Dear Crack-head Soccer Mom,
I am sorry to hear of your displeasure with my teaching style and the course that YOU enrolled in. Alas, both you and I have common ground in this area. I love teaching Remedial Studies as much as you hate taking my class.
I know it's hard to grasp, but in the few times that I have seen you, you have shown great potential. While you are always late, I do admire your determination to get here none the less. I remember the time that you raced into the parking lot, turning the corner on two wheels, almost hitting three students. Such skill is admirable.
You should come to class more often. In fact, you should bring your kids more often as well! I enjoyed their company last week, as they served as excellent tutors for the rest of the class! I know that I tried to drop you for lack of attendance, and believe me when I say that I am sorry. You got the Dean to reverse the drop, so I was clearly out of line. After all, he's the one who schedules me for classes and I better listen to his good advice, even if you are sleeping with him.
He said you provided documentation to prove that the absences were excused. The same documentation that you did NOT provide to me after I sent all those emails! I felt so left out! So rejected. Oh well! I can certainly understand your embarassment if the only documentation you had was a condum wrapper.
Sincerly,
Crazy Prof
Remedial Studies
So wait, are there colleges out there that let you bring your kids to class?
ReplyDeleteI'm at a community college with lots of parents, and I've NEVER seen a child in the classroom.
I've had kids in my class. The students (or the TA) asked permission ahead of time. I've had a prof have to bring her kid, back in the day, because his school was closed. He just quietly played a gaming thingy (in fact, all of them did). I've kept an eye on a kid for a prof in her office because again, school was closed. I went to a job interview with baby puke on a sleeve at a conference because I was watching a friend's kid while she gave a presentation (and got an on campus visit!). As long as everybody is respectful and not disruptive, this is not something I care about too much, probably because I can imagine a worst case scenario with my own kid.
ReplyDeleteHoly FSM! Kids?! Fortunately, our institution has a stated policy (which is posted on walls at the library and various centers) that children are not allowed in classrooms, the library, or resource centers (PC labs, etc.).
ReplyDeleteSnowflakes are even worse when they're grown up and raising the next generation of snowflakes. It seems to make them feel an even greater sense of entitlement. I hope you have an 'you cannot pass this course if you miss more than x number of classes' attendance policy.
ReplyDeleteI've had a student bring a kid (preteen relative) to class once, with prior permission. Frankly, the kid was better behaved than my students, and appeared more genuinely interested, too.
ReplyDeleteA crack-head soccer mom? So, does she have lice, or not? I'm not sure I want to know, although you might be able to find out by checking the dean.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a "you can't pass this course if you miss more than x number of classes" precisely because I do -not- want to encourage people like this, and their kids, to attend class: it really isn't so bad to have only about 30% attending on Fridays later in the term, if they're the ones who want to learn.
I'm always torn when faced with this situation. On the one hand, my mother went back to school, finishing her GED and eventually earning a Ph.D. while my siblings and I were growing up. We weren't in the least sympathetic to her ambitions ("Dammit, Mater -- we want COOKIES!"), but we are all very proud of her. OTOH, I've had women who seem to think that the mere act of reproduction entitles them a blanket exemption from, oh, deadlines, attendance, and all that stuff.
ReplyDeleteThis last term, I had a mother (married) enroll for my early morning lecture, seldom show up (attendance was taken), and then claim that I was biased because I didn't understand how hard it was to get her children ready in the morning. I tried to point out that I was sympathetic, citing my mother (the student called me condescending) but that she had chosen to enroll in that lecture (she now called me biased against her) and therefore attendance was her responsibility (I was now, according to her, wholly hostile to her academic success).
In the end, I handed all her assignments to a colleague for marking, since I didn't trust myself not to punch her in her motherly schnozz.
Nonetheless. One word. Typos are perfectly fine, but that one looks like a real error, of the embarrassing kind that educators should not make.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm appalled that sexual favours allow *children* to be brought into a college classroom. The lady should perhaps consider trading babysitting hours in exchange for her charms, if that is in fact the barter system she and your Dean have going.
You lost any sympathy I had the moment you suggested that she was sleeping with the Dean to get preferential treatment. That goes beyond anger, Crazy Prof, and I respectfully urge you to think about that.
ReplyDeleteSo is "condum" a pun, crazyprof?
ReplyDeleteUnless, of course, she IS sleeping with the Dean, which is how I took it. I mean, an open, acknowledged relationship.
ReplyDeleteI concur with Drunk.
ReplyDeleteI'm just glad it's not I who must sleep with the dean.
ReplyDeleteMy father took me with him on nights he attended class. I was HAPPY to be in the kids' section of the university LIBRARY for 3 hours. I met Jules Verne, RL Stevenson, Agatha Christie.... When Dad came back from class he checked out all the books I'd chosen. Some of my best memories.
ReplyDeleteHa. When I was sick or our school vacations didn't coincide with the local university's, I was parked in my professorial single mom's office during her classes. There, I read enlightening treatises on voter behavior and foreign policy (she was a political scientist). Beginning around the age of 10, I occasionally graded papers for my mom, which was usually hilarious, and I am here to tell you that 1970s undergrads could not string a coherent thought together either. Back then it was because most of them were wasted.
ReplyDeleteAh, memories.
Usually the students who need to bring kids to class are women who are single moms with no support network, so yeah I do let them bring the kid to class. Most of these kids sit quietly playing some sort of game thingy. I would not be much of a feminist if I was unsympathetic to their situation...oh my did I say the "f" word.
ReplyDeleteI think part of the reason I became a college prof was because when my mom was going to Kent State for a Master's in counseling (which she ended up not finishing, alas), I went to class with her if my grandmother (who lived with us) was out of town. I loved listening to the discussions.
ReplyDeleteI allow kids in my class on an emergency basis (sitter bailed, etc.). Never had a problem. And I also swear less.
Yes, all too easy to swear sometimes.
ReplyDelete