<p>I visited a language class at an Ivy where one student blatantly wrote an email on his iPhone in class. What?! Language class = about 10 people including me. In his defense it was apparently the deadline for applications to some major program but still, I was pretty surprised. The language class itself was at a lower level but the student had already fulfilled his language requirement.</p>
<p>On the other hand, at my college the language classes are very strict. On the first day of class a language teacher told us that if we had too many absences (something like 5), or even too many more minor offenses like being consistently tardy (no # given), we would not only be dropped/banned from the course but banned from all courses from the entire department. I don’t know if that’s strictly true but it does keep us on our toes! Most other languages classes also have the “we’ll kick you out if you’re absent X times” clause but I haven’t heard of any others at my college who bar you from taking related courses in the future.</p>
I’m in class 23 hours a week. I’ve also had class from 8 AM - 4 PM straight through before, with only 5 minute breaks in between. If I didn’t eat sometime in that period I’d pass out. I don’t think students should eat messy/noisy foods in class, but I don’t think a discreet sandwich should be a problem, especially in larger classes.</p>
<p>“As someone at the front, you pick up everything. And I find it offensive that someone is surfing or texting while I am talking to them or trying to engage with them (I really do feel like I am talking or trying to have a conversation with every student). I feel it is even worse when students do that to their own classmates making a presentation!”</p>
<p>When I attend classes or workshops I often use the Internet to find the books the professor refers to or information about studies or new theories mentioned. The reading enriches and extends the education I could otherwise get from the class and helps me to organize the information while learning. It may look offensive to the professor, but for the student couldn’t it be best practice?</p>
<p>It’s really not uncommon for students to be in class for 25 hours a week. Many also work 10 to 15 hours a week, to support their education, to conduct research, etc. Sometimes it is unrealistic not to eat during class. It doesn’t have to be distracting, maybe a couple sandwiches. Professors at my school are very understanding about this; I always ask beginning of each semester, and nobody has ever had any problem with it. </p>
<p>I am in a lot of technical classes, which are hard to follow without actively paying attention. So, most students I think are well-behaved. There are some who work on homework or sleep during class, but they are a minority. (Most students, at one time or another, sleep through a lecture or work on other things. )</p>
<p>The bad behavior starts in the high school. My S is a HS sophomore. He comes home with stories of what goes on on a daily basis in his classrooms. Over time, these disrepectful behaviors have become accepted behaviors. I grew up in a large city and attended the public schools. The behavior was much better than what my S sees at his small, upper-middle class suburban school. There should not be an expectation that college freshmen will behave differently than when they were HS seniors 3 months prior. One would hope they would mature during the college experience. I don’t recall professors (at my large flagship state school) having to spell out proper classroom etiquette. How sad that they find that necessary today.</p>
<p>“Sometimes it is unrealistic not to eat during class.”</p>
<p>Too many people managed to work and go to school full-time in the past for this to be true. You eat between classes, during breaks, etc. Nobody should think it’s a God-given right to have 3 30-minute sit-down meals per day.</p>
<p>“It’s really not uncommon for students to be in class for 25 hours a week”</p>
<p>You didn’t eat in class and that was that. If you needed to eat, you did it in between classes. Occasionally someone might have a coffee, bottled water or soft drink, but people didn’t walk around carrying beverages like they do today.</p>
<p>I went to b-school at night – classes were downtown from 6:30 - 9 or thereabouts, with a 10 minute break midway through. You ate your dinner before class, or during the break. Not during the class. It just wasn’t done.</p>
<p>Granted, we didn’t have laptops or cell phones or smart phones to distract us.</p>
<p>No eating. I might be wrong but I don’t think we even chewed gum in class, whereas today I see people getting married while chewing gum. Today I wouldn’t object to anyone eating a soft, quiet sandwich, knowing how schedules work, but 30 yrs ago a student pulling out food would be unthinkably rude. </p>
<p>Profs tapped on tobacco in pipes as they taught. Students also used pipes, but never in class and generally for illegal substances and after lecture, not before. We were polite. Students actually discussed how they couldn’t handle class while stoned, so generally did not go in that way. </p>
