I have to say I agree with the OP, and could tell some horror stories from the classes I teach.
However, having recently found out that my teaching position has been cut due to budget cuts, I’m somewhat down about the whole thing, and think I’ll miss the experience greatly. Because I love teaching, even if there are times when the students make it unhappy. Oh well, at least this puts me down to just one career now, so I’ll have more time for my hobbies.
Of course, there is a Junior College nearby that might need me to teach a night class…
While I liked grad school and loved teaching I didn’t stick with it because of the low demand for my specialty in the wide wide world.
I’ve often thought that teaching at some community college or somesuch would be a great retirement job. Make my pile then go back to teaching part time. I think that would be great.
I have taught at a large university and a smaller college, and have never been given any guidelines about how to assign letter grades. If I was failing large numbers of students, I imagine there’d be complaints up the line and I’d get some kind of talking-to from my department chair.
In general, though, this isn’t an issue at all. Some students put in a lot of work and get A’s. Some students are smart and don’t work very hard, and get B’s. Some aren’t to bright, but are doing their best, and are tickled pink to get their B’s. Some students aren’t very bright or very motivated, and manage to learn enough to get a C. Some students are worthless slackers, and the get D’s and F’s. Very simple.
Realize that most of the complaints here are about the D-and-F people, or the kind of B people who want the A without doing the work. The vast majority of students quietly master the material and get the grade they expect and deserve. It’s the small but incessantly wheedling minority who think they deserve special treatment that need a whack upside the head from a clue-by-four.
Thanks to all, I now have an idea of what my attendance and grading policy will be if I ever graduate and pursue a career in education as I hope.
One major extra credit assignment will be available per semester. Only those who have turned in all their required assinments on time, regardless of grades, will be eligible for this extra credit project. Eh, maybe I’ll make it 90% of assignments or leave some little margin of error, but this will hopefully reward those who are trying but need a little boost, without allowing a slacker to get away with his/her laziness.
I have never heard of a teacher doing that. I’m completely and totally baffled. What’s the point of having you do MLA at all if you’re not going to follow the new guidelines?
I’ve heard that plagirism and such isn’t considered a big deal in some overseas countries, so if it’s international students, that may be why. No cites or anything, just what we were told in one of my classes.
look!ninjas, no idea. She also wants Web cites done her own way, but didn’t really tell anyone that til they’d gone to the MLA website and done it the way the MLA has it on their cite. Her reaction when one of the students handed her a printed copy of the instructions from the MLA’s website. “Well, that’s not how I want it done.” Then don’t say “MLA format”!
I think attendance policies are pointless. If the professor covers stuff not in the book during class time, that’s cool, I can see the importance of being there. If it’s straight from the book, though, why should I have to sit there and listen to them yak three times a week when I can easily teach myself?
One response: You may be able to teach yourself. You may be ahead of the curve. About a quarter of my students scream and threaten if I review the reading, and about a quarter scream and threaten if I don’t (typical course evaluation: “What was the point of having a book? She didn’t go over most of it!”). The other 50% are silent.
Metacom - they get abused when students think they can simply do the reading and ace a few tests and that thats all there is to a course. I make my lectures fun and interesting, challenging even. Maybe it came down to respect, I get paid to teach you about human behavior, an ear in the classroom more than once a month is important in my opinion.
I have all the latitude I need. Case in point: I had a student two years ago who lost his mother halfway through my psych lit class. This was a 400 level class, I knew he was in no shape to take the final, I told him He could take it over winter break. It happens, sometimes students need some latitude, if they deserve it they get it. Ava-Beth - I have never had a parent call me to discuss a grade, and probably never will have a parent call me, I work at a private liberal arts college where we have an honor code. Parents are well aware that their children reap what they sow here. SnoopyFan - The students read the book on their own time, I am there to lecture on what they have already read…I want my students to have thoughtful questions in class, and to know what I am lecturing about. As for doing the reading…most profs know by your questions and class behaviour if you have done the reading, and infact know what the hell I’m talking about. I have heard some duzzies from students trying to make me think they did the reading. Case in point: I recently had a student explain to me Freud’s Archetype theory, from the previous nights reading. Heh, I said you do mean Jung’s Theory, thats tonights reading
Thank all of you for these responses. Instructors - > very good to see common views. I have to remind myself often that these students still have a lot ahead of them. We just hope they do it right!
Teachers who teach straight from the book at the college level irritate me to no end. I’m paying gobs and gobs of money so I can be here and be taught. If I wanted to teach myself, I could do that at home for a fraction of what I’m paying for a college education! Teach me, goddammit!
I agree, Leesha. Lots of professors DO teach other stuff that’s not in the book, then you have the ones who use class time as a chance to spout their political opinions, talk about their families, etc. Good times.
I’m sorry, but I’m a bit confused. Where did I say I “destroyed” a student’s work (or even have a policy of destroying a student’s work)? I said that if I receive assignments not given to me in class, it “disappears” in the sense that the student never turned one in in the first place. That is, they receive a zero - no points earned for completing the assignment.
Shoshana and Philosphr are correct - some people want you to teach covering material from the text, while others want you to cover material that isn’t necessarily from the text. Most, good professors try to do a bit of both (depending on the type of course and level). It’s sometimes a difficult balance to maintain.
I, personally, would like to teach my classes using a more seminar-like approach (rather than primarily a lecture format). I’ll probably experiment using such an approach later this year with one of my classes to see how it goes. Who knows, the majority of my students may actually like/prefer it to the regular lecture format I normally employ.
Nice “save,” epynomous. Very “interesting” “parsing” of the “English” “language” you are “using” in your “defense” of your “attitude” towards “grading.” It’s especially “interesting” how you “describe” your “use” of the word “disappeared.”
