SCENES FROM A COLLEGE CLASSROOM

Posted on | by Ed

Actual student email:

"I looked over the comments on my research paper and there's no way this is a D. It's at least an A-."

After reading this six or seven times to ensure proper comprehension, I started channeling Joe Pesci from Raging Bull; where do you get the balls to ask me a question like that? We all like to idealize ourselves as undergraduates.
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Even if we think we were lazy, arrogant slobs we prefer to recall ourselves as smart lazy, arrogant slobs. Regardless of how trite it sounds, though, I have to say that there is no conceivable universe in which I would ever have said this to a professor when I was a student.
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What planet are these people from? Where have God and man gone astray in guiding these wayward youth?

After about a dozen draft responses, all of which I wisely deleted, I finally responded that when the University allows me to choose my own salary I will let students choose their own grades.
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Under the circumstances I feel like anything short of a right hook to the kidney and a knee to the groin counts as a measured, appropriate response.
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42 thoughts on “SCENES FROM A COLLEGE CLASSROOM”

  • A Cat says:

    Publicly humiliating, depending on how 'public' you view your blog as, the student's writing skills might help you vent some of that rage.

    I imagine it crosses over some ethical line I'm sure you don't want to cross and I'm only suggesting for self serving purposes as I'm terribly bored and desperately trying to avoid work. :)

  • J. Dryden says:

    I sometimes fantasize about a time, not too long ago, when grades actually *meant* what they claim to mean: If you showed a basic understanding of the material and some individual effort, but no more than that, you got a "C"–that was the *par* response to the assignment. A "B" would be an indication of *significant approval* of the performance, a recognition that someone had gone above and beyond. And virtually no one would get an "A" because such a grade would be reserved for those who totally and utterly gave it their all–multiple drafts, outside research, original thought, total command of the material, and the effort it takes to write *well*. "D"s would be given without remorse because students who didn't make any real effort or who showed indifference to understanding the material wouldn't deserve anything higher. And "F"s would be given to those students who simply did not give shit (which is to say, about 20% of them.)

    The grading system would simply say: "This is not supposed to be easy–this is not supposed to be taken for granted–you are goddamned lucky enough to be in college and not working as a blue-collar wage-slave, and you will *work* to the exclusion of recreation and sloth because you're in fucking *school*–you are, of course, free not to do this work–but if you make that choice, I will not baby you or accomodate you–I will instead, treat you like an adult at a job who didn't bother to show up very often, and refused to work when he did–I will *fucking fire* you."

    It's my understanding, from chats with my 60-ish elders, that this attitude was quite common back in the day; now, any teacher who took this approach would be brought up on civil rights violations. I'm proud of the progress this country has made in tolerance and justice for oppressed minorities in the past 50 years, but somewhere along the line "lazy ignoramuses" became one of those 'minorities', and the attitude of entitlement attached.

    Sorry for the rant–I'm grading a huge stack of shit papers, and you touched a nerve.

  • bluecat says:

    In my last semester of college, I totally blew off this one class and ended up getting an F. I was shocked to have the this harsh consequence of reality actually imposed on me. But you know what? It taught me a really good lesson. It taught me that basic simple lesson, that actions have consequences. This lesson has been extremely valuable in my life since then. Grade inflation does have consequences, I think.

  • cerb says:

    Another reminder of why I'm glad to be out of school. During my 3.5 years at IU I always sensed some entitlement out of a lot of people there. Too often these people would write an 8 or 12 page paper the day before it was due and expect "at least" a B, when I can only imagine what they wrote was some stream of consciousness drivel.

    I learned very quickly in Germany where I studied for a year that expectations were much higher. I wrote an admittedly mediocre 20 paper on Kafka in German and received the equivalent C for it, and in retrospect I'm damn proud.

  • A Cat says:

    @J.Dryden:

    Yes, The past was so much better. Everyone was smarter and worked harder and society was so much better for it!

    I feel sorry for all those students in higher education now who missed out on the the college experience of 50 years ago. They didn't get to participate in the thrill that was going to class with highly intelligent and motivated white people.

