I am alive...just barely

[Ms. Matterhorn]

GP, I'm sure we both have stories that would "curl your hair!"

[felinefan]

I bet they would be shocked to know that people have been drying their hair without dryers, curling their hair without curling irons, and shaving without electric razors for hundreds and thousands of years.

[NessaMcTastic]

That reminds me of when I was a TA for Spanish 101. The professor (may he rest in peace) was losing it a bit so he would have me teach both the lecture and the lab class. That was not a fun year for me.

Anyway, I had a girl show up twice to a class that met twice a week, she had also stopped attending the lecture class. On my handout I wrote out the attendance policy which was in our student handbook, and I noted that failing my class meant an automatic failure in the lecture class. Again not my rules.

Last day of class rolls around and she storms in after class--that she missed!-- demanding to know why she got a failure notice. I explained the university policy and says, "But my dog has been in the hospital." As an animal lover, I was very sad to hear that but if she came up to me before hand I could have possibly worked something out. She then said, "well my mom's been sick too." Hmm, funny because at the start of term she said that her mom had just passed away. I didn't pry further but I said that the failing grade still stands and it wouldn't be fair to the other students who showed up.

In a huff she pushes her chair away and says that it shouldn't count because I'm just a student and "not a real professor." I then pointed out that between the two of us, I was the only one who spoke Spanish. She was not amused.

[hobie16]

I then pointed out that between the two of us, I was the only one who spoke Spanish. She was not amused.

Why not? I think that's pretty funny. :D:

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

I bet they would be shocked to know that people have been drying their hair without dryers, curling their hair without curling irons, and shaving without electric razors for hundreds and thousands of years.

Ummm, yeah (??)

course, DW got me a new shaving mug and brush, with a really nice Merkur Razor!!

none of the new fangled stuff!!

And of course, my favorite aftershave.....Bay RUM!!


hehehehehe

[Euterpe]

My classroom policy on cellphones is the same as the school. IF they HAVE to take a call during class, they have to go outside the classroom. And it must be on "vibrate"

Don't get me started about about cell phone usage in school. The other students are probably 3/4 of the reason I'm not finishing my degree right now. I cannot stand the constant texting! I don't mind if you do it once in a while, very quietly, if the screen's dimmed. But honestly... that constant tapping, I can't handle it. I had a kid who talked on his cell phone during a final, and the prof didn't notice.

I honestly just find it so rude. There were two kids in my astronomy class who talked constantly. It got to the point that the row they sat in and the row in front of them was empty because no one wanted to sit by them. But a couple days, I was late to class, and I had to sit next to them... If you asked them to stop talking, they looked like you were upsetting them, rather than they were doing this incredibly rude thing and they should be embarrassed to be called on it.

I just can't handle being in classes where it's so obvious that no one wants to learn. Plagiarism is rampant. In that same class, I saw four people coping homework in class. If four people have the balls to do it in the same room as the teacher, think of how many were cheating at home... I refused to do my homework and wrote in my course evaluation that there's something very wrong with a system like that, and that I couldn't be motivated to actually work on my homework and look up answers and actually try when I knew than no one else in the class was.

I somehow passed the class, with a 0.9, but I know I didn't even deserve that. Which just upsets me. I know I didn't have the numbers to pass... but at my school... My parents were told to try not to fail too many kids because they needed to keep their retention rate high.

I just can't bring myself to go to a school that cares so little about learning. I get so disgusted to think that soon I'm going to be competing for jobs with people who are so dim... Last year I was in my senior capstone class, and our group was doing a project on graffiti... I never did convince my group that graffiti existed before 1960, and I tried to mention that I'd read a theory that the cave painting in Lascaux, France were simply graffiti from prehistory, and my group mate leaned to the others and said, "Guys, Larkin just made a good point about the French Revolution!"

Sorry... another rant. Blame the Hydrocodine...

[DisneyMom]

I am very sorry about having to deal with the dim of the world in class, but remember, they will probably end up being someone's supervisor!

[Zazu]

Holy shnikies! What do you say to a graduate student's mommy who questions sonny-boy's grade?

That happened to me once when I was teaching an undergraduate course. I said I just needed a notarized copy of her Power of Attorney to represent him. Amazed me that it actually shut her up!

