Dear Students:You may not realize this, but our school does not have a "Create Your Own Snow Day" policy. Unless the school officially closes -- which today it did not -- your classes will meet at their normal times in their normal rooms, complete with regularly scheduled activities such as exams, presentations, collected homework, and the like.
I was dismayed to walk into class at 10:15 this morning to see that less than half of you had decided to attend. I realize that we've barely had any snow this winter so today's weather is exciting and different, and I realize that it's Friday, and I realize that most of you don't appreciate being required to take what you regard as an easy blow-off class. I get it. You look for excuses not to be there. Snow on a Friday morning seems like a good one.
Here's the thing, guys. I left home extra early this morning in order to make it to campus on time for my first class. My commute took nearly twice as long as normal. I slid into an intersection even though I was driving more slowly than many of the other vehicles on the road. I realize that today's weather conditions are less than ideal, but I managed to brave the highway to get to class.
Given my experience this morning, I'm willing to concede poor road conditions as a legitimate reason for missing class today. Oddly enough, though, the two commuter students in our class both managed to attend, just like I did. The remaining eighteen of you live in the dorms. On our small campus, even the farthest dorm is only a 5-7 minute walk from our centrally-located classroom. Was the snow really so bad that eleven of you were unable to bundle up and scurry across the quad? No. No, it was not. I managed to make the brief walk from my office building to our classroom building with no major ill effects, and you could have done the same.
The bottom line is that you guys are lazy, and now I'm pissed off. Here's an incomplete list of reasons why I'm pissed off:
1. Last night, I skipped my weekly cocktails-and-Project-Runway party with some of my professor friends in order to finish grading your first essay. I did this because you begged me to hand back papers today and I stupidly agreed. So, I missed out on drinks and I missed out on bitching about you guys in order to spend my evening grading...and then today, those of you who manipulated me into a compressed grading schedule didn't bother to show up to collect your precious Cs and Ds.
2. Based on your scores from the first paper, those of you who skipped class today would benefit from the peer review feedback you would have received if you'd bothered to attend. You screwed around during peer review last time, and it's reflected in your scores on that essay. You didn't believe me when I said that a portion of your grade would come from how extensively you revised, and you texted under your desks while I explained what "extensive revision" means, and you evidently neglected to read the grading rubric I handed out with the assignment sheet. If you'd been in class today to get your paper back, you would have realized that, oh shit, you're not an amazing writer, and oh shit, maybe you really do need help thinking of ways to improve your work, and oh shit, the professor will follow through and give you a "0" for your revision score if you don't make changes beyond spelling and punctuation.
3. With more than half of you skipping class today, you sent the message to those who attended that peer review is a worthless activity that they shouldn't bother with in the future. What your responsible classmates may not realize is that they actually did benefit from the activity, and (for the most part) they scored higher on their first papers than those of you who screwed around last time and skipped today. Why? Because they actually took the activity seriously and revised using the feedback they received.
4. Now that the snow has let up, the wind has died down, and maintenance has begun to clear the sidewalks, I've seen you out and about. My office has a window, and it looks down on the quad. I've seen you venturing into buildings for your afternoon classes, I've seen you ambling toward the cafeteria, I've seen you taking smoke breaks, and I've seen you pulling out of the parking lot. The snow seems to have been the only thing keeping you out of my class today, and as previously discussed, the snow was not really a legitimate issue for you dorm dwellers.
When you come whining to me about your low grades, I will have no sympathy for you. When you realize that you need feedback in order to get a higher grade on this second essay than you did on the first one, I will not go out of my way to find a time to meet with you. When you beg your hard-working classmates for an impromptu peer review, I hope they tell you where to stick it.
As I said...you've pissed me off. Grow up. You're not high schoolers any more --you're college students. You're always whining about how the school doesn't treat you like adults because of all of its silly rules and policies. Well, here's a thought. Maybe the school would treat you like adults if you acted like adults...
Sincerely,
Professor Mitch
Here's the thing, guys. I left home extra early this morning in order to make it to campus on time for my first class. My commute took nearly twice as long as normal. I slid into an intersection even though I was driving more slowly than many of the other vehicles on the road. I realize that today's weather conditions are less than ideal, but I managed to brave the highway to get to class.
