Each month you bitch to my supervisor that I am making you learn X number of chapters in Y number of weeks. The problem is your calculation of X always starts from the beginning of the semester. And while it is true that the two of you do, on each occasion, still need to read everything I've assigned from day one, it does not make it an accurate characterization of the pace I have set.
Your class sucks, so we've gone so slow, that only the two of you assholes can't keep up. I guess this is why you had only each other to cheat with on exam one. Exam two is coming and you bitched so convincingly, that even after she caught you 1) in a lie 2) in unwarranted hysterics and 3) in statements that prove you've never opened the textbook, she requested that I post-pone it a week. And STILL you are fucking bitching about how much work is left for the course. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you, but this is college. You don't get credit for standing still. That's civil service, baby, not college. Stop telling me that 1) you have kids and 2) you are a teacher. I have kids and what the fuck do you think I am? An entertainer?
You have had a month to do a single chapter. We spent two months on the two previous chapters. You yourself admit that it takes just 4 (actually, you said "3 or 4") days to read a chapter. How the fuck are you not going to be able to fit those 4 days in between now and the beginning of June when I want you to fucking have it done? Oh, right, because YOU don't have a single chapter to read between now and then. YOU still have to read them ALL!
And lastly, if you want me to abandon the idea of exam three, it's your funeral. Your classmates got As on exam One and you fucking failed it EVEN THOUGH YOU CHEATED. Do you REALLY want that to be half of your grade? I don't know if it's stupidity or laziness, but you must learn one thing: Once you fuck up as badly as you did on an a major assignment, it's in your best interest for the teacher to assign MORE work to minimize the impact it has, not to cut away future opportunities so that exam comprises half your fucking grade.
It's time to shut your fucking mouth and open your fucking book.
That right there is some nice smack.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. And it strikes me, Wombat, that your supervisor is falling down on the job pretty badly here. Who is most likely to know how the class is actually doing, your supervisor or you? If only two people are struggling, it sounds like you're pitching things about right (some might even say "too easy"). She needs to back you up, not undermine your authority.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so now the supervisor has been smacked, too, one party removed.
So they cheat and lie, and still they they achieve their goal of circumventing the goddam curriculum.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest dink here, doing the most damage, is your idiot supervisor who entertains their nonsense. Anytime someone who gets to make decisions buckles under these stupid student demands, we move one step closer to the complete demise of higher ed.
And, yet again, these two numbskulls ARE TEACHERS!!!! Why are the primary and secondary schools "failing" again? Hmmmm....
ReplyDeleteI too feel that the worst offender here is your supervisor. I've had similar sitations wherein my chair did not have my back. It's utterly demoralizing. One expects some students to be lazy and to try to circumvent the need for actual work. One does not expect one's superiors to support them in this.
ReplyDeletepost-pone?
ReplyDeleteas opposed to pre-pone?
ReplyDeletenot to be confused with corn pone...
ReplyDeleteI hate that someone tried to pull the "teacher" card. Yes, we work hard, but seriously, a chapter a month? Get the GD job done.
ReplyDeleteI hope they get students just like themselves.
I had students tell me that although I gave them 10 days to do an assignment (6 problems in a 200 level math class each of which should take < 30 minutes for the densest individual) that the assignment was too long, since they do homework as it "come due" meaning they only start the night before and they can't possibly do it. They complained and I explained myself to the chair.
ReplyDeleteWhat did my chair say? "Well maybe you should accommodate their snowflakery." (Except he didn't say "snowflakery".) "Maybe six problems is too much. Maybe they were too hard."
@ Myth: I have one foot in K-12, and one foot at the CC. I resent your comment that points to these two being the reason why schools are failing. There are snowflakes everywhere. A lot of them breed and have tiny snowflakes that I have to teach how to fly.
ReplyDeleteTeaching K-12 is just like our jobs at the uni, except you have 150 students, 5 days a week, with 20 minutes to pee and eat. You buy all of your own materials with your own money. You get to parent and counsel a lot of students. You get to teach a prescribed curriculum, while dodging crap being thrown at your head. There is pressure to teach to the test, and unfortunately, none of your students have arrived with the skills they need to even sharpen a pencil properly. Besides the crap from administration and colleagues, you also have the parents to contend with. And the general public that blames you for the failures of an underfunded, mismanaged system.
