This is the college: Irvine Valley, Irvine. I work here. I carry a badge.9:30 a.m.
It’s the start of the third week of the semester, a Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. I am starting my morning Intro to Philosophy class.
“OK, let’s get back to logic,” I say.
A kid’s hand shoots up. He says, “I wanna add the class.”
I stare at him for maybe three seconds. Then I say: “It’s already the third week of the semester. It’s too late to add the class.” I proceed to lecture, but the kid interrupts:
“Yeah, but I wanna add the class. Whadoo-I-do?”
I don’t want to deal with this guy. I say: “Don’t do anything. It’s too late. Like I said.”
He immediately starts to talk. I need to shut him up. I glare at him a little. I say: “Talk to me after class.”
Later in the hour, I remind students, probably for the third or fourth time, that I keep a log of each lecture, and it’s kept very up-to-date. (True.) If they miss a class, I tell them, they should just consult the Blackboard website, where the log is kept. It’s filed under “Course Log.”
“Everything,” I tell them, “is on the Blackboard site.” Sometimes, I’ll add: “Isn’t Blackboard wonderful?”
Yes, wonderful. Am I joking? —It’s hard to say.
After class, the kid who wants to add the class is nowhere to be found.
11:00
Later, I’m in my office, turning on my computer. I hear a voice behind me: “Professor Wheeler?”
I turn around. I smile an easy smile. “What’s up?”, I ask.
“I had to miss class. Sorry about that.”
“OK,” I say, deliberately looking at the student expectantly.
Students invariably assume that instructors want to know the tiny factoids of their life that prevent them from attending class. Not so, my little solipsists. Just fuckin' show up. That's all I want.There’s a pause. Finally, she speaks: “Did I miss anything important?”
I knew it! Instructors hear this question all the time. You have no idea. Sometimes we answer: “Oh, no. It was the usual trivial shit!” Then we smile broadly.
Feeling chirpy, I let this one pass. I tell the girl: “Go to the Blackboard site. It’s all there! I keep a log, remember?” There’s not a trace of sarcasm in my voice. Honestly. That comes later in the semester.
“Oh,” she says. There’s another pause. “But I can’t get onto the Blackboard site!” she blurts.
It’s the third friggin' week of class. Already, two assignments have been posted at the site, assignments that, in class, I have told students repeatedly to access there. “You’ve gotta keep checking the Blackboard site,” I say, incessantly. “That’s just part of taking this course,” I say.
It feels like some sort of performance art to actually say such things, over and over again, each time as though they've never been said before. I should show up wearing tiger pants. Yes.
The girl seems nice, so I don’t give her a hard time. I quickly figure out her Blackboard problem—it ain’t rocket science, believe me—and I send her on her way. Then I check my email.
Several students have written to tell me that they’ve missed class. Some politely ask me—and some tell me—to respond ASAP with an account of what they missed. To the polite students, I write: “No problem. Just go to the Blackboard site, read the course log.” Chirpy, chirpy, chirpy.
To the louts, I betray some ‘tude. I'll leave the details to your imagination.
12:45I’m fifteen minutes into my afternoon Intro class. A student raises his hand. He asks: “What’s on the test?”
He’s referring to Test 1, to be given next week. I have prominently displayed the STUDY GUIDE for the test on the Blackboard site. I have referred to the study guide, and the test, often in class. The study guide answers every conceivable question regarding what will be on the test. Guidancewise, my study guides are helpful to the point of friggin' absurdity.
I’ve been doing this a long time.
I’m polite to this kid. I say: “Well, the Study Guide is posted on the course Blackboard site. Check it out! You’ll love it!” Am I having a little fun with this kid? Dunno. Maybe I'm just chirpy.
A half hour later, another kid asks, “Are we gonna be tested on this? When’s the test?”
I smile.
2:05I’m back in my office, checking my email. A student has written to explain that he’s missed the first two and a half weeks of class—owing to a vacation “that could not be avoided.” But, he says, he’ll be in class this week! “So don’t drop me,” he writes.
I’ve already dropped him.
The next email is the kid from 9:30. He writes, “I need to add ur class. You said talk to you after class. Send me the code I need. Theres a deadline.”
—I smile.
—Sylvia PlathI should sit on a rock off Cornwall and comb my hair.
I should wear tiger pants, I should have an affair.
We should meet in another life, we should meet in air,
Me and you.
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22 comments:
PSSSST - check out the printed schedule about adding classes.
PSSSST. PST.
You're mean, Chunk. They're just kids! Were you any better at that age?
YES. MUCH.
This is pure RateYourStudentry. With Blackboard, you're providing your flock with better student support than any generation of students has previously enjoyed. For students not to make use of all these laboriously posted resources reveals a combination of stupidity and solipsism which has evolved to its present "MDR" form over time. Moreover, if they can't hack a class at which they have to be physically present, how well are they going to do with online classes?
Sylvia Plath is in your class?
Yeah, and she refuses to use Blackboard. Maybe that's cuz she's dead.
Well, what can you expect? She's an English major after all.
