It Doesn’t Appear To Be Satire ...

I read this essay … and sent it on to two of my friends, both mathematicians. Between the three of us, we have 125 years of teaching experience. In our careers we have had perhaps a total of twenty students who fit the description of Terry Caesar’s students … and they lasted one day … in some “unusual cases,” two days.

There is a short section in each of my syllabi that reads …

“Preparedness, Participation, and Professionalism

To understand the three Ps, begin by re-reading the section about class attendance. Then re-read the section about the Honor Code. Then re-read the section about homework. Then understand that when you come to class you will be expected to (1) have completed the reading assignment to date, (2) have attempted to work all of the homework problems and other assignments to date, (3) be prepared to respond to direct questions asked by the instructor, (4) be respectful of your instructor and fellow students, and (5) never ever consider violating the Honor Code of ***** University.

Please understand that if your cell phone ever rings in class you will get an F in BA 320 (it’s a zero-tolerance offence).”

One of my sons intends to complete a Ph.D. and, after working outside academe for a few years, pursue a career in higher education. Both of my above-mentioned friends have been trying to dissuade him of that decision, essentially because the Terry Caesars of our world seem to be relatively comfortable with cultures for learning consistent with the ones in his essay.

I know for a fact there are fifth-tier (and perhaps some fourth- tier) universities with cultures for learning that embrace large numbers of Caesar’s students, but surely they’re few and far between above that level. So I checked out his academic experience, just to see where he got his quite wonderful and very disturbing examples …

http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/1_1/authors2005.html

http://jac.gsu.edu/jac/22.3/reviews/2.htm

Well, I’m fairly confident my son won’t be teaching at those schools.

RWH, at 5:50 am EDT on June 12, 2006

The last time I asked a disruptive student to leave class (after four warnings, in four previous classes), she (and several friends) went to the chair to complain. What was said student doing? Talking (loudly) to her “neighbor” and noisily rearranging the contents of her purse while I was trying to teach. Who ended up looking bad? I did.

In my experience, judicial and disciplinary boards are much more willing than chairs and deans to take matters of class disruption seriously. They can be good people to contact and have on your side.

Some professor, at 11:10 am EDT on June 12, 2006

disruptions abound

I think the greatest contributor to disruption is that disruption has become an entitlement, and in today’s world, entitlement RULES. As I type this from a computer in a western Pennsylvania university library, a student is chatting away happily on her cell phone about nothing in particular (it’s not academic, not emergency, but a casual, noisy, and lengthy cell phone exchange about what kind of food she likes. She doesn’t like reheated pizza, by the way). Those who are not dismayed by this must question what the purpose of libraries, and disruptions, are. Should I move to another computer terminal, perhaps one of the two or three upstairs that may not be free? Should the student step outside to finish her call? Of course, the student is entitled to her conversation where she chooses, and I would dare not ask her to leave. And since I’m on my “summer break” away from my Florida teaching duties, I can’t complain that the disruption is something that I can possibly control. I’m outside the classroom, away from my university, and she is obviously not my student, but she’s still a disruption. Today, the entitled own their own disruptions.

I refuse to see movies in a theater because the audience is happy to talk to the fictional characters or else to friends on their, yes, cell phones. But again, this represents only one type of distraction. The article seeks to investigate how we define distraction, and once defined, what might be done (or what is done). I go nuts over cell phones, while some of my colleagues, like Caesar, really do not. Yet there are things that make my colleagues scream that just don’t bother me. So there we are: how to define the disruption and how to handle it once it’s raised.

As much as we put into our syllabus “’Please understand that if your cell phone ever rings in class you will get an F in BA 320 (it’s a zero-tolerance offence),’” I would LOVE to see this hold up to a challenge. I’ve tried, and failed, to have students removed for greater offenses. The bottom line is that the student is the customer, and the customer is always right. To argue this is to be in denial of what really goes on in teaching. The administrator of choice, possibly talking with the parents of today’s entitled student, could not hold up to the scrutiny of having a student expelled because his cell phone rang. How many times, really, does the occasional phone ring where we frown disapprovingly, and move on, hoping it doesn’t happen again?

