I’m sure others out there are experiencing my pain when it comes to professors and the obnoxious policies they implement regarding cell phone usage during lecture. In the past, I’ve tolerated their dictatorship like authority and snuck messages under the desk or behind my laptop, but that era is over. In my latest course, the professor thinks he has the right to automatically deduct 10% of a students final grade for any single use of cell phones: that means texting, tweeting, facebooking, and the like.Just in case you were wondering what some students might be thinking about your classroom policies...
In most instances when it comes to colleges and universities, I find that they operate under a backwards business model. As a rule of thumb, customers come first. After all, satisfied customers means increased revenue and likeliness that references will be acquired. Nope. Not with education. Many academic institutions (from a financial standpoint, they are businesses) treat students with little respect. Yet, enrollment is ever growing. Why? Because “a degree is what you need to succeed” in today’s society. That means school officials operate under a do as I please system.
I find this absolutely atrocious and I’m taking action to eliminate the power for grade deduction per cell phone use school-wide; please note, I’m not talking about holding audible conversations during lecture. After a “go here” and “go there” run around, I finally made it to the Student Government Office, where to great pleasure, my ideas were wholeheartedly shared. Already underway, petitions are being drawn up and should make it to the student population in the coming weeks. I plan to submit an article to the school newspaper and gain maximum attention. No school has the right to bar me from texting during class. I pay their fees for a degree, in turn, respect my decision to text. I am not jumping on tables, screaming obscenities, blasting music, or audibly laughing. I am silently responding to friends. No harm done.
(Check out the original post here.)
Comments
Anonymous said...
My students simply ignore my policies about e-toy usage as if I am blind and deaf and can't see what they are doing.
9:17 AM, January 13, 2010
alannah said...
I don't do 10% for a single use, but I make it clear that the classroom is a learning environment and that doing anything to detract from that, including e-toys, walking in and out, etc., are as serious as stomping on another student's freedom of expression. They're rude and distracting, and they do deduct from the class participation grade. It's anti-participation, isn't it?
9:56 AM,
Anonymous said...
Where did these little shits get the idea that they are "customers" and "consumers" and that the college is sort of an academic McDonald's?
12:13 PM
Anonymous said...
So glad I may be deemed a "shit." Thanks.
12:42 PM
Anonymous said...
I go, I eat, I sit, I sleep, I twit, I text. So where's my degree?
1:11 PM
Anonymous said...
I've placed a policy in my policy statement where the focus is on the material, the discussion and the exchange of ideas which does not include folks on the other end of a text message who are not officially enrolled.
Consideration of courtesy is important in our "business" and in other businesses. If I were your employer, I doubt that activity would be tolerated while an important stragegy message is under consideration such as a 10% reduction in staffing.
Multi tasking has been fould bogus: you can't focus intently on work while you're doing something else. I doubt if students who are addicted to the e-toys (which are extremely useful in the appropriate settings) would appreciate a surgeon texting while cutting on one of us.
And what kind of message does that send to others around the texter? He or she can do so then why shouldn't I?
If this were a text messaging class, then it would be appropriate: mine isn't. If you are texting you are in the wrong class: it's not on my syllabus or in my policy statement as an approved activity for the 75 minutes we meet twice a week.
So to those who do this in my class, I'll ask you to leave, talk to me before returning, or you may be dropped under the Instructor drop policy.
1:18 PM
Anonymous said...
Well, 12:42, if you're texting while in class (and you're probably doing it while driving and at the movies also) then, yes, the term fits.
1:42 PM
Anonymous said...
"No harm done." Classic example of someone who just doesn't "get it". What a shame that this student's energies and initiative are not better used.
ES
2:28 PM
Anonymous said...
It is difficult to know what it is like to be an instructor unless you've been one. Instructors will tell you: many students observe the instructor as though he were a TV, just playing, insensible to anything occurring in the room. In fact, most instructors are very aware of what students are doing--their activities, their expressions, their apparent interest of lack thereof. We do this because we take seriously the project of getting them to think, and so, naturally, we study students' faces. So, first, the kind of behavior this students defends is simply rude, boorish--pretending to listening intently while in truth fingering some gizmo and contemplating something unrelated to the lecture. Second, as a rule, students who do not give their undivided attention to the instructor are not likely to learn from him/her. Surely it is not unreasonable to view a classroom as the product of a kind of agreement in which the instructor has committed to being prepared and presenting well and students are committed to being prepared and interacting with the instructor (listening, responding, etc.) well. And, again, it is not unreasonable to suppose that students who text or observe internet content, etc., are failing in their part of the bargain. To me, the only issue here is HOW an instructor should secure good classroom conditions for instruction/learning--i.e., how they should prevent texting, noodling, fiddling, diddling, sleeping, snoring, grab-assing, and all the rest. I would argue that the middle-aged instructor sends an unfortunate message that he/she is The Law of this Land and the Executer of that Law--when declaring the unacceptability of any manner of gizmophication. I think it's better to pleasantly indicate that the behavior is a problem as it comes up. But that's just me. Never liked being The King of the Room. It is my goal to run the room without declaring my sovereigny. --BvT
3:34 PM
Anonymous said...
Yep; 12:42 is most certainly a shit (others might use meaner names)--not for the initial boorishness of texting in class, but for his aggressive, misguided, in-your-face, and poorly reasoned defense of it. ES and BvT have nailed it, as so often happens in this forum.
For some reason, I've never had this problem in my classes--perhaps because I teach at a somewhat elite place (in terms of attracting students who can afford a private school and came for the personal interactions of a small place; they actually tend to be quite friendly and courteous--well-brought-up).... I don't think I'm simply oblivious to texting, because as BvT points out, like most instructors I am ACUTELY aware of every little facial expression or tapping of pen on the table. I wouldn't miss it.
It gets to me all too much even when they sit there looking bored. I always felt an obligation of courtesy/morality to look pleasant and interested, to nod (or shake my head "no") and hold eye contact--in short, to treat the professor as a person. As BvT notes, that attitude has been replaced for many with the "prof-as-TV" practice.
It is so very odd that many of a certain young generation haven't a clue about what respect entails. But many of them *do* get it, too--which makes me confident in chiming in about a certain poster being a sh-t.
MAH
7:21 PM
