Academic dopers - Are rules on "civility" in the classroom appropriate?

I’ll agree to this when the university agrees to stop scheduling lectures at lunchtime. I’m in class from 10:00 AM straight through to 4:00 PM Tuesdays and Thursdays because my faculty insists on scheduling no classes on Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays.

A class on cosmology taught by Stephen Hawking? I’ll probably allow myself to be bound and gagged. Some poet pretender teaching English Comp II? I might ask him to be bound and gagged.

Probably why I never graduated.

Tris

Recent college graduate here.

I found that generally my peers were pretty respectful in all the ways that counted and injected levity in all the ways that made class more entertaining. There were always exceptions, but there’s a recourse.

  1. Kick them out of class.
  2. Bring them up in front of conduct council or whatever the regulatory body is.
  3. Fail the jackasses.

8/10 students are sufficiently terrified of faculty. The other 20% are going to readjust or wash out in one way or another, and it’s probably for the best. Teach as well as you can, and if someone’s a problem, remove them so I can learn from you. That’s all you can do and it’s all I expect you to do.

Why should anyone have to feel terrified of faculty and/or consequences to display good manners? Don’t people who do what’s right generally do it because it’s the right thing to do?

I currently teach at a college and have no problems with the students.

One thing I do mention on the first day of class is that they are paying about $40-$60 an hour (at least) to be in this class:

  1. If you miss a class, you have just thrown away about $100 or more.
  2. I am always on time and prepared - I expect the same from them.
  3. I treat everyone with respect, and it is only fair that they do the same for me and the rest of the class.

I do have to battle with text messaging in class, and there are always those who just cannot make it to class on time (especially for the early morning classes) - but other than that, my multi-racial, multi-cultural classes have been quite civil.

What DMark said. Including my online class, where the opportunities to be discourteous are pretty much all about language and timing.

The problem with the student-as-customer concept is that it has caused some students to think that since they have paid to take a course, they deserve a passing grade; that the instructor should be at their beck and call 24/7; and that everything can be negotiated.
nameless: I don’t think students can be failed just on the basis of bad behavior. It doesn’t work that way on my campus, at any rate.

No, but the bad behavior is often coincident with other problems (low class attendance and so forth) that can lead to their removal.

Sorry, I don’t mean to suggest that they have to be terrified; I’m being a bit flip there.

How do they feel about dipping in class? That was pretty common at law school for me…

But by the same argument, exams are stressful for the people who do have those quirks, and it’s going to be quite distracting for them to be constantly on guard against them when they should be concentrating on the test. The professor is leaving himself open to a lawsuit if he uses those rules to discriminate against a student with a medical condition (like asthma, multiple sclerosis, or some high-functioning autism spectrum disorder). Public universities, at least, frown on rules that could be used to discriminate in this way.

This sounds like the kind of person who would complain that someone uses a pencil that makes too much noise when they’re writing, or that someone breathes too loud. A professor who is that bothered by things like foot tapping and knee bouncing during exams should probably give take-home exams, have someone else (maybe the TAs?) proctor the exam, or choose another career that doesn’t involve dealing with people in stressful situations.

Now, rules like “no text messaging during exams”, “no talking during exams”, and “turn off your cell phone before the exam” are quite reasonable.

I would drop that class unless doing so meant I wouldn’t graduate when I wanted to.

And if you happen to have some temporary or permanent medical issue that means you do have to get up frequently to use the bathroom (bladder or kidney problem, urinary tract infection, or just a mild case of the runs from when you forgot and ate the burritos at the dining hall last night), you sit near the door and get up and come back as quietly as you can. If you have some legitimate issue that means you might have to take the occasional cell phone call (on-call job, relative in the hospital), you sit near the door, put your phone on vibrate, answer it only if it is a real emergency, quietly step outside the classroom and shut the door before starting to talk, spend as little time as you can on the phone, and come back quietly.

I had a great post from yesterday that got lost somewhere on the internets.

I think context matters. Teaching a lecture course to 300 first-year students vs. a seminar to 12 juniors creates a different classroom dynamic. The rules by the professor in the example are ridiculous, but he probably thinks by posing these ridiculous rules (which will be exceedingly difficult to enforce and sanction) that he’ll send a message that he’s tough and takes no guff from grubby undergraduates.

Now, I teach grad students. My syllabi are very detailed about expectations and things like eating (prefer that you not because of classroom policies, smell/noise issues, and extra work for the custodians) and cell phones (please silence, and don’t come to class if you’re expecting an important call). Other than that it’s a matter of common courtesy and respecting others in the environment.

When I was in grad school I was a teaching fellow for a professor that hated computer users, especially if he caught them checking e-mail. But I find that less bothersome. Oftentimes we’re discussing an issue, and a student will have a comment about something they found on YouTube or something on the web (on topic, of course). To me it’s the modern day doodling device. You wouldn’t yell at a student for drawing an AC/DC logo in biro on their notebook… why would you care if he/she is doing it in the 21st century way?

Remember that I did use the word “habit”. I don’t think it’s a big deal for someone to get up in the middle of a lecture so long as it does not become a habit. Things pop up from time to time and that’s just part of life. If it’s something that’s going to be happing on a regular basis then the instructor should be informed.
Marc

Agreed. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that people be civil, as least for the duration of the class meeting.

I’m coming at this from teaching in the community college, often to incoming freshman who seem to think they’re still in…well, middle school. None of us enjoys having to remind anyone of proper behavior; it’s no fun to do so, but unfortunately, a few of them make it unavoidable.

Leaving alone his rules, I will defend the fact that today at lunch I threw out a student who was joking that the VP of the high school tried to get him to stay at the school (he’s flunking out) by showing him her bra. He had to leave, and that was being mild about it. Even then I had to tell him that I knew how to win a power struggle.