Just Stay Home!

[AdminAssistant]

Now that the semester is (basically) over - my biggest student annoyance: not paying attention!!!

The biggest segment of this that drives me insane - students who check Facebook (or otherwise search on the internet) during class. The lecture is in a big auditorium. One person browsing their friend's totally, like, awesome pictures from last weekend's kegger is distracting everyone sitting behind them with a decent view of their monitor. And, honestly, if you're not going to pay attention, if you're going to sleep or text or talk or distract others, then just freakin' stay home!

And speaking of staying home...attendance. You will not believe the students I have that never come to class. I just do not understand. Going to school is a job. Would you never show up to your job? Would you expect your boss to believe that you can't come to work because Great-Aunt Nan has a head cold? You would not believe the lame excuses my students try to lay on me. Gaahhh!!!

Anyway, just a little ranty-rant to release at the end of a long year.

[telecom_goddess]

The kids that don't show up to class now will be late or not showing up for work later trust me. And they will be full of lame excuses (my car wouldn't start, I missed my alarm, the dog kept me up)....etc.

I take the bus and a train to work every day and barring something major happening with the train I'm NEVER late to work and I show up every stinking day. I have so much personal time off built up I have to take some time before it rolls over and I lose it

[Greenday]

What classes are you teaching? Cause some classes are very skippable. I skipped 1/3 of my stats classes and I still got an A. He even said if we only showed up for quizzes and tests and could still get an A, he didn't care if we went to class or not.

[Boozy]

The kids that don't show up to class now will be late or not showing up for work later trust me.

I don't know. There were many classes that I rarely attended, and I never miss work unless I'm on my death bed.

The consequences for missing work are greater than the consequences were for missing class. It's a rational choice.

[Evandril]

If I miss a class, I have to solely deal with it...I miss work, my coworkers will be paying for it. Also, at work, I'm getting *paid* to do things for someone else...in class, I am *paying* to have them try and teach me.

Of course, if I don't make a class, I'm not going to bother lying about it, either *shrugs*

[guywithashovel]

I was still taking undergraduate classes just a few years ago (like back in 2006), and scarcely any of the students brought laptops to class with them. Heck, I just finished grad school last August, and most students never brought them to class there, either. Either my two schools were really behind in the times, or you teach at a very progressive campus.

As for the frequent absenteeism, do you have the authority to adjust people's grades accordingly for missing class? I know you're just a TA (what you've said in other posts), so maybe you don't have quite that much power. Then again, it's probably a little late in the semester to be implementing much of a change in classroom policy.

Just out of curiosity, are the students in your classes mostly underclassmen, particularly first-year students? It seems that the younger college students tend to be sort of bad about skipping class and not taking the classes seriously. I'll even admit that I skipped class a few times during my freshman year of college---once it dawned on me that no one would be out searching for me if I wasn't in classs.

[Boozy]

If I miss a class, I have to solely deal with it...I miss work, my coworkers will be paying for it. Also, at work, I'm getting *paid* to do things for someone else...in class, I am *paying* to have them try and teach me.

That's it in a nutshell. If I don't take my schooling seriously, I'm the only one who pays for it. But if I don't take my job seriously, all sorts of people pay for it; my co-workers, my boss, my customers.

I went to the classes I enjoyed and/or couldn't pass without attending. I skipped the ones where I needed the credit and could get it without putting in the effort. I can't imagine that my professors or TA's were personally offended when I skipped.

[AdminAssistant]

It hurts me when my students don't show up or do poorly. I feel like I've failed them as a teacher. Maybe some other professors don't care as much, but I do, especially as a young teacher who needs to build experience as well as evaluations.

This class is an introductory class. The 'lecture' portion (the whole group) meets twice a week, then discussion sections meet once a week. We don't take attendance in lecture because of the sheer numbers (350 ish), although the course is being overhauled next year. Another professor is taking over, and I think the course will be vastly improved. This is an introductory theatre appreciation course that meets a basic gen-ed requirement. It's the class people sign up for because they think it's "easy" but it's not.

I would estimate that about 25% of the students bring laptops to take notes in lecture. I don't allow them in discussion sections, because I can't watch them as well and because you don't need a computer to have a discussion.

