Not Optional

[wolfie]

This is a good policy. My school had the same one. You either learned to make sure you had all your gear, or you didn't pass.

I just started my new job, along with three other new-to-this-hospital people, and you can be darned sure it wasn't me who showed up to the first day without a stethoscope, penlight or watch.

Of course, someone who was REALLY prepared would have a penlight, spare batteries, a spare bulb (if it wasn't an LED penlight), and possibly even a spare (not necessarily the same quality as their primary, but good enough to get the job done for the day) penlight.

[Voldine]

I have to say, the only time I have ever complained about a grade I received in recent years was just two weeks ago when I was not even marked for two questions that I answered correctly on a quiz.

Admittedly it was a mix of faults there. The other students complained that the last two questions were on different drugs than we had been told would be on the quiz, so there were two write-in questions to replace them. The drugs HAD been mentioned in a prior lecture, and I answered the questions correctly, but flubbed one of the write-ins.

I waited until the end of class and asked if the two 'skipped' questions could be checked for accuracy, and the instructor gave me full marks after a few seconds of looking them over because I had retained from a previous lecture.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Teaching is a funny thing. I genuinely want all of my students to do well. I'd love it if they all got A's! I hate having to assign failing grades, and I do get disappointed when it seems that students aren't living up to their potential.

That said, I don't know what's going on in someone's life. If a C or a D is the best they can do, for whatever reason, well, it is what it is. I offer all the help I can, and I gladly answer questions, but after a certain point, there's nothing else to be done.

It's just frustrating to have students say, "I don't want to do X" or "You should give me a higher grade" or "Even though you said work can only be 3 days late, you should still accept my paper."

If someone said, "I don't want to do X assignment for Y reason, what about an alternate assignment of ABC" -- that's great! Or "You took off points for X, but I don't think you should have because of this, this, and this reason" -- that's great, too. So on and so forth.

I want to help, I want students to succeed. I can't do that when I'm met with an attitude of "I don't want to."

All of this. These are the kinds of students I like to think that teachers want. Students who come up with valid excuses-- and alternatives-- when their grades aren't up to snuff.

Assignments may not be optional, but they may be negotiable, if you approach the teacher the right way.

The best teachers are the ones who give students these options, and do as much as they can with the students who put forth the effort. If a student doesn't care about their grade (right up until the "F" bomb drops), why should the teacher?

[Miss Fatale]

Makes me wonder what my instructors think of me, heh (though, I own all of grades, good or bad. I don't think I've earned any unfairly).

Teaching is a funny thing. I genuinely want all of my students to do well. I'd love it if they all got A's! I hate having to assign failing grades, and I do get disappointed when it seems that students aren't living up to their potential.

That said, I don't know what's going on in someone's life. If a C or a D is the best they can do, for whatever reason, well, it is what it is. I offer all the help I can, and I gladly answer questions, but after a certain point, there's nothing else to be done.

It's just frustrating to have students say, "I don't want to do X" or "You should give me a higher grade" or "Even though you said work can only be 3 days late, you should still accept my paper."

If someone said, "I don't want to do X assignment for Y reason, what about an alternate assignment of ABC" -- that's great! Or "You took off points for X, but I don't think you should have because of this, this, and this reason" -- that's great, too. So on and so forth.

I want to help, I want students to succeed. I can't do that when I'm met with an attitude of "I don't want to."

[simplyanother]

Makes me wonder what my instructors think of me, heh (though, I own all of grades, good or bad. I don't think I've earned any unfairly).

I'm not doing so well this time around, but it's more life happening and me not being able to deal with it all. Yes, there are people who can juggle 67 things at once and still make the deans list, I am apparently not one of them, at least not right now.