Moreover, I think central to the notion of disruption is how we can avoid becoming part of an even larger disruption. If a student stalks out of the room, what if we were to chase her into the hallway? If we challenge a student in class for insubordination or other forms of rudeness, we risk the other students siding with “one of their own,” as we are generally the stodgy, out-of-touch generation against which students are destined to rebel. So we minimize the damage and try to make the students go away. Again, the entitled own their disruptions, and we just live in the disrupted world he/she has created.

Maybe one can avoid disruptive students after reaching 125 years of teaching experience or else teaching at a university that presumably holds admissions standards that avoid the “open admissions” crowd that most of us get. And RWH, by telling us that your son won’t be teaching at either Clarion U. or UTA, you have reinforced the notion that you are isolated, and will isolate him, from teaching the real students of today’s open admissions universities. Keep your son in the Ivory Tower University of choice, but if he teaches at a community college, state or public university, he will encounter disruptive students with, likely, more administrative support and legal claims than he, himself has.

Oh, by the way, the disruptive student in the library here, upon finishing her conversation, walked out of the library without logging into the computer terminal at which she sat. Apparently, today’s terminal is yesterday’s phone booth for her. To me, this defines disruption of a level that makes me want to explode or change my spots to a spot outside and away from the library.

Jeff, at 12:10 pm EDT on June 12, 2006

A notion about payment

I’ve had my share of unusual disruptions, especially in large lecture classes (sleeping, painting nails, leaving, etc), and like many, I’ve learned to take them in stride. It’s easy to attribute disruptions to immaturity on the part of the students, and once in a while, a lecture that was less exciting than I thought.

I wonder if I’ve given up on my duty, though, in letting these things slide in my big classes. Are we paid to provide an education to those who feel like showing up, or are we paid to see to it (no matter how difficult the task) that graduates actually receive an education, even if it’s against their short term preferences?

Oh, and I hardly think it’s appropriate to bash Terry personally. How brave and vicious we can be to each other in anonymous print.

QuakerProf, at 5:35 pm EDT on June 12, 2006

Feeling out of Touch

It appears that I‘ve got quite a few critics … so please let me explain.

First, for Twenty Years In Teaching … the same syllabus I quoted in my earlier post concludes with the statement, “Well, dear friends and intellectual colleagues, let’s have a very, very productive semester together ... and let’s have more than a few laughs along the way. I hope you take MIS 527 way more seriously than you take me.”

No, I don’t take myself all that seriously, but I do take the process of education very seriously. In my thirty-five years in the classroom, I have never had a “pick-up-the-paycheck-at-the-end-of-the-month job.” I have always been on a crusade to enhance — and sometimes transform — the intellects and knowledge of my “students.” In that sense I suppose I might take myself too seriously. I won’t apologize for it.

For Some Professor, I agree … the kind of culture for learning that “selects” and fosters mediocre heads, chairs, deans, and even vice presidents for academic affairs often makes creation of an exceptional classroom environment very difficult. Furthermore, it is quite impossible for an individual professor to change or otherwise substantially affect a university’s culture for learning. It definitely requires collective action, and as far as I can tell, not too many young academics either understand the issue or, when they do, have the heart for it. I mean, “What’s in it for me?”

For Nick, Out Of Touch, it is just impossible for me to present evidence of the fact that you missed the mark about me by a long shot. You’ll just have to take my word for the fact that intellectually I’m very broad-minded, academically I’m all business, pedagogically I’m much more in touch with what’s going on in my students’ lives that almost all of their other professors (my God, I had to tell 100% of them about Strong Bad and I watch more than my fair share of MTV and ESPN), and my classes and e-mail communication are laced with good humor.

