Howdy, cats and kittens, Heywood from Henderson with hijinks from the hinterlands! And these hijinks involve that perpetual topic of misery, student entitlement.I always arrive at my classroom at a reasonable lead time for the class, but because of the vagaries of facilities maintenance and campus security, my classroom is never unlocked. I am the only one allowed to open the doorway at that hallowed time. So, my students huddle in the hallway until I arrive with the magic unlocking technology. Thus do student conversations bubble and boil while the mob is waiting for me.
I arrived today and walked into the middle of a conversation about respect, and being the stealthy soul that I am, I listened while the students filed into the classroom as I set up the technology necessary for today's scintillating discussion of hamster society.
The conversation involved a couple of students who felt they were not being given enough R-E-S-P-E-C-T by their instructors in other classes. The statements overheard were along the lines of "look, just because she's older than us doesn't mean that she can raise her voice at us. I mean, I'm perfectly fine with being respectful to other people, but they have to be respectful to me FIRST, ya know?"
ORLY? In order for you to be respectful to someone who is decades older than you and has worked for years to obtain an advanced degree, they FIRST have to be respectful to your texting-in-class, sleeping-in-class, chatting-in-class self? You are only respectful when someone first recognizes the unique snowflake-ness that is you and your hair-flipping, gum-chewing, Ugg-boot-wearing exalted personage?
Look, I get that in an individualist society like modern America, respect isn't automatically given to people in vertical relationships the way it is in either more traditional or more collectivist societies. I also get that there are professors out there who are perhaps not worthy of respect based on their specific behaviors.
But hearing the demands of "respect me first, and then I'll respect you" from 18-year-olds struck me as the quintessential rallying cry of entitlement from Generation No Child Left Behind.
They also don't understand that respect is a two-way street. Recently, some peckerhead resented it when I told him to turn off his laptop in class. He was offended that I "didn't respect" him. I fired back, "SO ACT RESPECTABLE."
ReplyDeleteI miss the days when teachers were allowed to throw pieces of chalk (or even blackboard erasers for added emphasis) at students when they weren't paying attention.
DeleteAnd I was a student back then!
Interesting that the only difference noted is one of age.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed that students/people who loudly announce that they want to be treated respectfully and that respect is so important yadayadayada often do not treat others very respectfully at all--they tend to take, take, take and not give. The notion of humbleness is completely foreign to them and they are so very easily offended--but fully expect others to ignore the offenses they dish out. Sadly, they may not even be aware that their behavior is offensive. My grandma is surely turning in her grave. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI notice the same thing. Further, they use "subjective" as a fallback explanation for poor performance, as in "the grades are totally subjective."
DeleteAssuming there is such a thing as pure objectivity in evaluation, we do our best to make it apparent: rubrics, literal descriptors, categories. However, I'm always tempted to ask the snowflakes if, given their insistence on a conspiracy of subjectivity, it's a wise strategy to annoy the subject whose "ivity" assigns the grades.
The problem with "respect me first, and then I'll respect you" is that it leaves everyone standing around looking for signs of respect from others, when a far more effective way to increase the sum total of respectful behavior in a community is to treat others respectfully oneself, and hope/trust that they follow suit.
ReplyDeleteOf course, that works better if everyone embraces a common definition of respect, which I'm not sure is the case here.
Also, why are coaches (and parents on the sidelines) allowed to yell, while teachers are not? Mind you, I have no particular desire to yell myself (I'd rather see the sum total of yelling in the world decrease), but I've seen other teachers use a (controlled, consciously-decided-on) tongue-lashing to good effect, and don't see why it shouldn't be an option.
Quite obviously because they're much more interested in sports than in school. If they thought school was important, it's amazing what teachers could do.
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