[EricKei]

One thing did occur to me that might have had an influence on my dislike of needless explication: I went to a Parochial (Catholic) school in HS. One of the major issues there was that your thoughts on the matter had to agree at least somewhat with the Church's official Doctrine/thought...Thus, I have more than once seen someone bust out a well-thought-out, properly sourced and detailed explication of a work, only to be given a big fat Zero for the paper as he was told that HIS OPINION WAS WRONG because it disagreed with the above! O_O Naturally, they never told us what the "official" position was until afterwards; you had to kind of learn to guess it over time.

[Anakah]

Why can't you tell them they can enjoy their F then? It's the truth. And what a bunch of spoiled brats. Do the assignment and shut up. I'd never have the balls to go up to a teacher and to that. I worry about the next generation... Ugh.

[pltkcelestial18]

I'm currently in my second to last semester of college (I graduate in May with a bachelor's in Math Education) and I'm going to school to be an 8-12 math teacher, although I'm thinking of just testing to do 4-8 instead. This semester has involved a lot being in the classroom, although not as much as next semester which is my student teaching semester.

Something I've noticed though with the 10th graders and 8th graders I'm working with this year is that they seem really lazy. The school district I'm doing my student teaching and stuff in is the same one I graduated from and the same one my brother is currently in and it has just gone down hill since I've graduated 8 yrs ago. It seems like now a days, teachers just do whatever they can to pass the kids and don't hold the kids accountable and when they do, they get in trouble, not the kids. It's crazy how many students I've seen this semester alone turn in late papers or just nothing at all. I've helped both of the teachers I'm working with this year grade a few papers and just the few that I've graded, half the students didn't even attempt some of the work. I asked the 8th grade teacher about this and she said it happens all the time. I've done observations with this same teacher last year for my first ed class and both then and now I've noticed how few homework assignments she gives out. In all honesty, I think if she could she'd give out more homework but she says they never do it because they either don't have anyone at home to help them or they're "too busy"

I feel like the education system has gone downhill and not because of teachers specifically but because of school administrations and because of the government.

[EricKei]

That's a lot of pressure!

Hrm...Maybe it was a department-wide psychological study of some kind. Which makes you and the other students the guinea pigs...

[Eisa]

If I ever end up as a teacher, I think this is what I would do, at least for High Schoolers or Frosh/Softies. Once you hit Junior level in college, or something higher, the students need to have the time and skills needed to drop such a thing and revert to "on time or it goes in the round file", *especially* in a Major-specific course where you knew everything about the papers (length, subject, format, due date) from Day One.

My uni did it for everyone, although some of the freshman/sophomore classes were more lenient with late work. Some of my psych professors did it especially because if you were in a lot of psych classes in one semester, you could end up with like 5 projects due the same week. That's a lot of pressure!

[Ironclad Alibi]

I have an English degree, myself, as well as a confession -- I utterly *detest* in-depth "analysis" of a work to try and figure out "what the author meant".

The only issue I ever had with the "meaning in a story" was in a high school English class. We had to write a short story. Which I did, and got a lesser grade than I thought I deserved. I asked the teacher about it and she said she couldn't figure out the meaning behind the story. I made up something that seem to satisfy her. The problem was, when she gave us the assignment, she didn't say anything about it having a meaning. It was a few years later when I found the quote below.

''If you want to send a message, use Western Union.''

[EricKei]

But I didnt mind actual assignments unless it was some stupid english assignment in which I was supposed to figure out what the author 'really meant'.

I have an English degree, myself, as well as a confession -- I utterly *detest* in-depth "analysis" of a work to try and figure out "what the author meant". IMHO, only one person really knows the answer to that question: the author. That being said, I did it anyway, and I am reasonably competent at it. It came with the territory.

Maybe it's just me, but I have found that the (relative) quality of the story itself makes a big difference -- If I'm being made to slog through one of the more onerous "Classics-With-A-Capital-C" like Catcher in the Rye, I'm not going to go that deep when it comes to analysis, simply because I hated reading it to begin with (then, again, one of my ONLY "100%" term papers, ever, was on Pygmalion/"My Fair Lady", which I hated. Maybe I was motivated to tear it a new one ^_^).

