So you lecture for free? I know they kick around humanities majors for a bajillion years, but once you get tenure you should at least ask for a salary.
Yeah, once again, a lab environment (whether it be computers or chemistry) is a lot different from a lecture hall/classroom environment. One has valuable or dangerous objects, the other does not.
Children will not chew gum in my class!
Just imagine blowing gum, sugar, chips, pop, and other crap through wind instruments and you will understand my reasonings. Sticky pads usually mean I have to fix them.
Even if it IS a sales transaction, how that that translate into getting to do what you want in class? That whole attitude of “I pay your salary, therefore I get the option to do as I please in class” just amazes me.
Thanks for proving Brandon’s point. No matter how much authority you have, you cannot MAKE someone do anything. THAT IS THE DEFINITION OF A POWER TRIP. All you can do is provide the rules and provide a punishment if they are not followed.
By the way, think about what happens if your students rebel and stick gum all over everything. According to you, you’re the one who will get in trouble. Which–guess what–means they’re the ones that have the real power.
This, on the other hand, does make sense. There’s no reason being the buyer in a transaction should mean that you get to arbitrarily change the terms after the money has been spent. When you signed up, you agreed to follow the rules. That’s the reason that anyone has authority over you in that setting.
That said, you are in competition with other places, and it behooves you to seem just as fair as they are. In most cases, a rule about not chewing gum does not seem fair: it seems pointless. You want to punish people for harming equipment with gum? Punish the people that actually do it, not the people that are responsible enough to do things right.
Really, it comes off as a judgment on how stupid we are. We think you’re too stupid to know how to handle gum. It’s a lack of trust that people don’t like. It’s insulting.
Sure, you have your reasons, but that reason is: the one loser who screws something up causes everyone else to suffer. We as a society HATE that and think it is unfair. It’s just as unfair as the frivolous lawsuits increasing the prices on everything. It’s just as unfair as Nava having to worry about being sued for crap her students do.
BTW, I want to point out to Nava that I don’t think she actually is on a power trip, but that, if she talks in that way to people in class, that’s what they think. I’m sure she only meant that she would punish people who break the rules, and that her rules exist becuase she does not want her equipment damaged.
It’s just one of my pet peeves when people talk like that. “YOU WILL NOT” inspires me, and most of the people I know to try and prove you wrong.
I saw a video once of a French Horn infested with MAGGOTS because of some idiot not being clean of sugar before he played (and presumably cleaning improperly). I have… nightmares about that video.
And why do you have to fix sticky pads? They’re pretty easy unless the pad is ruined altogether, cigarette paper or a dollar bill usually does the trick just fine.
1 last post: Yes, that means I’m backpedalling on my reply to Nava. I was being a douche because of my own pet peeves, and I’m sorry. But I do think saying “You will not [anything]” is a bad idea.
I agree with most of the others that are actually teachers. In most cases I wouldn’t notics gum being chewed, but if I did and it was putting me off, I woudl definately tell them to throw it away (also at university BTW). I’m there to teach the cleass and if something is distracting me it will harm (if you can call failing to understand me harmful ;)) all students. I personally don’t fuss with these details of teaching, but if somebody does all the power to them; I’m sometimes actually worried I let too much slide, meaning some students are getting distracted and have trouble following.
Also, while they pay tuition and I get payed by university (and teaching is just part of the job description, even as PhD candidate here in Holland) students do not get to feel entitled to anything. If they don’t do the readings, I won’t discuss; and am perfectly happy to sit back and let them do the readings in class. If you haven’t prepared or aren’t interested: don’t show up, try to pass the exam on your own.
Or this one
Teenagers: No gum.
Adults: You’re an adult and can do as you please as long as you do not disrupt the class for others.
Precisely. Paying for university is a bit like paying a gym membership. You’ll get access to facilities and training but no one apart from you provides the motivation. If at the end of the day you don’t succeed and think that’s due to the quality of the training provided, you might be able to complain - but if it’s down to your attitude and your approach then I’m afraid you’ve just wasted your money.
The other important - and relevant to the discussion - thing is that higher education is about more than just learning facts (in the UK at least). The idea is that you become increasingly articulate, informed, analytical, capable of critical thinking and professional in your outlook. I’d suggest that doing anything in class that you wouldn’t do in, say, a board meeting, pretty much suggests a lack of professionalism.