Given my experience this morning, I'm willing to concede poor road conditions as a legitimate reason for missing class today. Oddly enough, though, the two commuter students in our class both managed to attend, just like I did. The remaining eighteen of you live in the dorms. On our small campus, even the farthest dorm is only a 5-7 minute walk from our centrally-located classroom. Was the snow really so bad that eleven of you were unable to bundle up and scurry across the quad? No. No, it was not. I managed to make the brief walk from my office building to our classroom building with no major ill effects, and you could have done the same.
The bottom line is that you guys are lazy, and now I'm pissed off. Here's an incomplete list of reasons why I'm pissed off:
1. Last night, I skipped my weekly cocktails-and-Project-Runway party with some of my professor friends in order to finish grading your first essay. I did this because you begged me to hand back papers today and I stupidly agreed. So, I missed out on drinks and I missed out on bitching about you guys in order to spend my evening grading...and then today, those of you who manipulated me into a compressed grading schedule didn't bother to show up to collect your precious Cs and Ds.
2. Based on your scores from the first paper, those of you who skipped class today would benefit from the peer review feedback you would have received if you'd bothered to attend. You screwed around during peer review last time, and it's reflected in your scores on that essay. You didn't believe me when I said that a portion of your grade would come from how extensively you revised, and you texted under your desks while I explained what "extensive revision" means, and you evidently neglected to read the grading rubric I handed out with the assignment sheet. If you'd been in class today to get your paper back, you would have realized that, oh shit, you're not an amazing writer, and oh shit, maybe you really do need help thinking of ways to improve your work, and oh shit, the professor will follow through and give you a "0" for your revision score if you don't make changes beyond spelling and punctuation.
3. With more than half of you skipping class today, you sent the message to those who attended that peer review is a worthless activity that they shouldn't bother with in the future. What your responsible classmates may not realize is that they actually did benefit from the activity, and (for the most part) they scored higher on their first papers than those of you who screwed around last time and skipped today. Why? Because they actually took the activity seriously and revised using the feedback they received.
4. Now that the snow has let up, the wind has died down, and maintenance has begun to clear the sidewalks, I've seen you out and about. My office has a window, and it looks down on the quad. I've seen you venturing into buildings for your afternoon classes, I've seen you ambling toward the cafeteria, I've seen you taking smoke breaks, and I've seen you pulling out of the parking lot. The snow seems to have been the only thing keeping you out of my class today, and as previously discussed, the snow was not really a legitimate issue for you dorm dwellers.
When you come whining to me about your low grades, I will have no sympathy for you. When you realize that you need feedback in order to get a higher grade on this second essay than you did on the first one, I will not go out of my way to find a time to meet with you. When you beg your hard-working classmates for an impromptu peer review, I hope they tell you where to stick it.
As I said...you've pissed me off. Grow up. You're not high schoolers any more --you're college students. You're always whining about how the school doesn't treat you like adults because of all of its silly rules and policies. Well, here's a thought. Maybe the school would treat you like adults if you acted like adults...
Sincerely,
Professor Mitch
Ha, where I am taking classes I was the only show at a class earlier this week. I came home to find a note in my e-mail from the prof that the class was canceled due to weather. Wasted bus fare. Wasted two hours. Sure, it's cold, but fuck, it's not like the streets are blocked or people are dying on the sidewalk. Getting to class was no problem.
ReplyDeleteProf flakes are the worst but nobody's willing to tell them, "Do your damn job or I'll find somebody else who will. And smile."
DeleteI AM, now that I'm department Chair, and it feels GREAT!!!
DeleteNice to hear from you MCM.
ReplyDeleteWhen students complain that they should not have to take a blowoff, easy class, I agree. The instructor should turn the class into a pain in the ass, hard as hell class. Problem solved.
I'd be interested to hear more about your revision-grade policy thingy. I just have a policy wherein if they miss peer review, they lose half a letter grade. Most students don't miss more than once.
