but if you have to have an aneurysm because 3 minutes before your class starts I still can't get an insane woman to give me her test, you better have some great lesson planned for the day. I mean a full 100 minute extravaganza. Because if 3 minutes before you class starts you bark at me that your class is starting in 1 minute, and then I grab a paper from Bartleby The Chemist and scram so you can finish getting ready, I better not the fuck go down to get a candy bar an hour later and see you leaving TWENTY FIVE MINUTES BEFORE YOUR CLASS IS OVER.
Fuck you.
PS Bartleby, fuck you too and the next time you ask a question, it better the fuck have something to do with class. If you want to know random facts about chemistry when I'm in the middle of a lesson, it better be because you're so fucking prepared for the quiz that you'll not only relinquish your exam without a physical battle, but you'll be done early, not 3 minutes before History of Unicorns starts. You obviously don't know shit about stoichiometry, so how about we worry about gas laws 5 chapters from now, ok?
Bartleby the Chemist! Great! Love the disciplinary mash-up. Except didn't Bartleby refuse to write anything at all? Still, I guess your Bartleby "preferred not to" give up her exam at the appointed time. That works.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't Prof. Unicorn set up, and his/her class file in, while Bartleby finished? Peer pressure from members of the next class sometimes gets the lingerers moving.
I'm pretty sure I once knew something about stoichiometry. I'm also pretty sure I'd flunk your quiz if I took it right now.
Ohhhh Dear Wombat...
ReplyDeleteSome of us start on time. On the dot. I make it clear that we start on time and we will always end on time. Period. No "overtime". If folks aren't there, I proceed and they can catch up with a classmate.
Part of why I do this is to instill a sense of the importance of time. They'll need it when they get out into the real world. [Having said that, not everyone believes in doing business on-time. Well... I'm doing my small part to correct this casual behavior.]
The other reason? I'm time obsessed (or so some of the grad students say).
He walks in the minute my class is over, whether I'm finished or not. So if he deems the 10 minutes in between our classes public domain, then so do I. If he can be there in those 10 minutes, so can I. Of course I let him in to start setting up. I don't "let" him so much as he walks in the second my class is over whether I like it or not, though I would "let" him if he gave me the opportunity to "let" him.
ReplyDeleteHe was in there getting ready for 5 minutes, his complaint was that Bartleby wasn't out. And he can kiss my ass now because I know he just plans half a class anyway.
Dr. D, that 10 minutes is indeed public domain. It's perfectly possible for one person to be cleaning up and one to be setting up. Wombat wasn't talking about encroaching on Professor Half-Ass's actual lesson time, just coexisting in set-up/clean-up time. I start bang ontime myself. But I don't assume that the 10 minutes between classes belongs to me.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, I don't accept exams handed in after I sweep up "the pile" at exactly the end-time of class.
I'd say that turnover time -- usually ten or fifteen minutes -- gets divided approximately by thirds. The first third belongs to the professor of the earlier class, to be spent in packing up materials and closing down tech apparatus, so he/she doesn't have to end the class early to allow for such activities, and to deal with any questions from students who just can't be persuaded to let the professor concentrate on packing up before heading out to the hall, where (if neither of them has a class immediately following) they can talk at, at the proffie's discretion, at a bit more leisure. The second third is neutral territory; the outgoing proffie really ought to be out, and the incoming proffie is justified in peeking into the window, cracking a door which has no window, moving in to set up the tech cockpit (if present) if the other proffie has cleared it but is lingering with a student, and otherwise showing signs of impatience or just getting started on his/her preparations if he/she is able to. The third third belongs to the incoming proffie, who is perfectly justified in leading his/her students into the room, and impatiently breathing down the neck of the outgoing proffie if he/she hasn't cleared away from the tech cockpit, board, or other necessary pedagogical paraphernalia.
ReplyDeleteThe lingering student is something of a special case. In Wombat's case, I think the best approach might have been to tell the student "I'm leaving now; give me the test" sometime toward the end of the 2nd 3rd, followed by leaving the room about 30 seconds later. I'm pretty sure Bartleby would have followed. But I don't know if I would have been on-the-ball enough to think of that solution on the spot.
I think another issue, common to both professors and students, is that those who set their watches 5-10 minutes ahead to keep themselves on time need to remember that their watches do not show the correct time, and act accordingly.
I've both had to linger repeatedly outside one of my classrooms because the preceding proffie repeatedly refused to finish on time, and been barged in on 30 seconds after the end of my class. Both are annoying, and, in repeat performance, really rude. I'd say that tech equipment is making the pressure worse, but I think proffies several decades ago managed to have the same fights over boards, overhead projectors, and/or rearranging furniture.
I agree, pretty much. I can't specify what exactly I did to get the paper from her without blowing my identity, but I was seriously fighting the girl for it. The guy could see what was going on. I could have sped things up by:
ReplyDeleteA) knocking her unconscious and taking her paper, which would have been a lot of paper work after campus security and her father's lawyers got involved.
B) left without taking her paper, which would have been a lot of paper work after the Up With Students chair got involved and made me give her credit for a paper she'd been walking around with for three days trying to find the right person to tattle on.
I'm hoping she drops the class.
Ah! CC expressed this much better than I did, in terms of an order of things. If only folks could understand this (on both ends)...
ReplyDeleteWombat -- the downside of B did occur to me. I think the trick would be to hang out just outside the door, but out of sight, to waylay her (this would only work with a one-exit classroom, and only if you didn't have somewhere to be). But, yes, it could still lead to complaints; snowflakes may act like 2-year-olds, but they don't appreciate having behavioral-modification techniques appropriate to 2-year-olds used on them. I hope she drops, too.
ReplyDeleteWow, proffies get so excited.
ReplyDeleteLate to the conversation, but Wombat, at about 3 minutes to the end of the official exam time, I calmly say, "I'm packing up my stuff. I'll let you guys know when I'm heading to the door. If you want your paper graded, it needs to be in my hands before I reach that door, right there." (Pointing at door, because once a student complained, "I though you meant the door of the *building*!!") "I won't beg you for your paper. Clear?"
ReplyDeleteThis has been VERY effective. I used to stand over students and have more than once actually pulled a paper out from under a student's pen, leaving a long mark down the page. No more! I've been using this method for about four years now and have had in that time exactly one argument with a student (out of thousands of students.)