I take most of what I read here, and ALL of what I used to read on RYS with a grain of salt. I know it's exaggerated for comic (or dramatic) effect. I can see the real layer of happening beneath the bluster of our panicky and wretched misery-writing.But today I learned a lesson.
I walked into class to see two students in the front row who had pushed their desks together so they could share an ENTIRE FUCKING PIZZA.
They smiled, offered a slice, and I stood there stunned.
I don't have a lot of classroom rules, and I certainly don't have one that says, "No hot meals during class." Do I need to add one?
Reminded me of this old RYS classic that I always thought was bullshit...
Dr. Vince, I apologize for doubting you, my brother.
TP
Was this an 8am class?
ReplyDeleteSolution: walk up, sneeze on pizza.
"I know it's exaggerated for comic (or dramatic) effect."
ReplyDeleteReally? Because most of what I read on CM sounds exactly like what I encounter inside and outside of the classroom.
Terry, didn't you see the training video?
ReplyDeleteI have a student in a lunchtime class that sits in the front and brings cafeteria food. I pity her so for having to eat it that I put up with the smell. I figure the other students smell it all the time too and don't care.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, when I looked down at her yesterday, there were four discrete lumps of food in her little sectioned tray, and I'll be damned if I could identify any of them. The four different lumps were all colored a different sort of brown, and covered with what looked like an array of gravies--all gelatinous and flour-y and still more shades of brown.
Soylent brown. That's what it was. It was soylent brown.
Hey, I used to eat in class all the time, especially when I had four classes scheduled back-to-back. I don't see anything wrong with it, though I never did it in any class that had a rule against it. Some professors cared, some didn't; it's highly variable. I personally don't care if my students have food in the class, even hot food. Heck, I usually have a candy bar I nosh on during the lecture. I have a high metabolism and I need the sugar boost to keep going when I'm ranting, pacing, and gesticulating at the head of the class.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is, we are all about telling the flakes that the university experience is all about meeting new people and realizing that not everyone shares all our assumptions and values... and then I see stuff like this from the very people selling that message for all they're worth. Not everyone thinks this is "obviously" incorrect behavior. You can't assume that your students were "raised in a barn" if they do something that treads on YOUR particular, peculiar sensibilities. If you don't have a rule that says "no food" or "no hot food," you need to add one or clam up.
My syllabus says snacks and drinks are fine, but hot food may lead to the professor becoming hungry and, unable to do anything about it, extremely cranky. :)
ReplyDeleteSnarky is right, what happened to the old "did you bring enough for everyone?"
ReplyDeleteMy courses are all held in a multi-use room full of various gear. There are signs everywhere about no food or drink in the room, and I try to abide by that. And I ask my students to abide by it.
ReplyDeleteThe only spills I've ever found in the room (and the only trash) are all around and on the teacher's desk.
Did these guys never see "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"? Or maybe they did.
ReplyDeleteChannel your inner Mr. Hand.
"Do I need to add one?"
ReplyDeleteI asked the exact same question when this happened to me.
I risked it, and never added an anti-porn statement to my syllabi, and, luckily, I've never encountered the same scenario since.
I'm guessing it's not so much the eating in class that's bothering you, but that it was an ENTIRE FUCKING PIZZA (as if they were there to watch a football game or something). All I can say is: good thing it wasn't an entire fucking bird! I'm not sure what THAT would symbolize.
ReplyDeleteI once was bribed with a $5 Hot-n-Ready.
ReplyDeleteIf they brought enough for the class, I'd just take a piece and say thanks.
ReplyDeleteA fellow prof once told me about a student who brought an entire fucking chicken to the evening class, every single week. A whole chicken, smells and bones and all.
ReplyDeleteI found one myself, but way back when I was a teenage working at a movie place. Someone had smuggled a chicken past the popcorn stand and that person had dropped the bones all over the floor.
Did they have beer too? And did they offer you one?
ReplyDeleteWe have 'no eating or drinking in this room' signs all over the teaching rooms. it means that I don't have to add a rule, I'm just enforcing one set by the university.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, like many of us I guess, I need to sip water regularly to keep my voice working properly, especially on a long teaching day... which means I am blatently in breech of the rule. I don't see a way around that... so I tend to ignore beverages and non-smelly, non-noisy food, and otherwise ask the student to keep the noise/smell to themselves.
I also ask the class in the first week of term if there are any issues like having to come from across campus, or having two back to back classes across lunch break (young males in particular seem to need regular feeding!), and will accomodate if possible by for example starting 5 minutes later or having a 20 minute coffee break in the middle of class, so students can go outside the classroom to eat.
An entire pizza does seem a little extreme, but when I was in grad school I asked my advisor permission if I could eat lunch in his seminar since I taught straight through the afternoon with no breaks. He laughed and said he would be joining me eating his lunch there too for the exact same reason!
ReplyDeleteAt my SLAC there is a break in the schedule for lunch for all of us (proffies often eat at the dining hall too). But in January term the classes are 4 hours long and I gave everyone a "brunch break" around 10am during which pretty much the whole class raided the dining hall for bagels.
I think I'd be with Snarky Writer if someone brought in hot food.
Wow, are academics really so detached from the social norms of the rest of the world? If it bothers you, stop being so passive-aggressive, and tell them so!
ReplyDeleteOr look at it this way: they clearly think your teaching style is so entertaining that it's an appropriate setting to sit back, relax, and share a pizza. Take it as a compliment.
And one more thing. Consider that only in academia would it be so apparently acceptable to whine publicly and proudly about your employer and/or client (whichever you consider your students to be; I suppose there's room for interpretation). Man up and fix the problem next time, instead of scurrying to the anonymity of some internet forum to be comforted by a menagerie of like-minded people.
ReplyDeleteYou don't know the slightest thing about those students' lives or their purported reasoning for bringing the pizza in- although you did have a great chance to find out.
Andrew, I think the point of the post is that sharing a whole pizza in class goes against the social norms observed in a classroom.
ReplyDeleteAcademia is far from the only place where people complain about their jobs. Here, we do it pseudoanonymously as employees do in other blogs devoted to their professions. There's nothing special about us complaining about the strange or annoying things that happen at work.
Students are raw materials. They enter as unrefined ore and we refine it. We remove ignorance, enhance other qualities associated with gaining, understanding and appreciating knowledge.
Terry asked if he should include a hot meal clause in his syllabus so it sounds like he is contemplating how to solve the problem next time, as you suggest he should. It's not an either/or situation. He can fix it and share the experience with us. Any story that allows me to watch old clips from Fast Times at Ridgemont High is worth sharing.
Andrew's mom musta gotten pissed when she told him about the big meanies she found online talking about his lame ass.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if she lets him wipe his greasy hands on the sofa and drip cheese on the carpet too.
A classroom is not a pizza parlor. The time to eat is usually not when you should be taking notes. Engaging a lecture is not the same as watching TV.
@ Beaker Ben - point taken.
ReplyDelete"I don't know...?"