Normally I don’t like the idea of even mentally pitting any of my students. As students, by definition, they are there to learn, and thus shouldn’t be expected to know everything. So I don’t bat an eye at even the most egregious of mistakes, or sigh and say “There goes one of those idiots again…”’
But in the past week and a half, I have had two separate students say two stunningly pit-worthy things:
1). Today was the last day of our quarter. After wrapping up discussion of our last text, and reviewing for the upcoming final exam, a student came up to me after class and said “I’ve missed the class for the past couple of weeks. Could you tell me what I need to know for the final?” Um, yeah, dipshit, I’ll sum up three week’s worth of lectures and 400 pages of reading in five minutes for you. Oh yeah, and it’s usually a good idea to tell the prof that you’ve been blowing off their class–especially when they’re going to be calculating your course grade in the next couple of days.
I have never literally laughed in someone’s face before today, but man did it feel good to do so.
2). Dipshit #2 basically asked me how to get away with plagiarism for one of his other classes. Pretty high on my list of Things to Not Say to Someone Who Is Grading You: “I’m a big ol’ fuckin’ cheater; I cheat at every opportunity possible.”
So hats off to both of you. Your total cluelessness certainly made my week.
And other teacher/Dopers, any other tales of the Stunningly Oblivious that you’d like share? C’mon, vent; it feels good.
Perhaps, but I would think that, “hey, Prof. Did you get my email that said I was sick/my Mom in Bahrain died and I had to sort out out some legal stuff/I was in Army” would have been included in the statement.
Seriously, as a student, I find that kind of student very annoying, because I think that shows serious disrespect on so many levels. Laughing in their face is a pretty damn good idea; maybe he/she/ it will think next time.
Thanks for a student’s perspective. As I laughed at her, a couple of nearby students, who were waiting to ask more legitimate questions, overheard and started laughing too. Afterward, I felt kind of bad about that (I mean, she did have a somewhat stunned look on her face). So I’m glad that there’s at least one other heartless bastard on these boards!
And Finn: I’d buy that if she’d contacted me earlier (like a couple of weeks ago, when she disappeared) and said that she’d need to be gone. But I heard nothing from her. What got me, though, wasn’t even the absences: it was the assumption that after vanishing without a trace that I would (or even could) get her caught up to speed in a couple of minutes. Yeah, my class could be taught in five minutes; I just like to drag it out over ten weeks to torture you guys!
I work in the library and that is an idiot magnet. Most people think that its a Kinko’s and expect me to make all their copies for them. Then when I don’t they get pissed. I’ve even had people walk out just because I wouldn’t do the work for them. There’s also the people who try to print from a computer in the library. and they try it again. and again. And again. And yet again. What they fail to notice is the sign on the monitor that clearly states YOU MUST GO TO DESK TO GET YOUR PRINTS. Pretty simple.
Not asked of me, but a student asked a Muslim student who was goofily wear his sweatshirt on his head, as kids will: “Is that part of your religion?” Thank god (or Allah), the other kid said, "Yeah, all Muslims wear sweatshirts on their heads. Duh! :rolleyes: " and blew it off. I thought this question was especially ignorant because we were 2 months into school and never before had this particular kid worn anything on his head. He dresses like all the other boys and speaks perfect English.
As a student, I have a particular philosophy regarding excuses:
If I have to stretch the truth, exaggerate things that happened to make it look like everything was beyond my control, I know I’m just begging to be laughed at. I don’t like to waste a professor’s time. If I didn’t do what it takes, that’s my fault and I’m not going to blame anybody but myself if I get a bad grade as a result. Honestly, this is the only way you can learn; I know from experience that fudging up a class isn’t the end of the world, so long as you learn from the experience. I think there are simply too many students who want to get through school with the minimum amount of effort. I myself have realized how much of a waste of time and money this is. I personally want to go to school to LEARN things. I’m not going to shoot myself in the head if I don’t get straight A’s, but at the same time I’ll give a sigh of disappointment when I get a ‘C’ in a class I could have easily earned an ‘A’ with just a bit more effort and motivation.