    I'm sure the lack of intelligence and work ethic in today's college students has nothing to do with the influx of minorities from underfunded high schools and racial biases, but the fact American's are getting dumber and sending their even dumber kids to college.

    In fact we are getting so dumb I doubt we'll even notice before its to late. We will be totally screwed too, as there won't be anyone smart or motivated enough left to be bothered to find a cure.

  • Ed says:

    I enforce the exact standards referred to by Mr. Dryden. Bare minimum adherence to the basic requirements of the assignment merits a 70. You have to do something that is actually good in order to get a higher grade.

    Students flip the fuck out. Really, they have never been graded like that. Ever. The campus culture at my institution and many other Big State U's around the country is that handing in anything at all guarantees a C- and handing in anything that remotely addresses the requirements of the assignment is an 80.

  • A Cat says:

    The grading standards seem fair and reasonable, the objection was to the veiled racism and nostalgia present in other comments.

    "Students who have been graded loosely by mediocre teachers flip out when graded to a higher standard by good teachers" is a meme I'm sure we can all get behind and enjoy pointing and laughing at the hapless students guilt free.

    Or am I crying at the inequality inherent in our system of education where crucial parts are controlled and primarily funded at the local level so it just reinforces economic conditions for the majority of its participants.

    Its so hard to tell at times. I'll go with pointing and laughing as I need a good laugh today. :)

  • ladiesbane says:

    @J.Dryden: I agree wholeheartedly, but there have also always been instructors who were lazy graders (Gentleman's B's for Everyone and no explanations) and those who would allow students to negotiate grades based on "we pay your salary", hoping for strong student reviews. I would rather have a B with strong commentary than a non-sequitur not-really-merited A.

    My own beef was students complaining about being marked down for grammar and spelling errors on their papers. Typos are one thing, but consistently writing at an 8th grade level means you should really work on that. Saying "But it's not an ENGLISH paper!" does not apply if the paper was written IN English. Arguing that it shouldn't matter is only embarrassing yourself.

  • Michael says:

    I think back to my college years and some of the absolute CRAP that I passed off as work. I took a 18th Century French Lit Class and did no reading. None. Not one page. And got a C.

  • Nathan says:

    I recall my undergrad years at IU. I deserved all the grades I received. Personally, in my math courses I was excited at anything over a D+. :)

  • Dr. Righteous says:

    Actual sentence from actual student paper (on the personality theory of Carl Jung, actually):

    "Extroversion individuals are confronted by their particular attitude towards certain situations, they manager to maintain a positive relation to those situations."

  • JohnR says:

    Oh, bugger the "veiled racism". "Veiled racism"'s got diddly-squat to do with it. It's the sense of entitlement that grates, and in my experience that came from the better-off, white kids. I agree with Dryden; grade inflation has become a curse, as we expected who saw it in action 30 years ago. It's small consolation that the various groups that have had to learn to work harder to achieve anything are at least better-trained to compete on a level playing field. The problem is, even now it's the entitled slackers (mostly wealthy white, but not entirely by any means) who continue to have the edge. As always. And the connections to make sure they get by – shoot, they've been making it to the top in human endeavors as far back as we've got any kind of historical records.

  • Patti says:

    Nice. I had the student today telling me that it was unfair that he flunked a class for three unexcused absences (all strangely during Little 5 Week), despite being clearly written in the syllabus and not even attempting a lame flu excuse before the final grades were posted. Not that I could do anything about it – all of the instructors for that class finished up last Friday and left town. I just got to be the happy staff member nearest the room where he should have shown up.

    Weed them out…

  • RAOC says:

    When I run into this attitude – not often, but it does occur- I pull out the grading score that we have developed for every course and read back to them the evaluation. When you tell them in no uncertain terms their work lack the following in these categories, it is much harder for them to pass off junk and get credit. It has cost me a few times in front of a grade grievance board, but it is worth it to stick to your (and the university's) standards.

