If another of you claims fucking Gen-Y tech computer modern information age super-geniusness and then is unable to actually fucking attach your fucking late assignment and is unable to figure out how fucking WebCT works and doesn’t know how to set up VPN even with the library help site that I show you, araghhhh!
“Duh, we know how to do research on the web” is almost always immediately followed by “I can’t open PDFS! I couldn’t do the reading!”
Also, JSTOR is not the name of a fucking journal, tech geniuses!
Also, tired of super casual “Hey, 'sup, prof. I had 2 [stay home hung over, embroider a pillow for my pledge sister, go to court, go antiquing with my parents, spend the week in detox, get to the proctologist to treat over-enthusiastic rush-paddling, etc]-- did anything important happen in class today? Can u send me ur notes? kthxbye!” e-mails. Sign the fucking e-mail with your fucking name, too-- I have no idea who xtckitten69@hotmail is.
And if you can’t figure out how to make Word do a damn footnote, then WATCH WHEN I SHOW THE CLASS FOR THE FOURTH TIME.
Oh, and THERE’S A GOD DAMN GLOSSARY AT THE BACK OF THE TEXT BOOK, IN CASE YOU WEREN’T TAKING NOTES AND DON’T KNOW THIS LIST OF 30 TERMS. I am not going to e-mail you definitions.
I would fucking love to see the spleen splashed all over RYS!
Online, on paper, on the blackboard, on the whiteboard…It doesn’t matter. Some students will never look at it, never check it, never read it, no way, no how.
If you find out, let me know, okay?
From a related viewpoint, who the fuck let these fucking morons into college in the first place? The bookstore (whereat I suffer) is not that complex. There are signs about every three feet that explain where to find the textbooks (for space reasons, they’re upstairs). Do NOT walk past 20 signs that say in big flashy letters TEXTBOOKS ARE UPSTAIRS to ask me where the textbooks are.
And get off your goddamn cell phone while you’re doing it, you goddamn elitist preppie “entitled” choad smoker. Guess what, retard? You ask me a question and immediately go back to you ever-so-important chat with Buffy or Brad or ShaNeeQua or whatever, I’m not answering until you fucking GET OFF THE GODDAMN PHONE.
And if it ever is done, FERPA says we don’t have to deal with Psycho Helicopter Parents Who Don’t Realize That Their “Babies” Are Now 19 Years Old, Fercripesake!
Oh, I’ll chip in on this one. I can’t work up too much rage, as I went over proper email etiquette on the first day of class and, at least for the first few weeks of the semester, my students have observed my guidelines. I do, however, have to put up with the kids who can’t use my school’s WebCT-like application and send me emails claiming that they can’t do the reading because my links are “broken” as I’m reading the site in question after having clicked the link on my syllabus.
Naturally, when I expressed excitement about an upcoming album from one of my favorite bands, three or four of them immediately offered to procure leaked versions for me. But login to access the syllabus? It cannot be done! Sigh…
I know you are in high school, but my class is literally a college course. I’m teaching from my regular college syllabus. You will receive college credit. You had to get recommendations from your previous English teachers to even be allowed to enroll. You are the best and brightest in the school, theoretically.
In the spirit of that knowledge, I’ve given you 2 weeks to pull your shit together and start acting like you’re in college. My patience is not infinite. And given the fact that about six of your comrades failed to turn the first assignment, and about 12 of the papers I did get would embarrass sixth graders, I’m going to give you one more class period to pull your motherfucking shit together before I bring the fucking hammer down.
Ha. I have you all beat. I once had a college student who walked up to me on the 2nd floor periodicals desk (after he had walked past all the, you know, books downstairs) and asked “Uh, where is the library?”
I teach online now and I have one student I already want to kill. In a week’s time, when everyone else has emailed me once, to introduce themselves, he has emailed me 14 times. His last gem was to ask a due date. This was after the email where he asked me how to find the class calendar, so I referred him to my previous answer. Idiot.
Mr. Wingo, is that you? I thought I’d read your obituary!
I took an AP European history class, but the difference between pepperlandgirl and Mr. Wingo is that he was a hardass from the beginning. And you know what? We all passed the college test at the end of the class and got our three hours of credit!
I teach AP courses, and I am a hard-ass, but you have to be a hard-ass in a very different way–bright high school students are bright high school students, not average college students. It’s a very different animal. You are teaching college-level material with high school pedagogy.
I think PLG is describing a dual-credit course, where kids are actually enrolled in a junior college course while still in High School, getting both a high school English credit and a JC credit for the course. That, again, is a very different sort of course. It’s typically taught much more like a straight college class, because you aren’t prepping for a very tough test in the end that has it’s own very strict requirements that may be different from what is typically taught in the equivilant course–AP Language, for example, contains a large rhetorical analysis/close reading component. Most college-level composistion classes focus much more on arguementation.
I attend a REALLY expensive private 4-year. I’m mystified by the amount of students who will skip in favor of the bar.
As for those who do stay, They all sit there like zombies during class time. The teacher asks, and nobody answers. I used to think it was shyness, but then I saw many of these students in the real world. They’re just dumb. “How do I get online” isn’t a bad question at a company. “I don’t see firefox, how do I get online.” IS, however stupid.
At school it’s even worse! Students always “forget” to attach a document, but they’ll send it later, of course. There’s a prof I’m friendly with. He used to like teaching, but the dumbassery has reached a high note in the past 5 years. His english classes are constant sparring matches between him and the students who try to weasel out of assignments on a daily basis. It’s not a hard class, and the assignments are a page at most. Hell, the guy even GIVES THE ARTICLE to write on, and he just wants a well-formed opinion!
Our school requires a Written Proficiency Exam. I took it, it was beyond simple. I get that some people aren’t as good at writing, so they fail and can take a make-up class. But NOW, the school wants to do away with it. Why? Because too many parents were complaining that precious Brittany and Cooper couldn’t pass the test and the teachers wouldn’t relent to the parents’ demands! So now, instead of being able to demonstrate the ability to form a rational argument, incoming freshmen next year will just be able to pay their way out of the test. FUCKERS.
Not a teacher, but one of my professors told us a story about a student, who, when the class was studying Martin Luther, asked, “How could he still be alive to free the slaves?” (And this was in college-how ever he got in, I don’t want to know)
Close. It’s not a JC course. It’s an actual University course, and they are working for credit from the University. So it’s not like an AP course, and they won’t be taking a test at the end of the year. They will, however, be graded like I typically grade, and a few of them are probably going to be pretty shocked at the end of the semester.
I don’t like being a hardass. It’s not my natural state. But I can be a hardass. Which they’re all going to learn soon.
The problem with Flatworm Pedagogy is that the good students get punished, and the students who deserve to be killed and eaten are … stupid.
As for Martin Luthor, he’s a Time Lord. That’s how he lived so long, and how he started out as a white European and ended as a black American.
The saving grace here is that the grand bulk of my students aren’t bad at all. It’s the few miscreants who need serious Fleet Maintenance, if their warranties are still in effect.
Tomorrow, I may be kicking students’ butts out the door if they don’t quit text messaging in class and making silly noises because they are trying to amuse themselves. (Believe it or not, providing entertainment is not my job, and I will remind them of this fact.)
