None of these things are my problem!

I think my students are under the mistaken impression that the college is made of money and all the professors have printers in their offices. They stare incredulously when they come in for conferences empty-handed and can't print drafts they've emailed themselves, or saved on their little allotment of the campus drive, or transported on their flash drives. (Well, they CAN print, but then they have to walk up three floors to retrieve their document from the networked printer my computer is hooked up to -- which is just as much work as if they'd printed the damn thing in the lab in the first place.) "Wow," they say. "You got it rough. You gotta go way up there every time you print? That suuuuuuucks!"

But do they remember this conversation a few days later? No. No, they do not. Their revised papers (a term I use lightly) still show up in my inbox because they were too lazy to walk up three floors to the computer lab to print before class. Funny how three floors is such a burden to them, but somehow it's not to me...

I have a colleague who only grades the first page of any assignments that aren't stapled. I need to think of an equivalent policy for the emailed assignments, because giving 0s obviously isn't having an impact -- probably because they forget they ever turned anything in, so they don't notice when they don't get anything back.

Abe From Ass Licker College - POW! (Pinata of the Week.)

A number of folks wanted a crack at Abe, but there's only so much time and so many sticks for the pinata, folks. So, let us enjoy the flava below:

Here's what's wrong with your college:

Your professors are weak-balled, weak-willed, and idiotic. At my own school we had to do away with the A+ grade because too many students were, uh, earning it (read: too many profs had their scared heads up their asses and adoringly plopped down A+ grades on the shit our students regularly turn in).

The point of college is not to have all the profs and students in silent, sycophantic, pathetic collusion with each other, but all too often, that's what happens. Profs and students agree to a sort of ridiculous detente: we will grade like you're in pre-school ('Look, he made a doody in the big kid toilet!!! Let's have a party!!!') if you agree to 'grade' us like we're your pre-school aides ('She made class so fun and easy, it was like I didn't even have to attend and could still manage to have fun doing the two book reports she required!!! She even let me use Wikipedia as my one outside source!!!').

Some profs are tired - teach 7, 8, 9, 10 (lower level) classes a year every year and get totally burnt out - and have a modicum of an excuse for poor conduct in the classroom. Some profs are frightened of you. They have PhDs or the equivalent but that doesn't mean they have a clue about how to teach, how to be a presence in the classroom, or how to deal with the realities of a bunch of 18-22-year-olds, many of whom should never have gone to Sleep Away School Year Camp (aka, your college and many others).

Two ideas for you, my friend.

One: the best way to get over on your professors is to fuck up their inane plans by actually learning something, particularly if you learn something beyond the boring, narrow, safe, pathetic confines of their intended curriculum. Don't get over on your profs by doing as little as possible and then bragging about how little you did for your A or B+. Fuck them up by doing ALL the reading and then reading more - from the footnotes, citations, or bibliography. Bring them totally proofread, spellchecked papers that you actually wrote and edited several days before their due dates (and for fuck's sake, turn them in on time). Spend time thinking about how ideas meet, synthesize, go together, and diverge...think about how big ideas apply to your own circumstances, to people unlike you, to other times and places.

Two: seek any and all classes where A grades are not guaranteed. Going for the A grades is weak-balled. Maybe the 'A' translates into 'student already knows everything.' What a dumb waste of your money and time then. Take the classes where you can't predict the grade, where you know you will have to think, learn, create ideas, write and reason well, etc.

[*]

Okay, first off Abe, I count no fewer than eleven spelling errors in your little rant. This is not to mention the number of times you use a lower case "i" when you need a capital one. There are also some usage errors; for example, you write "ban together" but the correct expression is "band together."

Do you realize how your readers will be disinclined to take you seriously when your writing is so full of careless mistakes? It also seems that you have not really applied yourself as a student very effectively if you can't even be bothered to learn basic spelling and grammar. This makes me think the problem is not with your instructors, but with you.

Here is what you need to do: Grow up, stop your whining and finger-pointing, do your work and make a goddamned effort; maybe this will address your boredom. You feel like you have time on your hands and aren't "challenged" precisely because you're not putting the requisite time into your studies, and by your own admission are doing the bare minimum to get by; this is all too evident from your sloppy, poorly-written rant. How dare you blame this on your school or your teachers! In reality, your teachers are probably just fine. But you: you're an underachieving slacker. Grow a damn pair of balls. It's not too late. You can change; but it will take some effort.

[*]

Number 1: By the time you're in college, the quality of your education is dependent entirely on yourself. You're not limited to reading what's on the syllabus. A lot of professors include optional readings - go ahead and read them. Or go ask for more to read on a topic you're interested in. Go to office hours and talk about them. Try to get other students to talk about them. Hell, talk to other students about education, in general. Try to change the way they approach school. If you want to learn how to write better, get together with a buddy and critique each others' papers. (A surprising number of students think doing this is cheating, unless they have been told explicitly to write this way. These same students don't cite their sources. Go figure.)

Number 2: Personally, I don't think my students are idiots. However, there is a huge gap between what they learned in high school, and what they are expected to know in college. Most profs/TAs have a full course worth of material to get through, which doesn't leave us time for grammar, writing mechanics, and library skills. We think you should already know this - but let's be honest, most of you have never been taught, which makes the whole thing slightly unfair. So let's take the easy road and blame the system.