ReplyDeleteOn my grading rubric, 10% of the final grade comes from a category I call "level of revision." The criteria is pretty straightforward: the student must make major changes between the rough draft and the final; the rubric specifies that to earn the points one must do more than just sentence-level changes. So, not revising is enough to bring them down a full letter grade.
DeleteI instituted this policy because one of the objectives for the course is that students will learn to revise their own work, and another is that students will be able to distinguish between revision and editing. What I found in my first few semesters is that even though students knew damn well what revision was, they didn't actually DO it, even when the came to peer review. They were just editing. So...now I force them to revise.
Before they walk out the door on peer review day, I ask each one if they have any questions. (They generally don't, but every once in a while...) I also personally invite each one to come to my office hours if they aren't sure how to revise, if they are uncertain about peer review feedback, and/or if they want me to take a look at their papers before they hand them in. (Again, almost no one takes me up on this.) I also remind them of the campus writing center. They can't walk out of peer review without knowing where to go for feedback to help them with the revision component of the grade.
Having revision built in to the final score for the essay requires students to do what they know how to do but are too lazy to do unless forced. It makes them more accountable in peer review -- this current group is an exception to the norm -- and I've found that the quality of writing in my composition classes has increased since I started instituting this component.
Try it...I've found that it generally works quite well.
That is really interesting. I'll have to look into that next year. Mostly, I'll have to see if this is something I'm allowed to do, as a TA whose grading policies are pretty stringently controlled. (I've already had the half-letter-grade deduction questioned, but they haven't told me NOT to do it, so I still do.)
DeleteNow Mitch, remember that you shouldn't care more about their education than they do. That's easier said than done of course, since many of them clearly couldn't care less.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I've also had a student lie to me that he couldn't come to class because he'd had "car trouble," when the form he'd just had me sign listed his address as right across the street. I wanted to explode at him, but I just giggled when his registration in my class was cancelled, because he'd not passed the prerequisites. One takes what one can get.
It's Mitch! Good to see you.
ReplyDeleteAlways remember that you hold the grading pen, and let 'em hang.
Oops! I originally commented in the wrong place. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I was just going to say that I feel your pain. It's frustrating when you put your all into your teaching and the students don't appreciate it. It sounds like you have a class with some snowflakes, but it also sounds like you've got some students in there who are genuinely interested in the class. Forget about the flakes and teach for the ones who care. They are the ones who make this job worth it.
Actually, I'm with the students on this one. Unless the campus is closed because of snow, I will do anything to get to class myself, but I don't expect the same of students. Here's why: my institution is still basically a commuter college, the transit system isn't very good, and everyone drives to class. Snow usually falls here only once a year, no one has snow tires, and no one who lives here knows how to drive in snow; thus, when snow falls, it's an epic mess: all kinds of accidents and fatalities on the freeways. I'd rather show up to a half-full classroom than hear later that one of my students has been in an accident trying to get to my class.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same thing to be honest. I had an undergrad in such a place. They (I think criminally) didn't cancel classes a few occasions where it was actually very dangerous on the roads.
DeleteJust because your administration doesn't have sense and just because you could get there doesn't mean the students weren't making the right decision not to try.
Like I said...I was ready to forgive the ones who had to commute if they missed, but they're the ones who actually showed up. I'm pissed about the ones who live in the dorms and who would have been outside for an average of 3-5 minutes to cross our itty-bitty campus to get from their dorms to our classroom. That annoys the snot out of me, and I'm sure that the rage will intensify when they try to grade-grub for the revision points they will lose on the final draft. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.
DeleteOh -- and we're in the midwest. We've had a weird winter this year, but in a typical winter, snow like this is a regular occurrence. In an ordinary winter, this "storm" wouldn't have made anyone bat an eyelash.
DeleteAs an undergrad, a very long time ago, I went through brutal cold and snow to get to class. When most of the class got to the lecture hall we found no lights and no heat but went and sat down. The prof came into the darkness and said he would cancel class, but, once shouted down, gave a two hour lecture in the dark and cold.
ReplyDeleteThat's the academic equivalent to "When I was a kid I walked uphill to school barefoot in a blinding snowstorm. Both ways."