Good thing it did. My next move would have been to pick up the phone, tell her I would have somebody bring up the files, then dial 911.

[accioetoile]

Larkin, everything you have said there is something that has been bothering me this last year. I had to take a 2 part history class in order to graduate, World History before 1500 in the fall semester, and World History after 1500 in the spring. The fall semester wasn't too bad so I decided to take the spring semester with the same professor. Well, kids talked constantly in that class, there was a girl who constantly texted that sat right next to me, and every time she got a text, her phone vibrated so loudly that even the teacher would pause, and the students constantly made fun of the professor. When we talking about beaver trapping, he talked about what beaver was used for, and why they wouldn't eat it. Well, you can guess how they reacted to that. At least ten minutes of laughing and "it was gready?? Did it taste like fish? Did it taste like old chinese food?" hahaha. And the professor had no idea what they meant. And then it started all over again in the next class! The students were just rude and disrespectful. I had the "pleasure" of being near one of the worst offenders at graduation. I asked him how he did in that class (I had gotten a C, because I missed two of the weekly assignments, and failed the midterm, my own fault for not studying) and he said he didn't know, but he better have gotten at least a B. I asked him how he did on the paper, and he was all upset he got a C. I asked him what he wrote it on (the professor let us write about basically anything), and I believe he wrote it on Timothy Leary, or some other drug related person. He felt he didn't get a good grade because the prof didn't agree with his point of view. It couldn't possibly have been because it wasn't a good paper. Meanwhile, I got an A+ on my paper "Romanticism in Jane Austen's 'Sense and Sensibility' " It made me feel good when he asked what grade I got on the paper. :D:

Haha...sorry about the rant. This has been something that has been bothering me since I've started taking classes again. It had been about 5 years, and even in that small amount of time, the atmosphere at school changed drastically.

[Princess Susi]

The sad part is, one parent was lobbying for a higher grade on a term paper. And was very upset that I disallowed references to Wikipedia.

In a different class, I had a parent try and berate me for a score of "0" on a term paper, until I showed her the "turnitin" report that showed it was plagiarized. Duhhhhh!

Yeah Wiki is the REALLY reliable source! :hysteria:

Yesterday I read a news item that in Japan, parents have threatened teachers over less than prefect grades. Teachers have had to be escorted off campus just to get home, and parents have sent teachers threatening emails, made threatening phone calls, etc.. A generation ago, that was unheard of.
And in Japan, the educational system is so competitive, they have what's called "cram school"--you cram for the exams that will get you into the next upper grade, and these start even before kindergarten! It's so competitive that kids are going to cram school to get into cram school! And the exams that must be taken in order to pass to the next grades can literally be killers--or at least in the old days, when students would actually die from the horrific stress of the grueling exams.
But now the traditional respect for teachers has broken down, and Japanese society is a mess.
And you thought it was bad here....

Then they send em over here to attend UC Berkeley!

I'll have to add that to my Course Expectations handout.. I teach high school, and every year the handout gets longer because I have to add rules to prevent the recurrence of crap they tried to pull the year before! One year a student turned in a nearly perfect paper, and all I had to do was Google the first five words and there was the exact same article on some website.

For next year I have to add, "Classroom electrical outlets may not be used to charge your cell phone or plug in your curling iron." Who'da thought?

You know I would hate to be a teacher in the age of the computer and cell phone. It would be maddening. I would be the bitch teacher that would NOT allow computer sources for papers, a student would HAVE to actually use a book from the library to find their info. That would be teaching in itself, having a student learn how to use a library and book!

Whe I attended Vet Tech school 5 yrs a go, we had strict rules about cellphones. One teacher would kick you out of class if your cell phone went off and you would get an absent for that day. NO excuses.

The cell phones were so disruptive during finals and clinicals that it was out of control. When you are trying to figure out the mathematical equation of how much anesthesia gas to administer to a living creature, you don't need the distraction of cell phones going off around you.
It is rude and insulting to your fellow classmates.
I may be an old fogey, but I hate the way computers and cells have taken over our lives. I like the simpler life. (Tho computers are fun to use to post at SGT!) :D: ;)

Princess Susi