If the story isn't a good read, then why, I ask, should I care about its meaning?
If the story is a solid read, then exploring its depths could be fun -- or it could ruin the story; who knows?

If I am reading something like the Narnia books "just for fun", I know quite well that there is a religious undercurrent; I just don't care. The books are enjoyable, light reading works that stand on their own, though they are certainly open to further interpretation (and not on this board, that's why we have Fratching); but they do not need it in order to be properly enjoyed. Ditto the Alice in Wonderland, Oz, LoTR (tho not exactly light reading), Pern, or Hitchhiker's Guide books. I enjoy all of them on a surface level, and I can delve deeper when I want to. It's just that I don't always want to, and I don't believe that I should be made to when I just wanna curl up with a good book. Likewise, do I need to explicate the hell out of a good poem (e.g. "Kubla Khan" (sp?) by Coleridge) if I already enjoy the "sound and feel" of it? Do I need to know that the word "death", as used in poetry, usually refers to "a little death", and not cessation of life? Most of the time, no. I am willing to look for it -- I just prefer to see if a work can stand on its own merits before seeing if a deeper assay is worth my time.

Of course, this could also be a remnant of my attitude towards reading in general -- I LOVE to read things on my own. I hate being forced to read something....But I do it anyway ^_^

It's a very touchy-feely department, so I have to be very careful how I phrase things. As an adjunct, I don't have a lot of freedom.

Could you, perhaps, get away with this...?

*look up* "Ah. That's nice." *go back to whatever you were doing before*

Most of my college professors would accept late essays--but take off 5% of your grade, or even a letter grade, if it was late. So even if you were ten minutes late, bam, you're automatically down x amount of points. Sucked, but it was better than an F.

If I ever end up as a teacher, I think this is what I would do, at least for High Schoolers or Frosh/Softies. Once you hit Junior level in college, or something higher, the students need to have the time and skills needed to drop such a thing and revert to "on time or it goes in the round file", *especially* in a Major-specific course where you knew everything about the papers (length, subject, format, due date) from Day One.

[Miss Fatale]

There were assignments I didn't do in school, or half-assed, but I knew what the consequence would be. If you don't wanna do it, you don't get the grade, it's that simple. If you're ok with that, fine, but don't whine about it to the professor, they don't give a shit.

That's what it comes down to for me. If you don't want to do your work, that's fine. If you have to turn in work late, that's fine. Stuff happens, sometimes other things take a higher priority.

If a student comes to me before hand, we can usually work something out. Saying "I don't want to" is not working something out.

But then don't complain about the consequences, if you don't turn it in, etc. Ah well, this website shows us that people love to complain about the consequences.

[Eisa]

I do remember my AP Biology teacher being kind of an asshole. The class was impossible. He said it was to "prepare us for college," but his tests were all about tiny nuances of questions that weren't in the book OR in the lecture...when exactly were we supposed to learn it? I was terrified of college until I went and discovered my honors classes were easier than his class. If it wasn't for the fact that homework etc. counted more, 95% of the people there would have flunked.

Most of my college professors would accept late essays--but take off 5% of your grade, or even a letter grade, if it was late. So even if you were ten minutes late, bam, you're automatically down x amount of points. Sucked, but it was better than an F.

There were assignments I didn't do in school, or half-assed, but I knew what the consequence would be. If you don't wanna do it, you don't get the grade, it's that simple. If you're ok with that, fine, but don't whine about it to the professor, they don't give a shit.

[Metody]

I get the bit about lab coats, though. For my class, students have to wear lab coats to nursing lab or Simulation. No coat, and you are counted absent for the day. Ditto if you don't bring your lab kit.

This is a good policy. My school had the same one. You either learned to make sure you had all your gear, or you didn't pass.

I just started my new job, along with three other new-to-this-hospital people, and you can be darned sure it wasn't me who showed up to the first day without a stethoscope, penlight or watch.