Most of them took their papers and slunk out, but 2 stuck around to complain--a guy who emails me long, drawn-out excuses on a weekly basis for why he was late/absent/had to leave early this week, and a girl who I'd spent 15 minutes talking to during the peer review period for this essay about all the major changes she would want to make in her rough draft....who then changed literally 9 words (no, really, I counted) and submitted it as her final draft.
Both complained that it wasn't their fault that their last papers had been utter crap, because they'd emailed me asking for help. But, being the Big Meanie that he is, ol' Doc Slash just never responded to them. Gasp! Obviously, not THEIR fault!
I asked them when they'd emailed me, and if they remembered that I'd opened the week leading up to that first due date with a classwide email that stated very clearly, 'I'm going to be unavailable the day before your papers are due, so I can only answer questions or provide feedback on drafts that have been emailed to me by 5:00 PM on Wednesday.
According to my inbox, the guy emailed me at 10:08 PM on that Thursday night (casually asking that I 'glance over it quickly that night'). The girl emailed me at 11:24 PM that Thursday. The paper was due at 11:30 AM Friday. And even when she looked this up herself, she STILL tried to argue with me like it was my fault she barely edited her rough draft since, in her mind, the fact she had emailed me asking for help an entire 12 hours before it was due clearly meant the ball was in my court.
I hope they appreciated the passive aggression in the 'Here's the email I'm finding in my Inbox asking me for help. I didn't respond to it because, as you can see from the time stamp, it arrived in my inbox 30 hours past the deadline to ask for help' emails I just sent them. Because if they want to try to keep playing the 'it's your fault my paper was bad' game with me, that ought to be their first clue that they're waaayyyy out of their depth on this one...
I asked them when they'd emailed me, and if they remembered that I'd opened the week leading up to that first due date with a classwide email that stated very clearly, 'I'm going to be unavailable the day before your papers are due, so I can only answer questions or provide feedback on drafts that have been emailed to me by 5:00 PM on Wednesday.
According to my inbox, the guy emailed me at 10:08 PM on that Thursday night (casually asking that I 'glance over it quickly that night'). The girl emailed me at 11:24 PM that Thursday. The paper was due at 11:30 AM Friday. And even when she looked this up herself, she STILL tried to argue with me like it was my fault she barely edited her rough draft since, in her mind, the fact she had emailed me asking for help an entire 12 hours before it was due clearly meant the ball was in my court.
I hope they appreciated the passive aggression in the 'Here's the email I'm finding in my Inbox asking me for help. I didn't respond to it because, as you can see from the time stamp, it arrived in my inbox 30 hours past the deadline to ask for help' emails I just sent them. Because if they want to try to keep playing the 'it's your fault my paper was bad' game with me, that ought to be their first clue that they're waaayyyy out of their depth on this one...
-Doc Slash
This could have been me, writing this! Are you me? Are we all just figments of Terry's imagination? (If I had mad HTML skills ID link here to Terry's epic post...)
ReplyDeleteI have that particular set of skills. Here you go:
DeleteThe Mediocre Reveal.
Thanks, OPH!
DeleteBut Professor, this school promises "students come first"
ReplyDelete(If I had mad HTML skills ID link here to recent posting on that very issue)
Perhaps this is the one:
DeleteFriday Thirsty -- Students Come First vs. Teaching Comes First
.
Now you're just showing off....
DeleteI'm relieved that's all it is. I was starting to wonder if you'd found a new way to troll me.
DeleteI feel lucky in this regard at my CC. The students are frequently clueless and apathetic, but most of them are first gen college students from a pretty low socioeconomic level area, so this kind of whiny entitlement doesn't happen much. I do, however, frequently have the lovely experience of having more than half the class simply refuse to bother reading a ONE PAGE editorial for class discussion. Wow, that 10 min. of work to read and annotate a few hundred words was simply too much. Can't. Do. It. Well, McD's is always hiring. Enjoy, losers.
ReplyDeleteYup, they think deadlines are negotiable. The same for grades in some cases. What I hear more of now is "It never hurts to ask - the worst thing that can happen is you'll say 'no'". Actually, the worst thing that can happen is that I'll think you're a tool and will do you a favor on the 12th of never.
ReplyDeleteGog, McD's is always hiring, but if these kids behave there the way they behave in school, they won't be scooping fries for long.
For some of us here who still need good evals it can be a no-win situation: give in and your senior colleagues label you "one of those types" or don't and your students claim on evals that you are "never willing to help, not student centered."
DeleteYup, you're spot on there. Around here, they say it's "unfair". I use the syllabus as a shield and it helps to some extent. But yes, in the end, it's hard to win.
DeleteExcellent point, Fred. It takes a while to "D"-- or "F"-- out of my classes. A boss in the private sector typically dishes out swifter justice.
DeleteI constantly have students spin tales, which electronic records easily refute. A frequent one is about how "I did the quiz on [a common free and open-source LMS] but my quiz mark wasn't recorded!" I'll fire up the 'ole LMS, and state back to them at what time they logged in, what IP address they logged in from, and what parts of the course LMS page they accessed, which didn't include the quiz, nor finishing it on time. I never receive a response after it has been made clear to them that they've been P0WNED!
ReplyDeleteThe Big Brother functions of the LMSs are remarkably revealing. My favorite recent episode is the student who emailed to say ze had been away on the ubiquitous but ever-unspecified 'family emergency," and wanted to know what ze had missed. A quick check of the LMS revealed that ze had not logged on for a week or so (and -- the truly strange part -- had not logged on before sending the email. The even stranger part was that this is one of my online students, so the course was "there," wherever ze was -- it was somewhere in the U.S., so there was undoubtedly internet access -- all along).
DeleteThis was me, way back in 2005-2007, right before I had (apparently) a nervous breakdown thanks to a perfect storm of a long-term illness coupled with student mobbing & workplace bullying from a bad colleague, and quit teaching altogether.
ReplyDeleteNice to see it's just continuing to cascade out of control. (/end snark)
-Anon y Mouse
Glad you survived. I hope you've found a better option.
DeleteI think my place is somewhat like Gog's: most of them don't argue. But it only takes one or two to take up a lot of emotional energy/brain space, and some time, that might be better spent on other students, or other activities.
ReplyDeleteThere's an 80-20 rule about project management and similar things, called The Pareto Principle. 80% of the progress is made in the first 20% of the time. 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the contributors.
Delete80% of my effort is spent on 20% of my students.
I can live with that (your last line). I just wish I could find a way to spend it on (and to find) the 20% who would most benefit from my efforts, rather than the 20% who are the squeakiest wheels.
DeleteI don't mind doing a bit of anxiety-allaying here and there, but it seems to be becoming a larger and larger part of my job (and strictly speaking it isn't my job at all).