I'm not saying those two cheating teachers aren't jerks. They are. But don't call us all out.
I love reading CM, but honestly, a whole lot of you wouldn't last a year teaching in an urban high school. I've been in both places, and I'm telling you, you are really in a good place.
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ReplyDeletecopy/paste error above...
ReplyDeleteFrankity, resent all you like.
Before you do though, you might want to educate yourself a little bit on critical reading. For instance, as a college instructor, you really need to learn what Scare Quotes are. If you're gonna be uppity about teaching K-12 (which, btw, has a recent history of graduating students with high grades in their non-content major but piss-poor grades in, uh, everything else, including graduating GPA), it would behoove you to not misread the obvious.
And a big P.S.:
I doubt you read CM very well, or you'd know many people on this site have college-level teaching conditions not unlike those you claim as your own (several posts were just in the past few weeks!). You at least teach at one school (2 with your little moonlighting job at the CC?); some people here teach at 3 or more schools and cover 5-8 different sections, and never know if another job or 7 is coming from semester-to-semester. Be grateful you have your 20 minutes to eat and pee. Nor 250+ students who resent you not knowing their names on sight. And many of us have interfering administrators. And set curricula with pre-selected books chosen by a committee. Oh, and many of us have to buy our own supplies too; I think a tenured prof once gave me one red pen, which lasted about a month.
With the attitude you show in your last paragraph, I am left with one piece of advice for you: The grass is not always greener, dude.
Exactly! The grass isn't greener, so I'm not sure why you're bashing K-12 teachers. The grass is a burnt mess on both sides. We're kin.
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested, I taught K-12 for 12 years, moonlighting and teaching summers at CC and Uni, to supplement income. I teach a lesser-known language and a mandated language. Teaching the lesser-known language in the HS has indeed brought me stress semester-to-semester, not knowing those 150 students are going to sign up again for my class, as I've held them to high standards and they hate me for it. I've watched my job be slashed in half, while my teaching duties stayed the same. My position has been eliminated more than once, due to "budgetary concerns."
I teach the mandated language in the CC. Moved across the country a few years ago, as the economy bottomed out in my rust-belt state, and I've got a family to feed. In my new sunshiny state, there is a huge need for mandated language, so this is what I'm teaching now. Only in the CCs. For a few years, I've been shuffling between 2 campuses to not make ends meet. Even so, it's less stressful than being in the high school.
The grass isn't green anywhere. Those students are going to resent us, whether it be in HS or CC (Have you heard of teenage angst? Have you heard of teenage rebellion? Have you ever told an incoming class that they are state-mandated to learn two years of a language, and your lesser-known language is the only one that will be offered? The resentment is palpable.). We have a lot of the same problems in K-12 and higher ed, but it really is more severe in K-12:
I've had numerous death threats, had my tires slashed, had a full 2-liter of soda chucked at my head (I ducked), broken up countless fights, been knocked down, taken an elbow to the nose, have had various pieces of shit thrown at me (while writing on the board - never turn around). I've given first-aid to a stabbed student. I've caught kids cooking up heroin in a spoon outside my door. I've been through lock-downs, drive-by shootings, and a riot. I've been given a desk set of 30 outdated, ruined textbooks for 150+ students. I've been assigned classes to discover no textbook or curriculum whatsoever. I've been assigned classrooms with 12 broken desks for a roster of 40. So when it comes to buying "supplies," I've bought tables and chairs and textbooks, in addition to the chalk and pens. I've had to buy kids lice kits, deodorant, winter coats, and shoes. I've had to call social services and give statements. I've even had to testify in court once. There is nothing glamourous about this job. Don't bash the teachers that take on this system.
So yeah, I'll piece together a salary at the CCs. I'll buy my own red pens and fend off administrators. I'll stare down those resentful students. No problem.
This was great from salutation to conclusion. "Dear Two Whiny Bitches Who Cheated On Exam One:" Fantastic ultimate smack!
ReplyDeleteFrankity, thank you. For everything.
ReplyDeleteYour students aren't bitches. They are only doing what they are have been rewarded to do by spineless administrators such as your supervisor. Boo on them.
ReplyDelete