Wednesday, April 6, 2016


11 comments:

  1. More rasicm at College Misery. No big surprise

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    1. I didn't submit this photo, but I can tell you that a blond-haired, blue eyed, white male uttered these exact words to me just a week ago, except it was for the two weeks centered on the midterm (35% of the course grade).

      I simply did not see any racial implications when I first viewed this, and I have to take a few logical leaps to see them now. The depicted student is representative of many I have in my classes, and "her" statement is representative of many I've heard from all cross-sections of my students. Being able to freely mix and match representative students and their utterances strikes me as the opposite of racism, but I can be disabused of this position with a proper argument.

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    2. Those excuses come from the affluent. I've gotten a few of those messages over the years and it's always been a white student.

      Just go back over your old finals and collect some of the tougher problems from each and give the snowflake that exam.

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    3. At least at my institution, this student would be far closer to "average" than a similarly well-coiffed and well-dressed blond girl (or guy). And, although there are definitely associations between skin color and privilege, it's also true that, when it comes to individuals, privilege knows no color. In fact, the really privileged high school graduates of European descent from my area generally go elsewhere -- a less-selective private school if they can't get into the state flagship -- while first- or second-generation American students and their families, whatever their wealth or lack thereof, may be more likely to choose the place on the basis of factors such as the ability to live at, or at least near, home.

      Looking at the student in the picture, I see mostly a traditional-age student who clearly has time and money to spend on things like hair, makeup, and other grooming activities -- in other words, probably not someone who's holding down several jobs to pay for tuition, raising a family, and barely sleeping. It seems entirely plausible that her parents are paying her tuition, and could also afford a nice, if ill-timed, vacation.

      In fact, there may be some racism in assuming otherwise.

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    4. Things may be quite different elsewhere, but at my joint, if I were to approach these situations on the assumption that "white = affluent" or "non-white = non-affluent", I would be wrong so often as to make the approach impractical.

      While family trips of these types seem statistically more likely with affluent students, it is also far from 100% in my experience. Reasons that less-affluent students do this include:

      1. parents think that college is like 7th grade where the kid can "just catch up" (rough correlation between wealth and education level).
      2. travel was arranged to favor cheaper rates.
      3. extended family at destination is hosting (accommodations are relatively cheap).
      4. rich relative is fronting travel expenses and "really wants one last reunion".

      As for the depicted student, of course it's a stock photo, but some do look like that even on a typical school-day. Assuming a case of the latter, I agree with Cassandra that the student may well want for little.

      But I've also seen wealthy students unkempt and sporting "pre-worn" clothes to "dress down", and I've seen those less well-off among the nicely groomed and smartly clothed. I suspect some of those who "dress up" consider it a sort of battle garb, which they don to mentally prepare themselves for entering a situation that they see as an uphill climb.

      What a student wears might tell me something about what they want my first impression of them to be, but I try to reserve judgment till I hear their story.

      Silver lining to my story: the Office of Student Appeasement and Retention handles all requests of this sort, so students don't get away with this with a "fresh" proffie each semester.

      When we have to give an off-schedule exam, we do just as Fred says, above: we go through all the learning objectives to that point in the course and pick questions from back tests that test all those LOs.

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  2. More bravery from Anonymous*. Ditto.

    *who seems to have taken the deviant spelling article to heart.

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    1. This site seems to be some kind of projective test for that guy.

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  3. It's the same effing picture from a few days ago.

    Isn't it a stock photo???

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    1. I'm thinking of copying the image and doing my own MEME, because, like, kids love the memes! Or maybe that was 5 years ago. I don't know. I was surprised that Wrestlemania was still going on.

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  4. I got the same excuse yesterday from a student who was going on vacation in the Dominican Republic, and who was neither rich nor blue-eyed.

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    1. Yup, I've heard it from all demographics, all kinds of destinations, "exotic" or no.

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