Leah
May 25, 2007 at 9:17 am
I couldn’t even stand gen ed courses that were in my major. I was surrounded by people who did not get the material, and worse, didn’t care.
One was a Survey of American Lit I course (early American Lit), which actually covered two gen ed requirements, and was one of my English requirements. I was one of three English majors in the class, and.it.sucked. Add to that a continuing ed student who “doesn’t read to look for meanings or themes, but reads for enjoyment.” Then why are you taking a college English class?
At any rate, Early American Lit being my least favorite writing period (except for Ben Franklin), added to the crap heads in the class, I had a very tough time looking engaged. However, my class work was always above par, and my professor already loved me from other classes, so she knew I was bored with my classmates, and not her. She got me.
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mrschili
May 22, 2007 at 5:56 am
I tend to not drop the “f-bomb” – at least, not the kind that’s been discussed in this context – in class at all, and for just the reasons you mentioned, Bowyer. These kids aren’t energetic about much, but they would certainly band together and rally behind the “see?! We can’t ALL be failing – it MUST be her fault” flag. I don’t need that.
I am SO fortunate to work for a supervisor who is 100% supportive of his faculty. He KNOWS what some of these students are like and, to this point, he’s never for a second given me the impression that he thinks they haven’t managed to fail despite my best efforts. It would be in a very different situation for me if I didn’t have that; I am not worried for my job when the students fail because I know my boss knows it’s not me. I think the prevailing wind in education (that the students have to succeed or the teacher is to blame) is dangerous and entirely unethical, but that’s another post.
CTG, yeah – it IS frustrating. What’s worse, though, is that, because this class is a hybrid (which means that it only meets one day a week; Mondays, in this case) and because next Monday is a holiday, I won’t see them again until June. I know for sure that at least half of them aren’t even going to open the emails with their work for these two weeks. They’ve passed the point of redemption as it is, they figure; why bother to start trying now?
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