More highs and lows of teaching...well, all lows this time...

I am still fighting the urge to throw certain students out the window. Just some highlights from class this morning:

1) Two students (maybe roommates, definitely good friends) enter class 25 minutes late on the day we have set aside for a peer-review workshop. "Ladies, you are 25 minutes late. What's going on?" I ask.

"My printer wouldn't work," one explains.

"What about all the other printers on campus?"

"Well, I got mine to work eventually."

So that makes it okay to be 25 minutes late and disrupt the students who are already hard at work? And it's better to spend 25 minutes getting a printer to work than pay the $1.00 or so to print in a lab and show up on time?

No.

Oh--and why does Student 1's broken printer make it okay for Student 2 to be late? Sorry, but back when I was in college, I'd have told my roommate, "Ummm...you keep playing with that printer if you want, but I am going to get to class on time."

2) Student who hasn't handed in anything this semester except a D- paper is well on his way to doing even worse on this second paper. He emails me before class "begging" for an extension, since he didn't have time to get a draft done for today because (of course) there was a family crisis. I email him back and explain that he needs to bring whatever he has with him to class and he should be okay. After all, what's due today isn't a final copy, just a draft for workshopping.

He shows up 20 minutes late. With nothing. Nothing.

I ask him, "Where's your paper?"

"Didn't you get my email?" he asks, as if the fact that he emailed me is enough to excuse him.

"Yes, I did. I told you to bring what you have. Do you have anything?"

"Just the article and some notes," he answers. (So nothing that can be workshopped.)

"Why are you even here?" I ask.

"Well, I figured I should at least show up." Normally, I'd respect that, but on a day where we are workshopping drafts and you have nothing? And you are already 20 minutes late? Come on.

3) Later, I am answering a question from one student and another one, sitting right next to him, let's out one of these loud, obnoxious sneezes. (Come on, you know he doesn't have to be that loud.) And then--here's the important part--he holds out his hand to examine what he's just sneezed into it. Like it's some work of art or data to be analyzed. Doesn't even try to hide it. I wonder how his peers felt as he worked on their essays with that same set of hands.

4) After class, the student from #2 above is on his way out of the room. I decide to make a valiant effort to convince him that he needs to pull it together for this assignment. "Can you at least tell me what article you are analyzing so I can give you some pointers?" (This was something he was supposed to get approved weeks ago.) "Ummm...well, I'll probably do something about 'The Lottery.'"

Did you catch that, folks? After saying earlier that all he had was the article and some notes, he is now admitting that he doesn't even have that.

"So before," I asked him, "When you said you had an article and notes...you were lying to me?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Why? You do realize that's a violation of the Conduct Code, right? Lying to an instructor?"

"Well," he says--and I am not making this up--"it was a strategic move to avoid your wrath."

I wanted to say to him, "Kid, you don't even know what wrath is yet," but instead I just told him to shape up. If he wants to fail, I'll gladly fail him. That's what these kids don't get: I can't afford to take any of this too personally--I don't have the time or energy to fight you if you are failing because of your laziness.

I won't end on a bad note, though, because my afternoon class was awesome. They are like night and day.