  • J. Dryden says:

    A Cat: Race has nothing to do with it. Neither does gender. Or religion. Or sexual orientation. Some or none of these demographics may overlap with a lazy sense of entitlement, but *that's* the only quality I'm bitching about. JohnR's right: far and away, the guilty parties among students are white suburban kids who, having been given a ride in life thus far, assume that their tickets will take them all the way to the last stop. I deny the accusation, period.

    I'm actually delighted as all hell that colleges have become reliably and consistently inclusive, as educational opportunity goes hand in hand with economic opportunity in their attempt to correct several centuries' worth of horribleness on the part of The Man. (Besides which, being forced to share the same space with someone different from you is really the only way to learn that his/her demographic is not Evil, Weird or Scary.)

    I suppose I *did* indulge in the Reaganesque idealization of A Simpler Time, fair enough. But I'm not interested in blaming anyone for this situation, largely because there's *way* too much blame to go 'round for any satisfactory finger-pointing: High school teachers? Please–I'm in awe of them; *I* sure as hell couldn't do what they do. Nor, I imagine, could I get much of an education as a student stuck in a public school system that's always on the lowest line of a budgetary agenda. Lazy professors? Sure, but generally they're lazy after being beaten down by the circumstances covered in this discussion. Administrators who coddle students in hopes of retaining them? Well, seeing as those students' enrollments determine my employment, I can't too eagerly shoot myself in the foot. A culture of automatic self-celebration? Well, yeah, that–we can all feel smug about blaming that.

    Truce?

  • Beth says:

    I feel for you, Ed. I also teach at a university (smallish, private) and from time to time I will get a version of what you did. My general policy is not to reply at all to emails that are ridiculous in that same fashion. I do wonder, as you did, what passes through a student's mind when he poses that kind of question. I would never have uttered such silliness, but then you and I became professors, no? Anyway, I feel your pain.

  • Beth says:

    You know what, Ed, I don't expect you to agree with me, or care if you disagree with me–it would just be nice to be treated with respect instead of attack. I think the virulence of your responses and those of dbsmall and johnr all are just a little bit, shall we say, hysterical? get over yourselves–you're not that fucking interesting.

  • Riggsveda says:

    This is how the banks argued their way into receiving the grades they got on the stress tests. No one thought it was arrogant. Arrogance its simply part of the ecology on Wall Street.

  • Ed says:

    Hahahaha.

    Oh man.

    I thought for a second there you just accused me of being hysterical.

    You're wrong. Pointing that out is not hysterical or over-the-top unnecessary. The fact that you expect people to swallow your shitty non-arguments – which you were using to attack someone else, BTW – and respond with sweetness is delusional.

    You want people to be nice? Don't be a fucking dick and don't call people misogynists for daring to point out how stupid your comments are.

  • Ed says:

    I think this ("get over yourselves–you’re not that fucking interesting.") is the most hilariously non-self aware comment ever to cross the lips of a self-described feminist.

    Get over yourselves. You're not even slightly fucking interesting. Thanks for dropping by yet another website to point out how misogynist and patriarchal everything and everyone are. I wonder why no one pays attention to you.

  • Chris says:

    I think the best way for this kid or anybody else to do better on a paper is to simply write a first draft and show it to your professor prior to the due date. This way, it doesn't matter if your professor tells you your paper is shit because you can fix it. I wish I would have learned sooner to share a first draft with a professor early, ask my professor about a topic and his/her input, etc., etc. If I could share any nugget of advice for college, this would be it.

    There are a lot of spoiled kids with giant senses of entitlement at IU or any other college, and it is annoying. Unfortunately, this is who pays the bills, and you have to come into contact with these people. This is one thing I don't miss about college. You are a pretty reasonable guy, Ed, and it was clear to me what you expected. If somebody turned in shit or couldn't hack it, they deserve a bad grade. Maybe this person will try harder next year if they didn't perform (if they are smart) or will choose a different major if they couldn't hack it.

    I would feel a lot worse giving somebody who couldn't hack it a bad grade. If it was a core class, like Spanish or Math, and the kid tried hard, I'd probably give him/her a C. It shouldn't be that hard to do well in something one majors in because one should be passionate about their major, enjoy it, be motivated to go to class, etc.

