The Letting Off Steam Thread - Page 192

This is what I have to put up with, as a college math professor. The longer I teach, the more I understand why some of my teachers were jaded or dismissive or easily frustrated. The best and worst parts of teaching are usually the same: the students. Granted, 99% of the time the students are wonderful and everything is peachy, but every now and then there's that one student...

College students can be pretty entitled and whiny, especially when you're a professor who goes out of your way to be extra nice to them. I'm slowly learning that no good deed goes unpunished. Here's my most recent anecdote regarding this:

In the precalculus class I'm teaching, there are 29 very short online homework assignments (~5 problems per assignment) assigned throughout the semester, each one relevant to a math section we cover on the syllabus. ~2 of these mini-assignments are due every Sunday night, so that the students are reinforcing the most recent lectures from the week before. Staying up to date on these assignments not only counts towards their final grade (their homework average is 15% of their final grade, which is equivalent to a midterm exam grade), but it also helps them steadily study for upcoming quizzes and exams.

One might think that it's very easy to forget about completing online homework, but I remind them every single lecture and I send out e-mail reminders about them.

Now, a lot of my students don't do their homework. A few weeks ago, I decided to be extra nice and re-open all of these assignments, so that every student could complete homeworks they missed, or even get better grades on homeworks they completed imperfectly. I figured that it would incentivize the students to go back and do a little more work.

The final deadline for all the homeworks was pushed back to today at noon (as classes have ended and next week they're taking the final exam). I need to start calculating grades and so I need homework averages by today, at the latest. I notified my students of this, and it shouldn't be a problem because hey, I gave everyone extra weeks to do any homework assignment they've ever missed for my class.

And so naturally, I just had the following e-mail conversation with a student of mine... we'll call him Jack:

Jack: Professor mango, i thought the deadline was tonight why would you end it early? please please let me finish them at the original deadline.

Me: I explained in previous e-mails that the deadline was over at noon today, as I need to get grades in. Remember that the original deadlines were really weeks/ months ago, and I gave them a huge extension so that everyone could have an incredibly long amount of time to complete these assignments.

Jack: i understand but can you at least open them for a little longer?

Jack (again): please just a little more time im so sorry to ask this of you.

(At this time, I logged onto the homework site to check his homework progress.)

Me: Jack, your homework score is literally a 0%. For the entire semester. Out of 29 homework assignments. You've done none of the homework. You haven't even started a single assignment. What do you think?

Jack: i know. im sorry. i have a problem. im a very bad procrastinator. i put things off until the last minute and it always hurts me in the end. i intended to do them today i really did. im so sorry i never meant for it to come to this. with me pleading. but i need this grade i need to pass. and im sorry if i come off as selfish im really not. just severely misguided. i cant help the things i do, and im alwasy scrambling to make up my mistakes in the end. But im begging you to let me have just a little more time and whatever i get done i get done, i just dont want to fail this class. im not very good at math and this is the best ive done so far. so please just a little more time? i dont know what else to do.

Me:

Jack, you were already failing the class before homework was factored in. You had a 46% before homework, and that was due to your low (or missed) quizzes, and the fact you failed both midterm exams.

Let's look forward to some things you can improve upon for next semester. Here are some tips I can give you, but remember it's up to you to make the changes. You're an adult.

1. Attend every class. Regardless of how annoying it is to get out of bed or make the drive or sit in class, do it. It's really that simple. Getting to class is half the battle. And take notes while you're there.

2. Complete every assignment. Budget your time so that you force yourself to study and do real work for a few hours, and then you can reward yourself with relaxation time. That may help with procrastination issues.

3. The second you don't understand something in class (whether it's in a precalculus class or any other course), go to your professor's office hours. Get help from him or other students. Study in a group. Work hard.

Take this as a learning opportunity, and an opportunity to grow. It's a hard pill to swallow, but you need to take responsibility for yourself.

Remember, professors don't give out grades; students earn them. That means that the students earn their A's or C's or F's.

Best of luck on the final.

Sincerely,

Professor Mango

Jack: i understand. thank you, you were a good professor and it was a pleasure to be in your class.

Jack (again): and thank you for the advice i know im being a pain and i really appreciate the fact that you are taking the time to talk to me

Me: No problem.

Yeah, that could very well be true. I've also learned that everyone has their own personal, real-life issues to deal with, and that school isn't everything to a lot of these students. They don't need a professor going out of his way to put up roadblocks or otherwise be a douche, so I try to be as empathetic and compassionate and understanding as possible.

But man, I cannot stand entitled, tactless whiners.

I used to hate the term 'circlejerk'. It's a term that I still think gets thrown around way too much to marginalize other peoples' thoughts and opinions. Like, if I logged onto www.theworldisround.com/forum/ and posted on the forum that that the world was flat. Then they'd go "Uh no, it's clearly not." and everyone else on the forum would agree with them. Then I'd go "Psh, I'm out. All you faggots can do your circlejerk together alone on this part of the internet that nobody cares about, especially not me even though I posted here and am now posting this just to show how little I care. I don't care, either."

But now, things have transpired and I have seen this in a whole new light.

