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[notaprof]

Yes, FERPA will get you though the first phone call but these days, don't be surprised to have the student at your door about 10 minutes later with the signed permission.    I have had students flip open their cell phone as they walk out the door of my office, after discussing a grade, and have my phone ring just a few minutes later and it's Mom or Dad on the phone asking questions. 

This generation is perfectly happy having Mom and Dad overly involved in every detail of their lives.  I had one student call his mom three times during an appointment to work out some paperwork details.  He called her to make sure she had taken care of the forms that were actually his responsibility! 

To understand this trend, it helps to understand the characteristics of the parents generation as well as the students.  A good book on this topic - Howe, Neil, and Strauss, William, Generations:  The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069 (New York:  William Morrow, 1991).  The bad news, according to this, we are at the very beginning of this generation reaching college and can expect this to get worse over the next 12-16 years.  In loco parentis will be making a comeback.  So plan to deal with more loco parents in the future.

[oldie]

hahaaaa

This is not the bloomers or oldies problem. Problem is incompetence and lack of business ethics.

If a company repeatedly bills you even if you have paid and reported it, someone either inflates the customer problems deliberately  or the business is unscrupulous to bill twice for the same thing.

If the HR manager and the boss are willing to entertain the parents objections for the performance review, the company has poor policies and is open for lawsuits. Here the individual and family are trying to take advantage of the corporation that hired that Harvard graduate. Most probably, the parent(s) was a lawyer or a senator.Seeking frequent feedback is smart for the employee because s/he can clarify expectations and adapt earlier than later.

If it happens in high school that a parent calls the teacher, it is OK because the teachers call the parents rather than telling it to students. If it happens when the student is under 18, by law, the professor must deal with the parent. If the student is over eighteen, the parents have every right because they are fielding the education loans.

While the students and parents can be less aggressive, the professors should continue to be proactive and clarify their expectations.You are dealing with human beings and no two cases will ever be identical.

In summary, it has nothing to do with the age; it has everything to do with ethics and changing times.

[avaya]

I've only had to deal with one interfering parent ... my first semester teaching full time.  I didn't know anything about FERPA so I shouldn't have said anything to the parent.  What I did say got the student into heaps of trouble.

What happened was I had a quiz scheduled on a Monday.  The student came into class, sat down, took the quiz.  He looked at the quiz, and then came up and said he was extremely sick all weekend and couldn't study, so he couldn't take the quiz.  I said, Sorry, you have already looked at the quiz.  He insisted and insisted.  Being new and stupid, I gave him an out.  I said, If you can produce a documented medical excuse for why you should not be allowed to take an exam today, I will let you take a make-up later.  (Yes, this was dumb, I know, and I will never do it again.)

So the student leaves and shows up 10 minutes later with a note from student health, saying he had been seen on the previous Friday.  I said, Sorry, this isn't going to work - I said you needed a note that said why you can't take an exam today.  So you get a zero.  He started complaining and said he was going to have his mother contact me, and then he left.

By the time I got back to my office, his mother had already emailed me, telling me how sick her son had been all weekend, etc.  I emailed her back and told her the following:  "I know your son is a good kid and I don't have any reason to believe he wasn't sick.  The problem was, he didn't come into class and tell me that he couldn't take the exam because he had been sick.  He sat down, waited for me to pass out the quiz, took about 5 minutes to look the quiz over, and only then came up to tell me that he couldn't take it.  So you can see why I was concerned.  However, I will be lenient and let him take a make-up quiz."

(I know I shouldn't have revealed any of this due to FERPA, but as I said, I knew nothing about it.)

Well, other students told me that the student got into a whole heap of trouble with his mother.  And the funniest thing was, he took the make-up and got an F.

[oldie]

And the funniest thing was, he took the make-up and got an F.

Avaya: where are your soft skills?

[avaya]

And the funniest thing was, he took the make-up and got an F.

Avaya: where are your soft skills?

Ha ha!  I was just so mad that I let him pull this over on me.  Obviously, if a student takes a quiz from your hands, looks at it, and then tells you he's too sick to take it ... there's a problem.

I actually am a nice person ... the comment I get the most on my evals is how nice I am, how friendly, etc.  I'm a little embarrassed by it b/c I'd rather the most common comment was "my intellectual growth took off in this class," but ah well....

[oldie]

lolz