  • Ben says:

    I'm just so goddamn glad I don't have the qualifications required to teach, because otherwise I'd probably be teaching. And the last vestiges of my hopes for mankind would evaporate.

    Between the fuqits that make up most of the student body, and the humorless, grimly dogmatic mental hygienists that populate staff rooms, I would almost certainly end up getting caught urinating in the coffee urn on Open House night.

  • John says:

    Ah, it harkens me back to my freshman years in a second-semester basic programming 101 course. You know, the kind of course where they spend significant time going over "Okay folks, this is called a variable." On the last day of class before finals, the Prof was taking questions regarding the final — you know, important stuff like what the questions might be weighted toward, etc. Some brave soul had the gonads to pipe up, "Do you think we could maybe, like, have our lowest test score dropped?"

    I couldn't help myself. It was pure, knee-jerk impulse reaction. It was an instant response that was out before I could even really think about it. "Do you think you could maybe do better in class, and study for your tests like the people who are doing well?"

    It was an entire lecture hall full of evil eyes, except one pair down at the front. It was an asshole thing to say, but damnit it was the *right* thing to say. The Prof agreed.

  • Jude says:

    Y'know what? I bestow upon you the license to be as overbearing and insufferable as you wish in being beyond reproach from here on out …even to the smart ones as well. The fact that this particular student believes they've earned "at least an A-" practically merits and sustantiates the D grade.

  • Robert says:

    My eldest brother teaches college English in Santa Barbara. From the stories he tells of his students, I have nicknamed them collectively the 'no-neck monsters'. (Tennessee Williams reference). Some of the stories he tells make MY blood boil, and I was not an exemplary student in college by any means. But the grades I got I always deserved, and knew it.

    That could explain why I've no degree, of course.

  • EFC says:

    I deal with this even teaching elementary school – the parents say the same thing as your student or something along the line of… "My child has always gotten A's before" to which I say, "I don't know why, your child can't read" . Of course I can't quite be that blunt.

    As a teacher, if all of my students had A's I would wonder what I had done wrong. Only top students have A's. (Maybe 1 or 2 students in a class of 20)

    On another note: Ed, I never got an A but I always found your grading to be fair.

  • Nan says:

    Episodes like that are among the reasons I'm now a tech writer with the government instead of still teaching sociology at a public university. And it's not just the students — I had parents show up in my office complaining that they'd paid the tuition so their kids were entitled to high grades.

    Although my best interfering/helicopter parent story involves a kid I nailed for plagiarism on a paper. He'd done a really clumsy cut and paste from a web site. His mother was freaking out over the failing grade, and when the department head and I were trying to explain to her that an F and an opportunity to retake the class beat expulsion from school for cheating, she said "But I worked so hard on that paper! What's wrong with it?" Turned out we'd done the kid a slight disservice — he wasn't simply lazy and a cheater, he also had an idiot as a parent.

    I've heard stories from friends who work in Human Resources that parents have taken to showing up in workplaces trying to meddle when their 20-something darlings are passed over for promotions or not given the raises their doting mom or dad thinks they deserve. When does it end?

  • Patti says:

    Totally agree with the meddling parents problem. My favorite story was the father who drove 3 hours to campus to complain about the starting salaries of our school. Keep in mind… his son was an incoming freshman, and had not been accepted to one of the programs for which salary stats would have been relevent. I sat for 20 minutes, biting my tongue while this man went on a tirade that someone who earns $46,000 per year cannot be successful.

    It gave me great pleasure to remind him that these were averages, and his son could actually earn WAY less than that.

  • dbsmall says:

    I'm old.

    Back when I was in college, in the late 80's, we used to tell these same stories.
    (They were compounded with self-aggrandizements—"oh, our school doesn't grade inflate…we curve around a C+")

    Fact is, public schools oughta curve around a C+.