Because, let's just say I logged onto www.theworldisflat.com/forum/, and showed pictures of the earth from outer space. Okay, maybe that's not the right analogy. Let's say there was a big forum that everyone posted on, and there is this clique of people that I've never noticed before because they post on their little area, but then they posted something in the area that I frequent, and showed a humorous cartoon. This cartoon features two characters. One is a "normal"-looking person, and the other is an "Idiot". You can tell he's an idiot. He's drawn to look idiotic. So both characters are standing on a flat earth and The Idiot is saying "You can stand on the bottom of the world and not fall off because of 'gravity'!" and 'gravity' is in quotes, and the "normal"-looking person is looking at The Idiot like he's, well, an idiot. Haha, what a humorous visual alliteration of how the world is CLEARLY flat. Good one, guys. That settles that debate. You totally roasted Christopher Columbus, Magellan, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and those assholes who went to The Moon, you know, Buzz Lightyear and Lance Armstrong.

Maybe I decided to leave a pithy comment, as I sought to opine. Perhaps my comment was not even talking about the validity of their belief, but just how absurd the cartoon was. Maybe, I said the cartoon appeared to be drawn in such a way so as to portray round-earth believers in a poor light, and that, possibly, there was some bias involved in its creation. And just maybe, I set off a circlejerk by doing so.

I would understand if the circlejerk was a bunch of radioactively-deformed weirdos who collect boogers in jars all agreeing that the world was flat with each other. But nope. The circlejerk had more to do with me. What aspect of me? My intelligence, of course. I verbally assailed their holy cartoon, and that was utter blasphemy that could only be met with the mighty fist of Oden.

Smug Guy: You seem to be quite stupid. Were you educated in public school?

(The truth is actually worse. I was raised by wolfs and have no formal education, and was only rescued and brought back to the human world by age 11, and by then, it was far too late.)+ Show Spoiler +

Me: N...no, s...senpai...

Smug Guy: I find it how hilariously stupid you are. So typical. Do you even brain?

Smug Slut Groupie #1: Haha, good one, Smug Guy! I wish I could suck your dick and then spit your semen into a plastic bag like a million times so I can collect enough to make a smoothie out of your sperm mixed with Jack Daniels and frozen bananas! Mmmmm!

Smug Guy: Thank you for that sentiment, Smug Slut Groupie #1. She is obviously suffering from a horrid cerebral disease that erodes the part of the brain that forms common sense.

Me: Are you serious right now?

Smug Guy: Haha, silly girl, you don't even have the sense to comprehend simple words and phrases? How insanely sad and pathetic and lowly. You are so much less smart than I am.

Smug Slut Groupie #2: Good one, Smug Guy! That's so clever. You sure roasted that bitch good. I guess she misplaced her brain, LOL

Smug Slut Groupie #1: LOL

(Why are they LOLing in all caps? Is this really that hilarious?)

Me: Listen, you're being really immature.

Smug Guy: Immature? Tell me more about that, little girl. Your ignorance is showing.

Smug Slut Groupie #3: Great job, Smug Guy! You're winning another argument with relative ease! High five!

Me: No "argument" has even taken place. Get out of here, this is me talking with Smug Guy. He doesn't need you to talk for him.

Smug Guy: Let me ask you: where were you educated? Your poor plebeian dialect indicates to me that you were taught to read by raccoons with rabies.

Me: It doesn't matter where I went to school. I'm an adult now, and I'm saying that cartoon is clearly agenda-driven.

Smug Guy: "I'm an adult", good one! LOL. Your childish behavior suggests otherwise, m'dear. (what a gentleman, adding "m'dear")

Me: Okay, where did YOU go to school? Where do you get your information? Why do you think gravity isn't a real thing? Have you heard of Isaac Newton?

Smug Slut Groupie #2: OH HOW CUTE. She's talking about Isaac Newton. What's next? You gonna talk about Einstein and the Kerr-Newman metric next? People are so unoriginal these days.

Smug Guy: I know, really. It's sad, to be honest. I'd like to hear a new argument that doesn't make me yawn.

Me: Do you even acknowledge that I'm saying that it seems like the cartoon portrays opposition to your flat-earth belief in a negative light? I mean, just look at his weird, googly eyes and buck teeth and how he's wearing a dunce-cap. I don't even know if most people will even know what a dunce-cap is these days because it's so dated. Do you see what I'm saying?

Smug Guy: HA! MUTED!

(Louis, don't hound me on skype about what this means or the story behind it, or I will punch you in the arm so hard that it will leave a BRUISE)

But this is a true story. It really happened. Except it wasn't about the Earth being flat. Don't even try to guess what the actual topic was, because if you knew, you would immediately lose all hope for humanity and your own survival, and may carve out your reproductive organs so that you can never let children into this world. You would shed a single tear of anguish and say to your potential children, never-to-be, "Sorry kids, I can't let you be born and see this."

/rant

Why the fuck are the world championships of ice hockey still held in these fucking corrupted shit-ass countries and then have referees win the game for their teams. What a bunch of corrupted shit.

Finland gets screwed last year by Russian refs, and get screwed this year by Czech refs. I feel ya man.

Yea, i dont even get why nothing is done. I mean it looks more obvious than the marineking drama ffs.