Thursday, September 28, 2006
The Freshmen, My God, The Freshmen - What Are We Going to Do About the Freshmen
I never wanted to be the one who turned his back on freshmen. As a junior faculty member, I always hated those older colleagues who ran from freshmen courses and spent their dwindling and precious time with upper level students and graduates. I always swore that would not be me.
And in the early days, of course, I had no problem keeping my vow. I had to teach a certain amount of first year courses, and so I found ways to do it, found ways to meet the challenge of what was basically a room full of high school students. I told myself I loved their freshness, their energy.
But now I find myself at mid-career (or so), and when my Dean sent around the Spring class schedule, I put a clean stroke through my name next to our department's intro level course, and replaced it with a senior-only course.
The freshmen. I can't do it another day. I can't tell them to shush, to bring their notebooks to class, to please quit bothering Kayla. To please put on something other than pajama pants and beach shoes. I can't take another one asking if we could have class outside, or "Can I use the bathroom?" (I don't know. can you?)
I don't want to teach "college" anymore to them. I don't want to explain where the cafeteria is or where the library is. I don't want to hold their hands. I don't want them to tell me their dad might be giving me a call.
I just want the freshmen to go away.
I never wanted to be the one who turned his back on freshmen. As a junior faculty member, I always hated those older colleagues who ran from freshmen courses and spent their dwindling and precious time with upper level students and graduates. I always swore that would not be me.
And in the early days, of course, I had no problem keeping my vow. I had to teach a certain amount of first year courses, and so I found ways to do it, found ways to meet the challenge of what was basically a room full of high school students. I told myself I loved their freshness, their energy.
But now I find myself at mid-career (or so), and when my Dean sent around the Spring class schedule, I put a clean stroke through my name next to our department's intro level course, and replaced it with a senior-only course.
The freshmen. I can't do it another day. I can't tell them to shush, to bring their notebooks to class, to please quit bothering Kayla. To please put on something other than pajama pants and beach shoes. I can't take another one asking if we could have class outside, or "Can I use the bathroom?" (I don't know. can you?)
I don't want to teach "college" anymore to them. I don't want to explain where the cafeteria is or where the library is. I don't want to hold their hands. I don't want them to tell me their dad might be giving me a call.
I just want the freshmen to go away.
All I teach right now is "learning support" (read: remedial) writing, which has all the joys of working with freshmen plus dealing with students who don't want to be there, who resent being in my class, who think they're too smart for my class, who think my class is a waste of their time. . . . This semester in particular is beating me down, probably because we're understaffed so I'm teaching far too many sections.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain, Snarky. This post is the story of my life and why I'm super blessed to be retiring next year. I'll miss some (too few) of the students and my groovy colleagues, but the rest? Gag The Gog!
ReplyDelete"...to please quit bothering Kayla."
ReplyDeleteOMG.
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ReplyDeletewhy do you care what they wear? My classrooms are in the same building as one of the dorms. Sometimes they are dressed in sweats and flipflops. I'd rather they wear that to class than miss it. God knows I didn't dress up. I sometimes had on a tee-shirt, old jeans, dirty sneakers, and unwashed hair because I rolled out of bed and ran to an 8 am class.*
ReplyDeleteAnd you make them ask to go to the bathroom? I tell them to wait, but if they can't, leave very quietly, come back quietly, and I mark it against their attendance if they are disruptive or are gone too long. I've only had a couple that abused it so far (one of which had severe developmental difficulties and really should not have even been in college. Mentally he was about 12 years old and his work looked like it was written by a 6th grader.)
* oddly, as a prof I dress better than most of my colleagues. I think only a few of us male profs wear ties. We're all over 50 and the others are retired military.
Yeah, pajama pants and beach shoes don't bother me.
DeleteBut I didn't think the OP made them ask to use the toilet. I think zhe was reacting to the disruption of their asking like a high-schooler instead of just slipping out and back quietly, professionally, like an adult.
That's what I got too; freshmen definitely do that!
DeleteWhy give a shit about anything then? You tell them to WAIT to use the bathroom? Wearing a tie doesn't give you authority over their bladders.
ReplyDeleteOk on pajama pants, but I want to see you pee in them. Odd. Odd.
When I was in primary school, because I was a good reader, I was a pretty good autodidact. I'd get bored in class and ask to go to the bathroom to kill time.
DeleteFor grades 9-12, I switched to a more challenging school where it was harder to make up the missed material myself. Intriguingly, I developed a larger bladder and the ability to wait till breaks between classes to empty it. Had that not happened, I could easily see myself as a college freshman, unable to make it through a 90-minute or even 60-minute class without the urge to use the bathroom as both cause and symptom of an underdeveloped attention span.
Remember when we were in 10th grade, when friends who'd become college freshpersons looked so, well, mature? Now, whenever I meet anyone that age, it's all I can do not to smack them in the head.
ReplyDeleteWell, when we were in 10th grade, college freshies WERE mature, partly because they'd been smacked upside the head a few times---not literally (I hope; I'm not an advocate of corporal punishment), but certainly metaphorically enough that they understood that "question authority" is a means, not an end, and it certainly didn't mean "dismiss and disregard authority."
DeleteI have to speak to the counterpoint. I really like my merry band of freshpersons each year. Yes, there is a lot they don't know about how college works, and they sometimes come in with some interesting expectations and they call me Mrs. a lot. But generally, they are more motivated than upper-class students, and they have WAY less of the attitude that I find in upperclassmen. I would take disabusing some rookie notions about academic writing or how research is more than googling things over dealing with the crappy, crappy crap I get from Suzie "I did an internship over the summer and now I know how everything works" Senior any day of the week. Freshies grow and can become decent people by the end of the semester. It is too late for Suzie.
ReplyDelete