The Pissed Off Professor

I can’t help but shake my head in disgust at the attitudes of some teachers. Here’s a wonderful example: in response to my last post, Sven wrote,

I dunno…some of this IS pretty bitchy. If I may offer a couple of cliches by which I try to live in dealing with students: pick your battles, and don’t sweat the small stuff. Really, not bringing one’s own stapler to class (thus making the poor beleaguered professor do some stapling–the horror!) becomes 25% of the exam grade? If I were one of your students, I’d be pretty pissed off about that too.
Personally, I always accept late assignments without penalty (remarkably, this policy is very seldom abused). My assignments are not busywork, and the idea is to do the work and thereby learn something; I don’t see how the learning process is encouraged by iron-fisted enforcement of a completely arbitrary deadline. 90 minutes late? Come on–who cares?

Let’s just take a moment to review this writer’s points:

• Pick my battles

Are you kidding me? What planet are you from? When did it become okay for students to “battle” their teachers?

Shame on you—for declaring the classroom a battleground or allowing it to be.

• Don’t sweat the small stuff

News flash: everything about college is small stuff—unless an armed gunman takes people out, and even then, unless you are personally involved, it remains small stuff—the rest of the world goes on as if nothing happened. In fact, most of what takes place in one’s life is small stuff. That doesn’t change the fact that each of us is obligated to deal with a whole lot of small stuff on a daily basis: for the student, the small stuff includes following the rules; for the teacher, it includes making them. Being successful with the small stuff is what makes life great because the small stuff is what life is all about.

Shame on you for acting as if anything that goes on in your classroom is big and for failing to educate your students about the importance—the joy—of small stuff.

• Thus making the poor beleaguered professor do some stapling

As opposed to the poor, beleaguered student? Good point.

Shame on you—for not recognizing the time of a teacher is supposed to be used for teaching—not stapling.

• If I were one of your students, I’d be pretty pissed off about that too.

And from what I read here, you’d misdirect your anger just as my students do. You should be pissed off, but not at me—at yourself for failing to following instructions.

Shame on you—for failing to educate your students: you are obviously under the misguided notion that the real world protects, coddles, and excuses sub-par behavior and work and attitudes.

Oh, wait, I guess in many ways it does.

Shame on you—for promoting this downward spiral.

5. Personally, I always accept late assignments without penalty (remarkably, this policy is very seldom abused).

If this is true, you are lucky. Or don’t teach general education courses. Or have been teaching for five minutes. Or are lying.

Shame on you—for setting standards and failing to follow through thereby slapping the faces of the responsible students who budgeted their time, prioritized their days, and had respect for your words. And another shame on you—for once again failing to educate your students.

• My assignments are not busywork.

Yes they are. Nothing one does in college isn’t. I haven’t used a single assignment from my college life in the classroom or in my real life. Have you? Doing the work, and budgeting the time, and following the guidelines are what makes each assignment worthwhile. That is all part of real learning. It is the struggle to do it—to be in that moment—to overcome the procrastination, the lack of understanding, the desire to do something else that makes completing the assignment feel good.

Shame on you—for thinking your assignments will change students’ lives and likely passing that lie on, and for robbing your students of true, personal success.

• 90 minutes late? Come on–who cares?

Gee, Sven, I dunno, but I dare you to arrive 90 minutes late to each of your classes for a week and see if anyone cares.

Shame on you—for insulting the students who worked hard to be on time and for failing again to educate your students by implying that being timely isn’t important.

More and more, I am faced with students who are certain their failures are my fault or out of their control due to a variety of stumbling blocks the world sets out as a means to foil their otherwise responsible intentions.

Many of my students have been conditioned to believe that if they don’t like something, they should ignore it or argue about it. (Under no circumstances should they accept anything not completely satisfactory to them.)

This leads to a variety of problems in the classroom, several of which came to a rotten head a few days ago.

I have to preface some of this with a few facts:

1. Many students do not staple multiple page papers together unless specifically required to do so.
• When it is required, they still don’t get the staple should be in-place before papers are collected—even if this is expressed on the course syllabus and the assignment’s handout (see #2).
2. Many students do not actually put stock in handouts, lectures, statements, etc. unless said things serve their purposes.
3. Many students feel their errors are not actually errors but “honest mistakes” for which they should be forgiven.
• This is especially true if items from #2 have been ignored and the work has subsequently been penalized accordingly.
• Failing to “forgive” these “honest mistakes” is indicative of a teacher who is “terrible.”
4. The phrase “I didn’t know” is a panacea for all things student-related.
• Ironically, most students don’t know what “panacea” means.
• Looking up words is for dorks.

It was midterm day, and the task was to write. (This was met with some complaints initially, and even after I reminded students they were in a composition course, a few thought an in-class writing task was unreasonable.)

I had prepared them in terms of what the exam would cover (a handout and a reading), what they needed to bring (all of their regular supplies plus plenty of binder paper, several pens, a dictionary, and a stapler) and what things I wouldn’t tolerate (tardiness, sharing materials, failing to follow instructions, or cheating).

Several students came to class without textbooks or handouts; others arrived without sufficient writing supplies; one student swore I said the midterm was the following week.

The ogre in me came out right away: when one of these students tried begging supplies from his classmates, I asked that he stop. (My explaining it was not fair to put his classmates in such an awkward position—to share or not share—not only fell on deaf ears, but also led to several students expressing their shock at my inflexibility.)

Fine, who am I to try to protect the classroom environment?

I let the beggars do their thing, and after fifteen minutes of wasted time, I reminded the class of what I thought was obvious: that time would have to come off of their exam time. (That another class uses the room after ours isn’t relevant—just ask my students—it’s merely my desire to undermine their whole lives for reasons arbitrary.)

Just before passing out the exam, I collected their reading journals. The cries of several students who hadn’t bothered to bring them wasted several more minutes. (After all, it’s not really a class day—it’s midterm day—why would they have their bring-them-with-you-every-day-we-meet-no-exceptions journals? See #2.)

Having passed out the prompt for the exam, three students asked me for copies of the handout they were to use as they hadn’t brought theirs. I didn’t have extras. I am evil because of this.

The end of the exam brought with it a number of students who hadn’t bothered to bring their staplers—a required supply as stated on the course syllabus—so began classmatus interruptus. I stopped the brain staple-less students, took their papers, stapled them with my stapler, and marked them for a 25% grade reduction. (I am such a bitch.)

The pinnacle of my evil was reached when I refused to accept the journal of one student at the end of the class period.

Several odd things fell into magical place as exam and journal were passed my way:

1. This student had whined about not having brought her journal.
2. I had caught the student text-messaging while the great beg was taking place.
3. This student had abruptly arisen from her seat and left the room about 15 minutes after the exam had begun.
4. Coming back from what I thought was a bathroom break, she had a notebook with her.

I had put several pieces of a lovely puzzle together, and the picture I’d formed wasn’t a pretty one: she’d left her journal at home, so she text messaged someone to deliver it, and when the someone arrived, she left the classroom to get it, so she could turn it in at the end of class.

I don’t take late journals, and they had been collected 90 minutes prior.

According to the student, she’d found the “journal” in her backpack while putting her things away, and it was just unreasonable of me not to take it. (To avoid more arguing while several students struggled to finish writing their exams, I took her notebook.)

I’ll leave it to you to guess her reaction the following Monday when she saw her “journal” hadn’t been evaluated or given any points. I’ll also leave it to you to imagine the conversation I was forced to endure regarding her notebook not being a journal as described on the course syllabus.

I think now is the time to begin soliciting votes for teacher bitch-of-the-year!