I know you're not one to give in Chunky, but if it makes you feel any better, you're an inspiring teacher and there are a few and grateful teenage students in your midsts (I included). Just don't forget you have some kids really trying to take your class and apply it to their lives and sometimes they (we) get all jumbled up in the head between what we once believed, how the other people respond to the change we are going through, and the stuff we are trying to become.
For example, my girlfriend has been going nuts ever since the intro class, because I can't help but point out some fallacies in her, or her families MANY arguments about this-or-that. What to do?
On another note, you are also THE ONLY professor I have ever had in two years at IVC that has EVER used blackboard. Not even my computer science teachers use blackboard - it's sickening.
Having attended neighboring University of California, Irvine, I can't believe these conditions exist at your location. To state the obvious, no students such as this would pass admission to UCI. And among those admitted, there'd never be interactions such as these with any instructor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but would UCI let Sylvia Plath pass admission? Huh?
We have open admission at IVC - wide open.
1:54
Thanks for the encouragement.
Are you serious? Most of your instructors don't use Blackboard?
I've noticed resistance to using B in my own school, though that seems to be eroding, in part because of my yammering at them. (I've got Frank in my sights right now.)
B is wonderful in many ways. It greatly increases communication (if you can get students to go there, which I do by putting assignments there). Instructors (and students, I guess) don't know what they're missing!
I'm trying to think of an entertaining way to write about the wonderful students I meet and get to know in my job, and there are lots of those, too. It's easy to cross over into sappiness, though. If you have any ideas, lemme know.
Rewarding a student is an odd thing - in my opinion. Your class isn't difficult, it makes you think and that, to me at least, is a good enough reward.
I don't know - I get baffled and all confused at the idea of attempting to think of a "reward" for a student. Don't know - I would assume most students would be confused if you walked up to them and said "You're a good student, what kind of a reward would you like for this?"
An answer I would respond with would be "Um, how about an A?" BUT, since I am doing so well in the class, I probably already have an A, so it's like "Well, you have an A, what else would you like?"
"Um, gee, I don't know, how about some cash?" and that would be a ridiculous request.
"Dunnnooooo."
And yes, I am serious, no professor has ever used "B" except for you.
Most of my CS professors require me to e-mail them in my homework, versus uploading, or doing stuff on the B website.
grades & money
Well, maybe that kid missed class because he's getting harassed in the library by Armstrong, Cobos, and the rest, and he's trying to meet with administrators (such as the little pus bag, Telson) to put a stop that kind of BS? Ever think of that? Or maybe you didn't know students get harassed in the library for trivial BS when the staff gets bored, and has nothing better to do?
I missed 2 of 3 hours of a "peace studies" class for this exact same reason (I was trying to get a guarantee from Mathur's office that my music course listening at a library audio listening station would not be interrupted by campus police because my headphones were too loud. Not even O'Connor's office would give me such a guarantee, or even specify a "safe" listening level for me. You know? Kevin O'Connor? The one who gets his jollies with his little friend Rajen Vurdien, watching and giggling like little school boys when someone has a panic attack in the lobby of the library? Yeah, *that* creep.
Anyway, the goon that teaches Peace Studies didn't care why I was late. (I went in at beak time, so I wasn't disrupting anything). He just wanted me to leave and not come back. I left; and if I do go back, it will be to prove a point: that the people of the state of California have paid good money for me to be there. He has no right to throw me out for being late, so long as I am not being disruptive. If "String Bean" doesn't like that fact, there are several other qualified people who would love to have his job. But he won't resign, of couse. Why should he? By giving me crap, he's scored mega brownie points with the current regime. Next year, he just might be department chair.
Plan ahead! Make sure you leave enough time for harassment before class.
Ah, yes: "Did I miss anything important?"
I tell students, in a chirpy and yet ironic tone, on the first day of class: "Don't EVER say that to a professor!" They laugh; they get it.
But memory is ever so short. Two weeks later, they're sayin' it.
Thanks for the laughs, Chunk.
You should let Al Tello know that Sylvia Plath is enrolled in your Intro class - I'm sure he can do something with that.
Yo, Crosby, what's with the yellow?
What color do you suggest?
I suggest an entirely different layout minus the headache -inducing yellow and red.
plus, you might try some kind of formatting that rendered your work in a more reader-friendly fashion - that is, if you want folks to read it.
Dear mario ii
The people of California have paid good money for you to be there? Maybe they thought they were paying good money for students to be able to use the library in peace and attend an uninterrupted class.
Pre-PhD I spent about six years in a community college, and I never knew even one administrator's name, let alone three plus the Chancellor. I did know my professors' names, though . . . .
The biggest problem with your hypothesis about why the student missed Chunk's class, however, is that you and he aren't at the same college. Why don't you check out IVC's librarians and administrators just to find out?
I would, however, stick with that peace studies class. Maybe yoga too.
If it makes you feel any better, I want to murder my fellow classmates who waste class time with inane questions.
Maybe, as a requirement to enter college, it should be mandated that all students shall tattoo "I WILL NOT ASK QUESTIONS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN ANSWERED" on their forearms.
Blackboard is a gift from the gods, thankfully tons of Saddleback professors have expunded the joys that is Blackboard.
I don't think my classes would be half as educationally rewarding if it wasnt for Blackboard.
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