A few days ago I e-mailed a professor about a class I missed. The class only meets once a week, and I missed it last Thursday because I had auditions. Worried I might have missed out on something important, I contacted him as soon as possible, because asking him “What Victorian poems should I be studying?” a day before the final is not going to do me a whole hell of a lot of good, and it will also show the professor that I don’t really care about all the time he spent giving lectures. I want to communicate with him that I would like some information if he is willing to give it, but I’m not trying to talk him into restating a lecture he gave two days ago. Similarly, I asked him for topic ideas for an essay that is due soon, but I’m only asking him to point me in the right direction here (I got a ‘C’ on the last essay, and didn’t receive very constructive feedback. I don’t like to think about being on borderline failure, so I want this next paper to be MUCH better, ensuring that I pass the class, and ultimately, graduate this semester.)
Ah, venting space. How lovely. Have some Tales O’ Cluelessness from my British literature survey class. (This class is for majors, mind. My freshman comp students this semester have, one and all, been bright, conscientious kids who would never think of pulling this kind of stuff.)
One young man e-mailed me TWO MONTHS after receiving a C on an oral presentation, wanting to know why he received this grade “besides the fact that it wasn’t on time.” (As a side note, the same student also turned in his first paper a week late, and expressed the opinion in a class discussion that the Dark Lady of the sonnets was a slave Shakespeare owned. Well, the last one at least earns a half-point for originality.)
Another student proposed writing her final paper about “why John Donne’s depiction of God is more accurate than John Milton’s.” I pointed out (as diplomatically as possible, while fighting to keep a straight face) that since nobody actually knows what God is like, it might be a better idea to write about something more objective – say, why Donne’s depiction of God is more in line with the teachings of a specific Christian theologist or denomination, with textual evidence to back this up, blah blah. Yesterday she sent me a draft of the paper; it’s got some gestures toward objectivity in the first paragraph, but the ENTIRE remainder of the paper is loaded with claims about the “truth” and “correctness” of various representations of God or Christ. (Also, she seems to be under the impression that Milton’s view of God is identical with Satan’s, despite the fact that the Epic Voice repeatedly tells us Satan is lying his head off.)
Student #3 e-mailed me this morning to ask whether there was a paper due tomorrow, how long it should be, and what the topic was. (Yes, there is a paper due tomorrow. It’s 7-10 pages. Students are responsible for choosing a suitable topic, although I’m happy to offer guidance and suggestions. This information has been on the syllabus since DAY ONE of class four months ago, repeated in the paper guidelines I sent out two months ago, and mentioned several times in class.) :smack:
Fretful: Reading the syllabus: What a concept! They probably lost it weeks ago and never bothered to ask for a replacement–not that it would make a difference, since they never seem to look at it.
Manatee: Hello.
Oh, and this: I made a big point of telling every class that I absolutely will not accept anything during finals week except the final exam. The due date for the research paper (due next week) has been on the syllabus since August, but…See above.
A student just asked yesterday if he could turn in a paper he hadn’t bothered to turn in weeks earlier. I said no despite his pleas.
Why? Because I am viva, the heartless bitch.
and because people need to take some responsibility (gasp!) for their own actions or failures to act.
I still remember a professorial friend of mine, who teaches at a highly-regarded California university, who received a telephone call, at home, in February, from a student asking for an extension on a paper that had been due the previous December.
Yeah, true I did tell her she could make the argument that Satan’s speeches are so rhetorically compelling that we end up taking his part in spite of Milton’s rather pallid disclaimers, but she’d have to defend this view with evidence from the text rather than treating it as a given.
Anyway, at least she had the sense to ask for help before the paper was due, and she just e-mailed me back to thank me for my comments, so perhaps that one didn’t deserve pitting. No mercy for Ms. I-Don’t-Read-The-Syllabus, though.
At the risk of hijacking my own thread, my favorites this week have been the plagiarizers.
The topper was the student who cut-and-pasted several different paragraphs from several different web pages to form “her” essay. After finding out that was now failing the entire course (despite having turned in passing work up until that point), her defense was “Yeah, but you TOLD us to do research!”
:rolleyes:
Um, dipshit? “Research” does not equal “Steal someone’s else’s ideas and words and pass them off as your own, like the thieving piece of shit that you are.” It involves, you know, like actually doing your work and stuff.
Stupid me; I thought that the point of college was to learn!
