One student thought he could just miss the first week of summer without problem.
Another student's MOTHER e-mailed to ask if her little darling (a full-time student at a very conservative Christian college with a so-so academic reputation) could "join" my class in the second week.
Maybe this works for other courses, in non-summer sessions or whatever -- but, in logic they're already taking their first exam next week. There are only 3 exams -- and those points are most of the grade.
I'm NOT meeting with these students before class on Monday to teach them from the ground up.
I'm also not about to let a student into my class that I know has missed too much to be successful, no matter how brilliant his mommy thinks he is.
6 comments:
A parent emailing the professor. Good grief. This generation cannot think for themselves.
and -- what's really bad about it is that the student isn't even MY student yet. So, the first impression I get of the kid is his mommy e-mailing me about the class.
Then, she tells me that he's about to graduate from a very conservative Christian college here... or, at leas that he's been in college for 5 years and STILL doesn't know that he should take five minutes to contact me himself. Grrr.
I get parental phone calls and emails every single semester. Thank God for FERPA, because I'd get canned if I could actually tell parents what I thought of their snowflakes.
Ahhhhh! Parent emails! I actually had a student bring in a note from his mom when he had missed an exam (for the second time). Ridiculous!
It occurred to me that many of my students have habits established by high school and don't understand the transition between high school and college. Since we're a commuter school, they often think of us as the 13th grade and behave accordingly. I think one of the best things I can do for my students is to let them know the differences and to hold them to college standards.
True, true - the first year in college does seem to require some clarification for many students about their adult status. Sometimes it seems that the only way to make this point really is to let students fail. For example, I have students who are going to miss one out of four weeks of my summer course. If they can get the work done and pass the tests, that's their business. Of course their participation grade will suffer.
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