Number 3: Most of the folks I know would rather die than look at RMP. A lot of us get frustrated with our campus evaluations, because even though we genuinely care about our students and our teaching, the poor evaluations never include any constructive criticism.

"So, That's My Funny Story." And Her Desk is Broken, Too. Today's VidShizzle.

We Vote to Give Him His Own Letter. "M" For Mouthbreather Might Be Nice.

Ok. I'm all geared up to finish The Scarlet Letter with my sophomore American literature class. We've been reading it for a week or so--just about done. We're using the cheap Dover edition, because I'm nothing if not sensitive to the cost of books.

Star-gazing student says to me, "What's with all of the letters on the cover of the book."

Now, mind you, our edition has a series of scarlet "A's" all over the cover, a mindless graphic representation of the importance of, well, the "A." In other words, the cover of the book is replete with the first letter of our alphabet. You know, Adultery.

So I say, "huh."

"Why all of the A's on the cover of the book?" he asks again, not ironically, not smirkingly, not knowingly.

My first thought is that he's off his Ritalin. But I can't say this. It would be mean. So . . . I open it up for discussion.

And indeed, one of my students answers him: "It's the letter A, for adultery."

And that, my friends, was the end of that. Except for one thing: no one laughed. No one smirked. They thought it a pretty good question.

Oh, What's the Big Deal About Being Normal? Abe from Ass Licking College Needs Your Help.

I am a student at a small private college in the Midwest (about 3000 total students), and I often wonder if the norms and stereotypes for colleges in general hold true for my school.

My school seams normal, about 30% of student live on campus, we have D. III athletics etc.,. First of all I'm kind of a shy student who rarely participates in extracurricular activities, but i do participate in class and get very good grades. I am now a junior and i feel like my college is a huge crock of shit.

First of all about half of the classes are completely easy, I don't learn anything, do allot of busy work, and get an A. Meanwhile in these easy, unchallenged classes I'm completely bored and think the teachers are horrible because they don't challenge me. These same teachers are praised by 90% of other students and since everyone knows each other, these "popular" students and easy teachers have ass licking sessions after class.

I do good in these easy bullshit classes but i just feel like an outsider, most of the teachers don't even so much as look my way in the hallway. I wonder if they think I'm a good student but i get good grades, and they often leave wonder full comments on my papers, or do they not like me because i don't kiss there asses all of the time? This just bothers me because I feel like my education isn't worth anything because these complete idiots are passing the same classes, and getting the same degree as I am. I did shitty in high school for the same reason ( I was never challenged) so i completely tuned out and didn't even try. That's what made me come to this private, easy to get into, college in the first place. But once i started college, I started to actually try hard hopeing i might learn something and get somewhere in life because of it.

I have also had some really good challenging professors who actually TRY to teach their students something and they get the worst response from all of the idiot students at my school . First of all these dip shits know everyone in their classes so they feel free to voice their opinions quite often. They don't do their homework then all ban together and tell the teachers that their confused and need it explained better. A small fraction of professors will turn them down, stick to their syllabus, teach the halfway descent students something, end up with shitty reviews and a bad rating on RMP. THESE ARE MY FAVORITE.

I actually starting to look for teachers with shitty rateings and take their classes. However some of the other few seemingly descent teachers who start out with somewhat challenging material end up delaying all of our homework & tests, only getting through 1/3 of the text, not teaching me anything, and getting great reviews.

I don't feel like my school is normal, i never hear about or see the types of disagreements between professors and students that I read about on here. The teachers just listen to students, and Its just one big ass licking session. So a few questions:

1. Is there anything I can do to better my education?


2. Is my school normal or are programs around America being dumbed down by idiot students?


3. Do all professors look at RMP ? Because I overheard a teacher (who gets great reviews saying shes hott and an awesome prof) claim to have no clue what it was.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY SCHOOL???????

Coming to a College Classroom Near You Soon. A Continuing Series. Today's VidShizzle. "You Wanted Me to Plagiarize the 'Diary of Anne Frank.'"

Clara from Cleveland on Slinky Pedagogy.

As I'm sitting here, grading exams, this old adage keeps running through my head.

Some people are like Slinkies. They aren't good for much ... still, you can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.

And that would be you, Mr. I Know Everything and Constantly Feel the Need to Share My Opinions in Class.

25 our of 50. Heh!

Oh, Sherman, Where Are You When We Need You?

Sure, people come and go in our lives, and it happens in the same way here on RYS.

But, we confess we really miss one past correspondent in particular, Sherman the Shrink, who stayed with us all too briefly. If ever a blog and a readership needed a full time therapist, it's us, and, well, you.

So, Sherman, if you're out there, lurking, reading, but not writing, drop us a line, would ya? We need your guidance, your wit, your smooth and silky voice in our ears.

For those too young to remember, here are some of Sherman's posts:

• Save Clinical Diagnoses for the Clinicians.


• Water Cooler Therapy.


• On Not Learning Lessons.