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[conjugate]

I was struck by the first two entries in this series of blog posts.

The first entry is a list of five things from a student, who includes:

I'm sorry to any future Ph.D. candidates who are reading this right now, but if you look like a celebrity, political figure, or tabloid personality, don't even bother getting that degree. We will not listen to you. Ever. The entire time we will merely be distracted by the fact that we're being taught by a look-a-like. Rather than focusing on the reading, entire class periods will be devoted to trying to get a picture of you on our cellphones. You'll have better luck getting us to pay attention if you grow a unibrow and teach in a clown costume.

(The setup is an assignment that apparently got lots of enthusiastic response from students, in answer to the question of what five things they wish their professors knew.)  Some are very funny and some are things that I already know but can't do a lot about.

The second blog post in the series is a different list, of course, from a different student.  We've already discussed some of these things in threads about things we do that distract students or that students notice when we wish they were taking notes or working problems.

You stroke your chin whenever someone coughs. You're loud enough to wake the dead. You need to know that we make games out of these things. We count how many times you say "sort of" in 50 minutes (it was almost 200, by the way). We instigate a chorus of coughs to see if we can get you to rub that stubble off your chin. If we made a drinking game out of every time you wiped your glasses on your blazer, we'd all be three sheets to the wind by the time you fired up that pointless PowerPoint.

I'm tempted to see if I can get Blackboard to allow students to post anonymous comments so that I could allow mine to say whatever they wanted to say without fear of untoward consequences.  It might be enlightening.

[marigolds]

I'm tempted to see if I can get Blackboard to allow students to post anonymous comments so that I could allow mine to say whatever they wanted to say without fear of untoward consequences.  It might be enlightening.

You can with the new BB8.  It's one of the options on the Discussion Board after you've enabled a new forum.  (Right near "allow subscriptions to threads."

You're a brave soul, Conjugate.

[systeme_d_]

Wow.  I was surprised by the pure hatefulness in some of those blogs (particularly the second).

The self-centeredness was less surprising. 

[systeme_d_]

Oops, I meant the third.  I read them out of order.  But the second is pretty hateful too.

[hipgeek]

I often enjoy Barreca's column but this did seem pretty stupid to me.  Yes, group work can be a drag and students sometimes get an overly heavy workload--but suck it up, right? 

I also don't think students getting the chance to address faculty is even very novel.  These largely snarky, self-absorbed comments from students are things that don't really surprise me at all.

[mad_doctor]

They're a bunch of whining crybabies who never grew up, and clearly aren't ready for the adult world.  I read the comments on the 60 Minutes "The Millenials are Coming" story, and just LMFAO until my sides hurt at how much they were whining and crying about the article.  Every comment they made just proved the article's theme about how narcissistic, over-entitled, and over-privileged they are as a generation - and the comments just kept coming and coming, and they're just oblivious that every comment they make only proves the point the article was making about Millenials.

[onion]

My reactions to those "5 Things" blogs:

1.  Wow.  I want to slap you little brats.
2. Wow.  Are these my students?
3.  What exactly does Prof. Barreca find excellent about these screeds, other than that, by and large, they are punctuated correctly?

[conjugate]

I was struck by the fact that they were reasonably well-written, and according to Ms. Barreca, turned in on time (even ahead of time).  I suppose that finding a writing prompt that would inspire a response might be worth the unpleasantness of the responses. 

I would add this:

5. Teach me without condemning me.

Please. Teaching is what you do best, even if I'm not making it sound that way.

Tough to do, I suppose.  Maybe wanting to know what they honestly think isn't the best idea.  I'm also struck by the way they trust Ms. Barreca to take what they say and grade fairly on structure rather than on offensive content.

[onion]

I just read #3 by Mr. Stobierski: http://chronicle.com/blogPost/5-Things-Professors-Dont/8933/

You look like the kind of woman who's reached the point in her life where she doesn't care about what other people think about how she looks. You know what? Good for you. But just in case you were wondering, here's what we've all been thinking. Bleaching your peach fuzz does not mean that you can go a month between shaves.

This just strikes me as incredibly sexist, and in the comments, people are justifying it as "humor."  It's not.  It's sexism, plain and simple.

There's a gaggle of male students in one of my classes that I've overheard making fun of my weight, and they told my TA that they thought I was "hard on the eyes."  Sorry, jerks.  I'm the one teaching your class, not a Maxim model, so grow up or, better yet, drop the class.

[conjugate]

Ah, I just saw the third one myself. 