I would not say that my class, or any class, is "skippable". But then, I'm a professional academic and take education very seriously. Even as an undergraduate, the only time I missed a class was to go to my Grandmother's funeral.

[Boozy]

It hurts me when my students don't show up or do poorly. I feel like I've failed them as a teacher. Maybe some other professors don't care as much, but I do, especially as a young teacher who needs to build experience as well as evaluations.

I think you'll eventually learn to stop taking everything to heart and focus more on the students that do appreciate you.

We all have jobs that involve working very hard and not always having everyone appreciate it. Most of my customers don't care about the amount of work I put into that display, or the fact that my feet and head are aching and I'm exhausted, but I'm still able to smile at them and wish them a good day. But some customers do notice, and do appreciate it, and I choose to focus on that.

Not every student will care about the subject matter you are teaching, or are in the right place in their lives to be able to focus on school. It has nothing to do with you or the quality of your teaching. If I were you, I would focus my attention on the students who are eager and are reaching out for your help. You can't teach people who don't want to learn, no matter how talented you are or how hard you work.

[Evandril]

I would not say that my class, or any class, is "skippable". But then, I'm a professional academic and take education very seriously. Even as an undergraduate, the only time I missed a class was to go to my Grandmother's funeral.

If I can read the textbook, and get more information than I can going to the class, and there is no homework requirement...IMO, it's skippable. If my grades on the tests start to drop, then it gets important to make it to class, find out what I'm missing...but until that point, I tend to prefer texts, depending on who is teaching the class.

[blas87]

It makes me upset to hear that so many people skip class so often. But you know who does it the most? The kids who are getting a free ride throughout college. The ones who are in college on mommy and daddy's dime, or got scholarships from high school.

I wasn't good enough to get grants or scholarships, my parents make "too much money" for me to qualify for financial aid (do NOT get me started on that, I am independent and not every parent is willing to help their kid throughout college. My parents' rule was if you don't get all A's, you're going to college on your own dime), all these rich little brats going to school for free and girls who keep popping out kids get free college....

If I were in college, I wouldn't miss class unless I actually could NOT physically get there. Period.

[AdminAssistant]

I wouldn't say scholarships were an automatic free ride - I worked my rear off to keep mine. But I do get what you're saying, and at the largest university in the area, and the best known university in the area...we get a lot of kids who pay a lot (or have Mumsy and Dadsy pay a lot) just to say they went to the place with the awesome basketball team. I like my university, I love the town, but I would not ever send my kids here. It's just too big.

[Evandril]

I think Blas was speaking more of the kids getting a 'free ride' from their parents, so grades and the like don't matter much.

[Greenday]

I would not say that my class, or any class, is "skippable".

When the class is nothing but powerpoint, the slides are readily available online, and the teacher never adds to the notes, nor is attendence mandatory, the class is skippable every now and then. Especially when it's a huge class.

But if all notes are written on the board, not available online, and the class is small enough that the teacher can take attendence, you'd have to be a moron to skip it multiple times.

[BuggedMei]

I admit, I'm guilty of surfing the web in class on my laptop. ( I've been banned from handing in hand-written papers in some classes because my handwriting is THAT bad, so I just take noes on the damn thing now... )anyway...

I come to class to hear my lecture and because I have other classes that day. If your going to lecture me on your relationship woes, problems about society, the "plight of the black man".. I'll get the notes offline. I come to class to learn. I'll work on some other project while I'm sitting there ignoring you go on and on about things I would rather not hear.

This semester I had the worst professor. Mandatory attendance for a grade, and all he talked about was how horrible it was to be black. For 15 weeks. Now, it was a history course and I can understand this kind of thing in two, maybe three spots, but for 15 weeks straight. Never once did he mention any kind of actual history, really. I had to read the textbook to even figure out what the tests would MAYBE be on. Wars? Womens Rights? Revolutions? Nah, history doesn't need those. Being black! Thats what history is ALLLLLLLLLLLL about. I ignored this professor and left the class with an A. Sometimes.. just making sure you don't go insane is the only way to pass a class.