So we should wear suits to class? Never bring a snack or a drink? Geez, how long ago did you go to college? Because things have certainly changed, a* lot*. To me, there are times when you need to be professional in college (presentations for example), but simple lecture classes ain’t one of them.
After thinking about what has changed in college, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are significantly less people who think education is on this high and mighty pedestal because nowadays, going to college is almost an expected routine from high school graduates. It’s no longer because someone’s utterly driven to get an education; more and more people go because they graduated high school and virtually every job now requires some kind of a degree. So it’s my hypothesis that the change in opinion about college has been brought by the intense drive for everyone to go to college, rather than just people who really want to be there.
I think your POV toward rules while in someone’s class is a bit extreme. Every place where you have a monetary transaction with another person has rules of its own, most of which have to do with how you will conduct yourself while in their establishment and how the monetary transactions will take place. Professors have every right to establish rules within their own classroom, and are not merely the mindless wageslave that you are painting them to be. Personally, there are a handful of things that annoy me about my generation when it comes to education and behavior in society:
[ul]
[li]Pajamas are not everyday wear, and are not intended as appropriate clothes for going places while wearing. If you’re so sick that getting out of your PJs seems like a bad idea, you should be in the infirmary, not class. [/li][li]You don’t have to wear a suit, but dressing like it’s a day at the beach or a slumber party isn’t showing respect for yourself or the person teaching the class.[/li][li]Pay attention the first time a concept is explained. The professor doesn’t want to answer the same question three times in a row because you and two other numbskulls can’t be arsed to pay attention.[/li][li]Chewing gum and eating food can be really distracting if you’re making a lot of noise. If you can’t be discreet about your eating habits, don’t eat in class at all. If I am teaching the class and can hear you eat, I’m going to ask you to leave. Why? Because I shouldn’t be able to hear or see the texture of your food and it disgusts me to hear loud mastications.[/li][li]I shouldn’t see you texting other people or hearing your cell phone go off during class. If the importance of the conversation takes precedence over your learning, then you shouldn’t be in class. Ditto with people who can’t seem to figure out where to store a phone on vibrate so it won’t jingle against keys and make more noise than when the ringer is on.[/li][li]The professor is not here to baby you; learn to accept that you’re going to have to do some of your own thinking and that the rules apply to you, regardless of how useful or stupid you think they are.[/li][/ul]
I don’t have problems with jeans and a t-shirt or a tank top and shorts in hot weather, but is it so difficult to change out of one’s pajamas or cover up one’s bikini with more than a sarong-style beach cover-up? It’s distracting for a lot of us, and there are enough distractions in the average classroom that reducing the more distracting behaviors (eating loudly/chewing gum, distracting clothes, cell phone usage, etc.) makes it easier for instructors to do their jobs. You do, after all, want to have the person teaching you able to do a good job and provide you with quality instruction, don’t you?
How is money in return for knowledge not a sales transaction?
On occasions where the professor decides that he/she will cover the material by having students teach it via presentations or where, as a favor, class is ended early, I feel that I have been short changed. I am paying ridiculous amounts of money for you to pass on knowledge – its no favor to me if I don’t get something in return for that money. Sure seems like a transaction to me.
I use this metaphor all the time. It gets to the heart of the “business transaction” that students like to talk about. A class isn’t a sales transaction in which you pay me money and I give you knowledge - you pay the institution to create an opportunity for you to interact with someone with expertise in in a particular area to further your knowledge of that area. As that expert, it’s my job to ensure that the opportunity I provide you is up-to-date and of high quality. But effort and work on your part will determine the ultimate outcome.
So–no shirt, no shoes, no service?
When I’ve taught, I don’t really care about gum specifically (unless it’s a lab course, obviously), but if whatever you’re doing is causing a distraction in any way, you better be prepared to knock it off or get out, even if you don’t think your chewing is that loud. If it distracts me in the front of the room, it certainly distracts the people sitting near you.
This is not because I necessarily need to glorify the educational process, but because the other people in the class paid just as much to be there as the gum-chewer. Because of that, they should have a classroom experience that’s the best I can give them, including eliminating distractions. The needs of the many outweigh the habits of the obnoxious, even when they think they’re being quiet.
gah
Thank you for expressing this so well. This is exactly what I believe as well.