[waves arms frantically] Question for Mr. CEO Mr. CEO! Mr. CEO! [/waves arms frantically]
If a customer paid you money for a service but did not choose to avail himself of that service would you continue to accept his money and provide that service?
Can we please stop the comparison of school and work? At work YOU are being PAID to provide a service. At school YOU are PAYING for a service. The only person with a job in the classroom is the professor.
If you’re going to call for people to stop making the school/work comparison, then you should also stop acting like the professor is some sort of mere service provider who must bend to every whim of his or her “customer,” the student.
The fact is that students do indeed pay fees, and professors do indeed get paid for their work. But professors are also meant to help uphold the professional intellectual and academic integrity of the university as a place of learning and as a degree-granting institution, and one of the ways they do this is to set certain standards to which students must conform. Much as you might like to believe that attendance should not be taken into account when assessing those standards, the fact is that many (and, in the humanities, most) educational professionals disagree with you.
A key concept in the history and sociology of the professions is that the attainment of certain professional credentials, through an appropriate system of training and evaluation, qualifies a person to practice that profession and to help maintain its standards. While professions should not be immune from criticism just because of their qualifications and expertise, they do earn the right to make certain determinations that fall within the scope of that training and expertise.
Just out of interest, do you believe that you know better than your doctor whether or not you need that bypass, just because you happen to be paying his or her bill? And if your lawyer tells you that it’s in your best interests to keep your mouth shut in a police interview, do you ignore him or her because it’s you who’s writing the checks?
Sigh why don’t you go back and read the nice long post I wrote explaining myself.
I do what I feel is best. I am paying the doctor and lawyer to advise me on the best course of action not to force me to take it. Depending on how wide the difference is and how important the issue is I may or my Lawyer/Doctor may decide to terminate the relationship. Certainly I can do the same with my University but changing schools is a life-changing possibly financially expensive endevor. The best option for me is to just deal with the occasional teacher that requires attendance or collects homework but that doesn’t mean I have to like it nor will it stop me from advocating change.
Vivalostwages: You mention that you would have approved an illness excuse and today he was obviously ill, disruptive and potentially contagious. Why not advise the student that you were aware he was ill and he would not be penalized if he chose to leave? Maybe you (and the other students) could have avoided some nasty germs and annoying disruptions. Just curious.
1010011010 wrote
Some jobs involve work that is steady during some time period. The phone needs to be answered for example. The holder of this sort of role is not doing his job if he is not there on time. The employee is effectively selling a block of his time to the company, and if he doesn’t deliver that block of time, he’s not fulfilling his end of the deal.
Other jobs involve work that has longer term deadlines. Some project must be accomplished 3 months from now. In these jobs, there is more flexibility in time. In my particular industry (software), it’s not uncommon for developers to come in hours late, or even work from home when they feel like it. That’s not to say they aren’t expected to deliver. But this employee is not selling their time, so much as they’re selling a set of deliverables that they will produce.
I argue that a college class falls into the second sort of role. There are goals that must be achieved, and students should be rated on how well they do at achieving those goals.
treis wrote
I’ve read this several times and I’m honestly not sure what your analogy is. Is the student the customer? I don’t get your point.
Wrong again. People who are on “flexible time” cannot be late. It does not apply to them.
One of the goals of the class is regular, prompt attendance, as specified in the college manual and the syllabus. How you can seriously argue otherwise is baffling. Again, this is not a mathematics course where you could simply “challenge the test” and prove complete knowledge of the subject. It is assumed that **being in this class yields ** knowledge that is otherwise unavailable. Challenge that asumption if you will, but not the application of it.
The analogy is that the student is the customer in this situation and can use whichever service that he so desires. If he does not make use of the class time that he paid for that is his business. For example if someone paid you to consult on software and you agreed to attend a meeting at a agreed upon time and place. If your client continually skips the meetings but pays you for your time would you keep him as a customer? The idea is that the student in my opinion has no responsibility to attend any class but the university is not under any obligation to provide him a special service in the form of a make up test or lecture material.
But it’s not, if the student’s very presence in the class is necessary for the student to obtain the necessary skills and learning required by the class.
Is it really so hard for some people to grasp that the production of a written paper or the passing of an exam is not the only way to demonstrate the necessary competence in a particular subject? The fact is that, in humanities classes at least, a student gains both knowledge and skills from class attendance that cannot be gained simply by reading the books and writing the papers and exams. And the knowledge and skills gained (and demonstrated) by the student during class discussions is a key determinant in assessing their level of competence in the subject at hand.
