Thread: Just for the Teachers/Professors

Probably will, some people are as closed up as a bag of hammers.

Bob

That's too funny! Im in grad school now and you should see some of the excuses I hear!

There is a generation out there now that has never had to take responsibility for their own actions. Not all, but enough to make you wonder.

Bob

Originally Posted by BobH

There is a generation out there now that has never had to take responsibility for their own actions. Not all, but enough to make you wonder.

Bob

Cant agree with you more....

Allow me to suggest: Susan Jacoby "The Age of American Unreason."

It's a slightly hefty read, meaning well researched and documented. I have to admit I have to slow down and digest her work. Well worth reading and congruent with this very subject.

I have a student tell me he had to go to a wedding so he had to miss a midterm. That is not excused absence I told him (the syllabus states clearly what is considered an excused absence , he replied he was the bets man. Since there was no way to dig for the truth 2 days before the exam, I let him take the make up the following week. At the day of the make up (7 am start time), he emails me saying that he misread the time and thought it would be in the evening. .. I almost told him he can't make up at yet another time, but I figured I'll give him a chance. I made sure he understood very well what his responsibilities as a student were, and what that the consequences were his to suffer, it looked like he learned his lesson. Last week he emailed me that he could not finish a homework for some lame excuse, the home work was up for 10 days before the due date.. this time no luck.

Now that the end of the semester is near, I am starting to hear all kinds of pleas and excuses for making a grade.
Some that stood out so far:
"I have A's in all my classes, only this one is not working well for me, I have a tutor but still have problems, I need 3.6 GPA to get in my major of choice"

"It has come to my attention that I did not do well on some of my home works, can I redo some of them I need a B? I work 2 jobs to pay for college, I start the homework but then I completely forgot to finish" - that student skipped 4-5 home works completely.
I wonder what I'll hear when the final grades are poste

My experience as a teacher suggests that the passive nature of Pedagogical, how children are to be taught, approaches does not teach the student how to teach themselves. As in how do I solve problems when I cannot ask the teacher what the answer is?

One of my best teachers used to tell me. "Do you know how to open a book (use the library)? Go do that. If you can't find the answer in three books, come back and I'll give you one hint about another book." Never in the plan of learning was I ever released from the responsibility of finding the answers for myself. I never forgot those lessons.

When I found myself wanting to be a better teacher (community college and beyond) I studied Andragogy, how adults learn. What a world of difference there is in self-directed learning. I learned to feed myself. The material was mine to eat and it didn't matter if I had a good teacher or bad, it was up to me to learn not them to teach. The rearrangement of personal responsibility benefitted both parties.

I put one of my children into a project based learning high school as soon as the chance developed. She will tell you it was like being released from bondage. Realistically it's the same process we all go through to do our daily jobs. If we would teach kids that, then they would be prepared for the world of work. Which explains why the economy is in the tank and so many unwilling peeps seem to enjoy unemployment and anti-intellectual pursuits.

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

One of my best teachers used to tell me. "Do you know how to open a book (use the library)? Go do that. If you can't find the answer in three books, come back and I'll give you one hint about another book." Never in the plan of learning was I ever released from the responsibility of finding the answers for myself. I never forgot those lessons.

One of the things that one of my teachers told me. [I can't remember who it was.] "Next week you will only remember 75% of what I say. In 6 months you might remember 25%. There is one thing that you should remember and that is where to find it."

I teach high school seniors-this sounds sadly familiar, alas. There's an entitlement mentality out there that makes some young people really think that they are literally supposed to get something for nothing. Way too many teachers play along trying to be "cool" instead of doing their jobs.