    Given the incentives for private schools to inflate, there needs to be an objective authority with a "multiplier"…You went to Podunk state, majoring in Liberal Studies? Your formula = 1xGPA + 0.05. You went to CalTech and majored in Physics? 1.1 x GPA + 0.3 (note, numbers are for illustration, and not actually calculated.)

    That way, any employers or grad schools or *anyone* who gave a crap could re-calibrate GPA's. Also note, it's probably not a polynomial…but rather something that allows a 4.0 to be pretty close to a 4.0, everywhere, but stretches the others, and centers them near the appropriate averages.

    If I could think of a way to credibly claim to be objective, and to make $$$ off of this ratings system, I'd do it.

    And Ed, I'd probably ignore the student. I bet that student is humiliated enough already. (It's possible they're just not that self-aware. But I'll bet they just didn't think things through—and wanted to set the negotiations anchor high enough. Plus, they've probably successfully renogiated grades, before, so this wasn't an unreasonable attempt.

  • dbsmall says:

    P.S. I'm a tool, a jerk, and not that interesting.
    But I make a really great pico de gallo. And I married well.
    We all have our strengths.

  • Bugboy says:

    I was once employed in the lab at the small private jr. college I received my A.S. from through a workstudy program, and was floored to realize that one of the chemistry professors was incapable of setting up the mass spectrometer machine for his lab exercise, so he asked me to do it. While I WAS technically "lab assistant" this fell WAY outside my job duties.

    This particular instructor offered what was basically "Chemistry for Dummies" while us Enviromental Tech. folks got to take the real thing and had our brains run through the ringer by the head of the Chem. Dept. His students usually got A's and B's while we would struggle to get B's and C's but with a far superior education when it came out in the wash.

    Youth has the tendency to say "but that's not fair!", but someone explain to me how fair has anything to do with getting good grades with a poor education vs. mediocre grades with a great education? The extent grades have been overrated in society as a measure of your merit has always given me heartburn. How many students have you seen who could barely tie their shoes, but who could routinely ace tests?

  • SarahMC says:

    I have heard horror stories from friends who teach, from grade school to university-level, re: awful, entitled parents and their special, special snowflakes. I blame the parents.

  • Victoria says:

    I teach high school science and recently had my students research the chemistry of fireworks. I was amazed by a few of the results. I had two separate cases of plagiarism where the offenders admittedly copied someone else's report and did not bother to change a thing before turning it in to me. A number of students had their papers marked down due to grammar and mechanical issues, one of those students felt the need to argue with me over it. She told me that this wasn't an English class, so it shouldn't matter (I wish I had read this page earlier!). She also said that I did not know what I was talking about, that the way she did her paper was correct, and that I needed to go back and take an English course. I told her that when she gets any kind of degree, let alone a graduate degree and is certified to teach, she can come back and talk to me about it, but right then, she needed to sit back down. She later apologized, but then said that she was taught by her current English teacher to argue for her grades. This is a completely foreign idea to me and I wonder how much of that is her misunderstanding the teacher's policy somehow. The student said we can argue the finer points of what I call grammatical errors later, I simply replied with "no, we won't." I have many students who have a sense of entitlement and do not understand why they do not get As on everything. I have found that it does, indeed, go back to the parents. I have had phone calls with parents who repeat the same whining arguments over their child's grades. I have had parents threaten to somehow affect my employment based on the fact that I will not approve a student for a gifted level of class!

  • Undergrad says:

    As an undergrad here at IU who studies the social sciences, I can say that for the most part, most of my classmates put in very little effort and expect at least a B in a class. Now, I've turned in some pretty sketchy papers before, but I realize that when I don't put in the effort, I don't deserve a decent grade. I'll fight it and attempt to clarify my responses to possibly better understand the material, but if the professor takes a stand, they take a stand. Grades are earned, not given. I think that professors and graduate students who just hand out As and Bs do a grave disservice to those who have an inflated sense of accomplishment in college. Many people, especially in my program just sort of go with the flow and rarely do their assignments and read their material. They only do enough work to do decently on a test, and that's it. Then they leave college and expect to just have things handed to them, just as their professors did.

    Keep fighting the good fight Ed.

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