For those who insist on referring to exams and papers as the only way to grade student performance, maybe you can think of it like this: every single class discussion is, in itself, a sort of test or exam, at which the student demonstrates certain knowledge and develops and shows certain skills. And, like any other assessment task, the task of participating in class discussion is one that cannot be blown off at the student’s convenience.
Discussion classes are the humanities’ equivalent of a science lab. Sure, the history student can read the key material in the textbooks, just like a geology student or a chemistry student. But while the book might tell the student plenty about the subject matter, the student still needs to demonstrate certain understandings and skills that cannot be conveyed in a written test or a paper, and that are central to the mission of the subject.
A geology student can read about the constituent minerals of granite in a textbook, and can look at pictures that show what they are, but the geology student is still going to be expected, at some stage, to pick up a hunk of granite and show that he or she can actually perform the task in practice. Similarly, a chemistry student might know all about the theory of using titration to determine the nature of a solution, but he or she, in order to pass the class, is still going to have to attend labs to demonstrate that they can actually do a titration and obtain appropriate results from it.
I think that much of the debate in this thread derives from a very narrow conception of what education is, particularly in the humanities and liberal arts. I think it comes from an assumption that discrete written assignments are the only methods of demonstrating or evaluating a student’s learning, or that the aim is simply to fill a student’s head with a finite and sharply delimited set of facts, which must then be regurgitated. The very purpose of classes like this is to teach not only knowledge, but interaction and communication and debate—things that can only be assessed over time, and with the student present in the class.
How ironic. Didn’t you tell us, some time ago, to quit with the school/business analogies?
And your own analogy is patently absurd. Sure, the business person will keep a client who keeps paying but who doesn’t show up for meetings. The question should, more correctly, have been: “Would you compromise your professional standards for a client who doesn’t turn up to meetings?” Because that’s what you’re asking the professors in this case to do—to allow a student to pass despite the fact that the student, by his or her absence, has not fulfilled the pedagogical requirements of the course. Also, by sacrificing or diluting the requirements, the professor might be making life easier for the non-attending consumer, but the professor is also shirking his or her duty to all the other students, and to the institution itself, by compromising academic standards in the name of consumer convenience. Whether you agree with what those academic standards are or not, the fact is that they are followed by virtually every humanities and liberal arts course in the modern university.
As Contrapuntal said:
And i submit, also, that anyone who seriously questions that assumption in the case of humanities and liberal arts subjects really doesn’t understand what the purpose of a liberal education is.
:rolleyes:
Forget it. I took a substantial bit of time to write out my view on this matter and apparently it was roundly ignored. This is the second poster that has seemingly failed to grasp my view that I have clearly laid out. It is also the second that accused me of bringing up a work situation after I said it does not apply. Seemingly the difference between an Employee/Employer and a Customer/Business relationship is lost on a few Dopers. Whatever. Perhaps if you re-read my posts in this thread and then respond to what I argued rather than what you think I am arguing I will respond.
I’m well aware of the “difference between an Employee/Employer and a Customer/Business relationship,” But, as i made clear above, your customer/business analogy is a load of shite that is completely inapplicable to this case.
The problem is that your whole argument rests on an assumption about the nature of education and learning that is completely at odds with that of the people who are actually responsible for teaching college and university students. You continue to insist that attendance is merely some bureaucratic requirement that is completely tangential to evaluating a student’s performance, and you wilfully disregard all the people (many of whom actually teach in the liberal arts) who tell you that this is not the case.
It’s worth quoting Contrapuntal on this issue again:
You see, if you were willing to acknowlege the simple fact that your educational philosophy is obviously different from that of professional educators, then i could at least respect your position, while continuing to disagree with it. But you continue to argue as if your idea of educational evaluation is the only one, and that any insistence on attendance is merely capricious bureaucracy that has nothing to do with actual education. You seem completely unwilling to acknowledge that there might be genuine pedagogical and educational and evaluative justifications underlying the requirement that a student attend class.
Contrapuntal wrote
I have no idea what flexible time is, so I don’t know how to respond. You seem to be saying the first sort of job I described is “flexible time” (you say these people “cannot be late”), so I’m assuming we’re in agreement.
Yes, I think it’s been established that the OP wrote in the syllabus that students grades would be at least partially connected with their attendance.
And as I’ve said, I don’t believe that this is a reasonable thing to do.
Yes, you do assume that.
That doesn’t make it so. It’s unfathomable to believe that every minute of every class is a test or project of some sort which should count towards a grade.
You’re right. Every minute is not a project or a test that counts towards a grade.