Pedagogically, I am decidedly low-tech (I firmly believe Ed Tufte’s thesis that PowerPoint is evil, and I love that insult that “his knowledge of the subject is PowerPoint deep”). But in my own research and writing and in my expectations for student learning I am remarkably high-tech (after all I teach mathematics, statistics, social methodology, and management “science”).

For Kevin … I’m of two minds on the subject of walking out of class. In general — and I won’t address the potential for rudeness — it is distracting to me and to at least some of the students. In my syllabi I provide fairly decent outlines of what will happen in each class, so only the lazy could possibly be surprised by what takes place in any given class meeting. If it’s not your cup of tea, don’t show up in the first place.

In the past, I have taught at three universities that are, without doubt, in the top twenty in the U.S. Then, I could not care less if a student came to class … ever … although generally I like to think my classes are worthwhile intellectual — and often practical — experiences and students miss interesting discussions when they skip a class.

I have also taught at two universities that I would classify as tier-three and one tuition-driven, private university that is decidedly tier five. There, a great many of my students could hardly be called mature individuals, let alone mature students. I soon learned it was advantageous to require class attendance. On that subject my syllabi state …

“Class attendance is a privilege, and you should take it very seriously. You will be expected to attend every meeting of the class. Your instructor will note your presence or absence and will keep a record of it. If, for some reason, you must miss a class meeting, (1) clear your absence with your instructor before your absence, (2) make sure you know what material will be covered during your absence, and (3) make sure you know what problems or projects must be completed and ready for discussion at the next meeting of the class. If assignments are due on the date of your absence, they must be turned in before that date. It is your responsibility – and your responsibility alone – to learn and understand the material covered during your absence.”

Frankly, I hate that policy and I can’t possible imagine having such a requirement for “real” students.

It is noteworthy, I think, that one of the greatest contributors to rudeness in the classroom is “use” of the laptop. At the tuition-driven university mentioned above, all students are required to purchase a laptop from the university. Laptops have become such a distraction many professors refuse to let students use them in class. After all, who wants to roam the classroom monitoring laptops and admonishing students that this is not the time or place for instant messaging, playing games, and checking into Match.com. Frankly, I let it ride as long as my students are not looking across the room and smiling or otherwise gesturing at their IM buddies or mumbling “Shit!” when their World of Warcraft character gets ganked. Take my word for it, it’s not like Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde.”

Finally, to Jeff — and I suppose to all in some respect — I admit to being something of an academic snob. But — and this is probably my central point — it matters not whether you are teaching at Yale (where the culture for learning is pretty darned good) or Post-modern U (where the culture for learning leaves much to be desired), one can, with much attention to what one is doing, “manage one’s class in a way that makes it a fairly exciting workplace for a community of scholars. It will be a more of a challenge at many low-tier schools, but it can — and should — be done.

By the way, it’s not a freebee even at the upper tier schools. I once had two students get up and walk out of an introductory statistics course (loaded with pre-meds) at Princeton because I prefaced a paper and pencil exercise illustrating data transformations as being a bit “Mickey Mouse.”

I think I have learned, however, that when one’s academic and intellectual objectives are almost inconsistent with the culture for learning in which one finds oneself, it is very helpful to “go overboard with fairly restrictive on-paper requirements — and be serious about them — in order to have a classroom environment that is “optimal” and enjoyable for the work of a community of scholars. It is noteworthy that in the last five years of teaching I have had one cell phone ring in class (how many have vibrated I can’t say), and a murmur of dread spread through the room. After class I had a conference with the student, and between meetings of the class I received at least a half dozen e-mail messages from other members of the class expressing reasons why the individual should not be kicked out of class. I relented (with a “symbolic” penalty for the infraction) amidst promises all around that it would never happen again … and it hasn’t.

