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Bear with me, folks. This one is going to take awhile.
Since I teach at a business-oriented college (read: junior college with more focus), we have a significant amount of access to our students. This means, for instance, I can get multiple email addresses, phone numbers, and the like for our students should I need to contact one. Because we live in a seriously depressed part of the country and many students sign up for the financial “free money” aid (not realizing that the government will hound them eternally until they pay it all back with interest), we often need to do exactly this.
I also have a Facebook page specifically for my students—just another way to contact them. This will be important in a bit.
All of our students have a specific, career-focused major. In my English composition classes, students write a final paper project for me that somehow involves that major. For instance, business majors can write on any business-related topic: Sarbanes-Oxley, Bernie Madoff, emerging business trends, whatever. They choose, and if they can find the right number of good sources, I approve the topic.
So let’s talk about one of my students this quarter. I’ll call him Bosco. Bosco was right out of high school, maybe 5’6” and 90 pounds soakin’ wet. A nice enough kid, but socially maladjusted with a crippling fear of ever doing anything wrong. There’s also some evidence that his mom is a helicopter parent, which stunts him socially and academically even more.
Bosco is a digital design/animation student. He wants to work in movies or video games. He has chosen as his paper topic a history of Pixar Studios. Not the greatest topic, but good enough for the assignment, and I approve it.
We come to the end of the quarter about 10 days ago. My students have been given until 3:00 Friday to turn in their final papers. I see that it is 2:30 on Friday and I am missing a half dozen or so. This is not unusual, but one of those missing papers is Bosco’s. I look up the file on him and decide that I should call. So I do. The following conversation ensues:
Phone: ring…ring…ring…[answering machine message]
Me: Hi this is Lingual calling from College Name for Bosco. It’s 2:30 on Friday and I…
Bosco: Uh…hi. [[Oh, goody! He’s screening his calls. He doesn’t want Mommy to know he’s going to fail at least two of his classes this quarter.]]
Me: I’m calling about that paper. I’m still waiting for it and I’d really like to go home.
Bosco: Yeah, I’m working on it.
Me: Mmm-hmm. Well, I’m waiting here, so please send it to me.
Bosco: Yeah, I’m working on it. CLICK
I wait. I do a little grading. I check my email. There’s nothing new. Finally, at 4:00 I decide enough is enough and everyone who turns something in at this point will get the 10%/day penalty for late work. I gave him his shot.
Cut to 11:00 that night. Still nothing in the ol’ email. I decide to check Facebook on the off chance I might find a recalcitrant student lurking around. I check Bosco’s page.
Not 5 minutes after I got off the phone with him, he’s posted that he wants to join the military. Ten minutes later, he suggests that maybe he’ll just change majors and colleges instead.
So there you have it. Evidently, writing a 7-10 page paper on Pixar is more stressful than the concept of boot camp and combat, and is more than enough to cause someone to change majors and schools. Sad for him, English composition is a requirement for college students in my state.
Since I teach at a business-oriented college (read: junior college with more focus), we have a significant amount of access to our students. This means, for instance, I can get multiple email addresses, phone numbers, and the like for our students should I need to contact one. Because we live in a seriously depressed part of the country and many students sign up for the financial “free money” aid (not realizing that the government will hound them eternally until they pay it all back with interest), we often need to do exactly this.
I also have a Facebook page specifically for my students—just another way to contact them. This will be important in a bit.
All of our students have a specific, career-focused major. In my English composition classes, students write a final paper project for me that somehow involves that major. For instance, business majors can write on any business-related topic: Sarbanes-Oxley, Bernie Madoff, emerging business trends, whatever. They choose, and if they can find the right number of good sources, I approve the topic.
So let’s talk about one of my students this quarter. I’ll call him Bosco. Bosco was right out of high school, maybe 5’6” and 90 pounds soakin’ wet. A nice enough kid, but socially maladjusted with a crippling fear of ever doing anything wrong. There’s also some evidence that his mom is a helicopter parent, which stunts him socially and academically even more.
Bosco is a digital design/animation student. He wants to work in movies or video games. He has chosen as his paper topic a history of Pixar Studios. Not the greatest topic, but good enough for the assignment, and I approve it.
We come to the end of the quarter about 10 days ago. My students have been given until 3:00 Friday to turn in their final papers. I see that it is 2:30 on Friday and I am missing a half dozen or so. This is not unusual, but one of those missing papers is Bosco’s. I look up the file on him and decide that I should call. So I do. The following conversation ensues:
Phone: ring…ring…ring…[answering machine message]
Me: Hi this is Lingual calling from College Name for Bosco. It’s 2:30 on Friday and I…
Bosco: Uh…hi. [[Oh, goody! He’s screening his calls. He doesn’t want Mommy to know he’s going to fail at least two of his classes this quarter.]]
Me: I’m calling about that paper. I’m still waiting for it and I’d really like to go home.
Bosco: Yeah, I’m working on it.
Me: Mmm-hmm. Well, I’m waiting here, so please send it to me.
Bosco: Yeah, I’m working on it. CLICK
I wait. I do a little grading. I check my email. There’s nothing new. Finally, at 4:00 I decide enough is enough and everyone who turns something in at this point will get the 10%/day penalty for late work. I gave him his shot.
Cut to 11:00 that night. Still nothing in the ol’ email. I decide to check Facebook on the off chance I might find a recalcitrant student lurking around. I check Bosco’s page.
Not 5 minutes after I got off the phone with him, he’s posted that he wants to join the military. Ten minutes later, he suggests that maybe he’ll just change majors and colleges instead.
So there you have it. Evidently, writing a 7-10 page paper on Pixar is more stressful than the concept of boot camp and combat, and is more than enough to cause someone to change majors and schools. Sad for him, English composition is a requirement for college students in my state.
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