There are class discussions in Humanities. These discussions involve exchanges of fact and opinion. Exchanges of opinion require the presence of people. A lot of Humanities classes are not about right and wrong answers but about “your” answers, “my” answers, and “hmm-your-opinion-sounds-reasonable-and-makes-me-want-to-modify-mine-a-bit” answers. Interpretations and perspectives are supposed to be shared so that one’s understanding of a theme is richer and deeper. If you don’t show up in class, I will not get the benefits of your opinions, and you will not get the benefits of mine. When that is what the ENTIRE POINT of the humanities is.
Observe:
Human thought. Needs humans.
Common sense: In a field of study where human thought reigns supreme, it is a GOOD thing to have more than one thought flying around.
Therefore, discussions. Therefore, people. Therefore, attendance.
In a field where your performance and learning, and that of others are not dependent on your being in a classroom, it makes little sense to make attendance compulsory. But in a field where presence and participation make all the difference, YES, it should be. You’re not just responsible for YOUR learning, you’re also responsible for that of OTHERS.
Which is what mhendo etc have been repeating ad infinitum.
I might have a problem replying in a timely manner. Apologies in advance.
[QUOTE=Bill H]
You said it yourself, in the post I quoted. Here it is again–
Other jobs involve work that has longer term deadlines. Some project must be accomplished 3 months from now. In these jobs, there is more flexibility in time. In my particular industry (software), it’s not uncommon for developers to come in hours late, or even work from home when they feel like it. That’s not to say they aren’t expected to deliver. But this employee is not selling their time, so much as they’re selling a set of deliverables that they will produce.
Well, I assume it, the professor assumes it, the university assumes it, and every student in the class who is capable of reading and understanding it should assume it.
Can you show where anyone has made such a claim? What an absurd statement.
This is how one of my English professors explained it to me. In her class, a survey of Romantic poets, we would be graded on 3 papers and a final. The final was 3 hours long and consisted of essay questions. It would have been impossible to include everything we discussed in one semester in three papers and a final. Being in class was important. Actively participating in an intelligent manner was even more important. It could be assumed about students who were in class and participating in discussion that they had a reasonable familiarity with the material not covered elsewhere. By the same token, students who were not in class could not reasonably press the case that they had a similar familiarity with it.
Contrapuntal wrote
I now have even less idea what you’re talking about.
You wrote
Since you addressed this to me, I assume I should respond, but I honestly don’t know what you meant. In my description, the people who are on “flexible time” can be late on a daily basis. As long as they achieve their objectives, they’re fine.
Please clarify.
Sorry about the confusion. What I mean is that since they have no set time to come in, lateness does not apply to them. It cannot be said about them that they are late.
An excellent point. I’ve thought about this quite a bit over the past few days. Yes, I could have made the offer and I would have excused the absence, though I’m not sure how I would have handled it if he had refused to leave.
Just took me by surprise, I guess, because usually when students are ill, they stay home and send me a voicemail or email to let me know why they didn’t/can’t make it to class. This fellow had apparently gone to his prayers even while ill. Maybe he thinks he’s a trooper or a martyr, but I’d call it just plain inconsiderate.
I’d rather people didn’t come at all when they’re that sick. I’m perfectly willing to work something out if health issues keep a student out of class.
Contrapuntal: The Assoc. Dean said the same thing you did: this guy could very well be trying to pull something that was successful for him in the past. Perhaps he was able to fool or intimidate someone before. Barring that, it’s a mystery to me how he could have spent any time at all in college and not realized that we have attendance policies, not to mention syllabi.
RE: the use of the word “Bully”: Does it apply only to overt, physical attempts at intimidation? If so, then I used it incorrectly. But it seems to me that I’ve heard the term “emotional bully” and that may have been what was on my mind. Is it still the wrong choice of words?
It sucks, but I happen to be sort of like your student Viva. Of course, I’d never disrespect a teacher intentionally like you were. My take on it is this: every student has his or her strengths and weaknesses. Some are math wiz’s and can’t write an essay to save their life. Some are terrifically driven and conscientious but don’t have the intellectual chops. And some, like your student, have the capacity but not the motivation.
But, a teacher’s job is not just to impart information or a skill; it’s to prepare individuals for the so-called real world. And in the real world competence without responsibility doesn’t always cut it. That’s why attendance and participation rules aren’t arbitrary or excessive.
Tell this kid to fuck off.
Nah, he’s just being passive-agressive.
He made a racket hoping you would kick him out, and then he could throw back all that stuff about attendance counting towards grade.
Its probably just to make himself feel better about “getting back” at you.
Lol, it’s hilarious seeing you try to paint a community college as some great institute of learning.