My son, of course, will make his own choice about if or where he will teach, but I hope his choice will be somewhere where the culture for learning is consistent with his academic and intellectual perspective, not one at which he will be constantly battling it. Teaching and creating a community of scholars in the classroom is difficult enough at it is; doing it in an environment in which one must constantly battle the behavior of those who don’t want to be there to begin with is just a royal pain in the ass (i.e., neither academically optimal nor very much fun).

Jeff, about your statement, “The bottom line is that the student is the customer, and the customer is always right. To argue this is to be in denial of what really goes on in teaching” I will reply by citing a statement from my Philosophy of Teaching, to wit …

“In the new [post-World War II] collegiate model that evolved to accommodate these students, good teachers were seen to be individuals whose courses were relevant vis-a-vis future employment and were not necessarily individuals whose lives served as models for their students. Relevance, in the sense of preparing students for a lifetime of work, became a euphemism for teaching excellence.

During the past ten to fifteen years, this model has been reinforced by those principles of total quality management that were extolled by the likes of W. Edwards Deming and his disciples, and in which students are seen to be customers, faculty are the providers of products and services (academic entrepreneurs if you like), and administrators are managers of an academic/quasi-business enterprise.

The success of the enterprise is confirmed by one or more versions of an academic ISO-9000 in which students as “end-use customers” and various accrediting agencies evaluate the product or service on a course-by-course or discipline-by-discipline basis and U. S. News and World Report – the Consumer Reports of academe – lets us know once each year just how well we are doing collectively.”

Perhaps all of you critics are right and I truly am speaking for a time long past … perhaps it is time for me to pack it in. I will admit it is quite impossible for me to even imagine my intellectual colleagues as customers … even though a good bit of my professional career has been spent teaching in business schools. You have my solemn promise that when I walk into class, look out and see a roomful of customers seated in front of me, it will be I who will look around, raise my eyelids, noisily gather up my stuff, mutter some barely audible expletives, and depart early.

RWH, at 10:50 pm EDT on June 12, 2006

BJ: Yes. And I think that Caesar’s point is that precisely—student disruptive behavior is now epic in proportion. It is the rule rather than the exception. Perhaps most distressing is that because of the financial-business model of schools, to expel a student is to lose a customer. So administrative constraints often require some technicality: violating attendance which can be proven by the business model of accounting, for instance. Disruption is simply not definable or is so only in a subjective way. I’ll keep the 4% you mention, thank you. The rest can go to those who think that there is no problem or that we need to put the students at the center of the universe to the exclusion of any instructor authority.

Jeff, at 12:15 pm EDT on June 13, 2006

they’re coming your way

i teach at an inner city high school, so listening to some of you whine about classroom policies is at best hunorous. i also teach at the city community college. there is some difference when i receive some of these kids at cc, but not much. it is chaos to say the least. and caesar is right: the leopard has visited here so often that what was once uncommon is now the rule. i also once taught, evenings, college credit english at a maximum security st. penitentiary. the guards informed me early on that if the inmates ever wanted to take over the prison they could do so at will. it is the same with society or “your” classroom. and little by little as i read “inside” i see lots of you concerned about the incoming student. i agree with most of you that lots has been lost over the years when it comes to social convention, even just being courteous. but each day the din from beneath me starts the day as thousands of kids enter the building through the metal detectors: the “m-f"ing, the blacks students calling themselves the “n” word, the sexual innuendo in everything, the disrepect they have for one another, the bloody fights, the inability to find a reason to even try homework, read a book, not sleep in class, the fights, the lack of depth at all level—the five incidents with guns in the school and one drive-by shooting. to paraphrase nietzsche: they are not even shallow, and they’re coming your way. (here’s to open admission and lower standards so that you all can get a federally funded freshman class)ps: please no comments about why we teachers here are not doing our job. it’s a job most couldn’t do nor want to do. and if you’ve looked lately, teachers get about as much respect from the general population as lawyers. my students might say to all of you that “what it is you be short on cred, ike.”

high school teacher, at 9:30 am EDT on June 15, 2006