5) You should not be having more sex than I am. If you are, I'm begging you -- please keep the details to yourself. Your funny stories about how our exams not being graded somehow relates to the fact that your wife wanted to "get frisky" over the weekend? Yeah, please stop that.

I have to agree with this.  Oversharing, indeed.

[glowdart]

You stroke your chin whenever someone coughs. You're loud enough to wake the dead. You need to know that we make games out of these things. We count how many times you say "sort of" in 50 minutes (it was almost 200, by the way). We instigate a chorus of coughs to see if we can get you to rub that stubble off your chin. If we made a drinking game out of every time you wiped your glasses on your blazer, we'd all be three sheets to the wind by the time you fired up that pointless PowerPoint.

I'm tempted to see if I can get Blackboard to allow students to post anonymous comments so that I could allow mine to say whatever they wanted to say without fear of untoward consequences.  It might be enlightening.

Mine already tell me about my ticks (and which ones they love to keep track of.)  Every now and then, I can tell that I've said something the magic number of times because there's a giggle and a punch and a dejected sigh from a couple of them.  I usually say, "Who won today?" and then go back to whatever I was doing. 

They are listening -- that alone is sometimes an achievement. 

[t_r_b]

I just read #3 by Mr. Stobierski: http://chronicle.com/blogPost/5-Things-Professors-Dont/8933/

You look like the kind of woman who's reached the point in her life where she doesn't care about what other people think about how she looks. You know what? Good for you. But just in case you were wondering, here's what we've all been thinking. Bleaching your peach fuzz does not mean that you can go a month between shaves.

This just strikes me as incredibly sexist, and in the comments, people are justifying it as "humor."  It's not.  It's sexism, plain and simple.

There's a gaggle of male students in one of my classes that I've overheard making fun of my weight, and they told my TA that they thought I was "hard on the eyes."  Sorry, jerks.  I'm the one teaching your class, not a Maxim model, so grow up or, better yet, drop the class.

Forget sexism: it's straight-up misogyny.

It's all about power. These boys are uncomfortable in the presence of a woman in a position of authority who does not coddle them like their mommies did. They are also immersed in a culture that teaches both boys and girls that females are morally responsible for sculpting their bodies in particular ways. The beauty standards of Maxim, etc., offer a handy way to denigrate the non-coddling female authority figure and thereby give them a sense of power.

I pity these boys. They've gotten plenty of coddling, but they have never learned what it means to be a self-respecting human being. If they had, they would not be so threatened by the lack of coddling, and they would know that the price of the respect and tolerance they want is respect and tolerance for others.

As for the comments on the students' lists, I too am struck by the narcissism and sense of entitlement. They see the classroom as an entertainment hall, and the instructor as a performer whose sole purpose is to please them. If the performer fails to please, then bring on the rotten tomatoes. Not an inkling, anywhere, of any sense of personal responsibility for their own learning. But I'm not sure I can fault them for that. Our culture's approach to childrearing has come to champion self-esteem at the price of self-respect. These kids have been raised to believe that the world is there to serve them: why should they think that they are responsible for their own intellectual growth?

Perhaps that attitude was part of the assignment. Sure, the prompt was to write "5 things professors don't know," but perhaps in the culture of the class (quite possibly fostered by Barreca) it became in practice "5 really snarky digs at professors who fail to entertain you to your satisfaction." So they all came up with snarky digs, rather than actually trying to communicate anything interesting or useful.

[henry_adams]

This just teaches students that it is commendable to be a brat.

[leontrout]

No, no, no--this assignment teaches them that it's okay to be brats if they spell and punctuate correctly and if they emulate the cutely tight-a$$ed locutions and phrasings of university "wits."

None of these things is actually funny; they are all smug and upper-middle-class witty and, despite their "transgressiveness," oh so genteel. The writers are preppy and snarky. They are sneppy.

And I predict that at least one of them gets an MFA in Creative Writing and is sitting across from me at an MLA interview in fewer than ten years.

[mad_doctor]

No, no, no--this assignment teaches them that it's okay to be brats if they spell and punctuate correctly and if they emulate the cutely tight-a$$ed locutions and phrasings of university "wits."

None of these things is actually funny; they are all smug and upper-middle-class witty and, despite their "transgressiveness," oh so genteel. The writers are preppy and snarky. They are sneppy.

And I predict that at least one of them gets an MFA in Creative Writing and is sitting across from me at an MLA interview in fewer than ten years.

It's a good thing they signed their names so you can remind them that you are familiar with their work right before you tell them it will be a cold day in hell before they ever get a job in your department.