So, you are glaring at your professor because he has just scrawled an F on the paper you worked so hard…OK, so you skipped some classes and hashed it out in the middle of the night eight hours before it was due, hoping the classes you did attend would help you BS at least part of it. Right? So, do you have the right to be angry with your educator? I mean, jeez, he’s kind of mean, doesn’t let anyone turn in late work and doesn’t even offer extra credit. What a jerk! Or is he?
There is an abyss of misunderstanding when it comes to teacher/student relationships. Yes, it’s difficult to be a student, especially working part or full time, juggling personal and academic issues while hoping and praying your professor will throw you a bone once in a while. But, it’s often twice as difficult managing 50 to 100 or more students, many of whom believe they are entitled to special privileges and exceptions. No matter how explicit a syllabus is, there are always those who ask to be excused from universal policies.
There are always students who are under the impression that skipping class, bombing assignments and generally crapping all over the course goals is certainly not enough to fail. I’ve had students turn in 0 essays all semester and still show up for the final exam. Seriously?
I teach Composition now, but I remember what it was like to be a student. I had a job, too, but I didn’t blame my instructors for my poor grades. When I screwed up, I knew it and owned it. I didn’t just expect my professors to let me retake an exam I simply slept through my alarm for.
Few seem to consider that the prof has a life, too. For example, every semester when the syllabi are handed out, a student never fails to approach me and say something like, “Um, yeah, I’m going on a family vacation and I’ll be gone on the day of the midterm. Can I, like, take it early or something?” Sure. Let me take time away from my family, employ my already overworked mother-in-law to come and watch my kids while I spend about 10 dollars driving out to campus (on a day I don’t teach) so that you, special person, can take your midterm early so you can go enjoy your vaca.
My favorite student question:
For a student who was absent – “Did I miss anything?” Nope. I mean, I was actually going to teach class that day but I thought, ‘So-and-so isn’t here, so maybe I’ll have everyone just scratch their butts for an hour’. Yes, you missed A CLASS. Most days, when I get that question, I say ‘yes’ and nothing else. Sure, I could summarize the lesson plan, give them some textbook pages to read or let them turn in the assignment for that day online. But, why should I? So I can teach class twice? Once, in the classroom, and again online? Instructors allot grading time and everything else as part of their workday. Now, I have to tell my kids ‘Hold on, mommy’s working’ while I supplement materials online for someone who slept in that day.
So, let me get this straight; you should be able to do missed classwork at your convenience and the expense of mine? Hey, throw me a 20 spot and I’ll send you that summary. Sometimes I think students believe instructors are androids who exist only to offer them second chances and undeserved full credit.
When I was a brand new adjunct (part time) instructor, I would overhear my colleagues griping about students. I imagined they hated their jobs, went home every night to a TV dinner and an empty house. I stereotyped them as lonely hermits who took on teaching college because they needed an ‘easy’ paycheck in their miserable retirement. I considered myself different because I wanted to be an educator most of my adult life. I’m buried in a mountain of student loans because I love interacting with students and the looks on their faces when I prove to them that a good thesis statement is something they can write.
But, I wondered if this was my fate; to curse my students in the break rooms to other instructors, to spend my class time growling and grunting at every raised hand. Although the first is true, the latter has still not happened…yet. It’s not the struggle to understand the material, it’s the accountability. Only a day after I explained the standard format guidelines to one of my classes – you know, 12 point Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins, blah, blah – one of my students emailed me and asked, “Can I do mine in Calibri font?” Um…NO. WTF? Do I sound bitter? Perhaps it is this gradual fermenting of aggravation that makes those curmudgeon professors so hated. Maybe they, like me, were once enthusiastic, bounding into the classroom with Labrador innocence.
And now, after hundreds of lame excuses and essays that reveal the person was likely texting during that lecture, they are harsh, unforgiving and disenchanted. So, I can say that we were once students, and we understand. But, our students were never teachers, so they can’t possibly relate to our peeves. After all the painstaking power-points and tediously prepared lectures, using all our blood, sweat and tears from years of studying to administer quality material in the classroom, only to hear “What did I miss?” Oh, so much more than you will ever know.