<p>Top tier private LAC noted by its faculty’s love of teaching. Depaartment heads taught freshmen; 90% of all classes were fewer than 30 students. If profs were doing research or writing articles, we students did not perceive that. They taught hard in every class, and we responded similarly. </p>
<p>Active listening or kinetic participation was expected from every student. With classes where my attendance was spotty, I could never make higher than a miserable low-B even if I studied hard for exams/wrote great papers. Without my own lecture notes and personal attenance (as there were no technologies or handouts), I never crawled inside the prof’s unique interpretation of course material. I missed her answers to spontaneous student questions that punctuated most lectures.</p>
<p>Some courses were visual or audial (art history, music history) and could not be understood except by class attendance. In other words, missing class ensured a low B, even with much study, not because anyone was taking attendance but because I never internalized the course material in a deep enough way to write A exams. </p>
<p>Biggest distraction was deciding which cute boy I’d try to engage after each class. Usually I had him picked out within the first 20 minutes, so I could concentrate better.</p>
<p>I’m not sure some of what OP says has to do just with classroom etiquette. When I go to a conference, the norm is for people to be on laptops doing their thing (almost always unrelated to the speaker’s presentation). I’m assuming that the era where the presentor has the undivided attention, or even is the primary figure in the seminar/class room, is gone, and this is the new norm.</p>
<p>Ha, OP this thread made me chuckle. This is basically what’s happening everywhere right now! High schools, universities…it’s like a revolution. :D</p>
<p>It is an unfortunate trend and I hope universities take countermeasures to fight it. College students are becoming more boorish, learning less and less, getting dumber and dumber. Colleges should become more sopisticated about who they admit and raise standards for graduation. Students should learn a lot and, if they don’t, they should be out on the street. I blame it on ineffective parents.</p>
<p>I just thought this thread was really interesting. I just visited my first class a couple weeks ago (as a high schooler) at a highly ranked LAC and was really pretty unimpressed with the level of kids in the class. There were about 20 kids in the room. There were 2 or 3 that really participated, but most seemed rather disengaged. I was also a little put off by the fact that I knew more about the topic than some of the kids in the class, just by having seen part of a show on TV about the topic. There was one student that sat near the door, I suspect on purpose as he randomly left about three times throughout the course of the class. </p>
<p>Overall, it felt like the class was at about a high school level. I thought that was more of an isolated thing as I haven’t sat in on classes anywhere else, but it’s interesting to me to see that it’s not.</p>
<p>Dad<em>of</em>3, what industry is your conference? I go to academic ones all the time and that would never happen. It’s probably just the norm there so acceptable; in our field it would still be considered pretty obnoxious. And what is the point? People really can’t multi-task so who are they kidding?</p>
<p>While out-of-line behavior apparently occurs almost everywhere, I have a theory that decorum is higher at schools with higher graduation rates. Students who are conscientious about their classroom conduct will also be more conscientious about studying. They are better students. Better students are more likely to graduate. Therefore higher graduation rates will be associated with classroom decorum.</p>
<p>I occasionally teach technical classes to working adults, and I don’t feel put out by most of the behaviors described. If you’re not distracting me, or those around you, I don’t much care. And I’d rather someone go the bathroom than squirm and suffer in their seats, or go get something to eat than fall asleep from low-blood sugar, and so on. </p>
<p>I admit, it bothered me when I first realized someone was surfing the web during my lecture - but then I remembered how much I was being paid to teach, and how much they paid to be there - and quickly got over it.</p>
<p>Of course, as working adults, we all have more responsibilities that want to intrude during the day. I’ve had to slip out of a class/seminar to handle some crisis, and I’ve been in the back of a warm classroom running on no sleep where the choice is go outside and wake up, or fall asleep on the spot. So, I have empathy for those in the same situation. </p>
<p>As long as you can respect me and the others around you by not engaging in overly distracting behaviors, I’ll treat your choices about how you spend your time in my class with the same respect.</p>
<p>I remember one student who got up and walked out in the middle of class but explained to the prof at the next class that she had a migraine. Things like that (medical) happen. But I also have seen students get up and walk out right after roll is taken. What are they thinking?</p>
<p>I teach middle-aged and senior adults in seminar style. Sometimes they ask an arcane question from “left field” seeking a fact that I don’t have at my fingertips.</p>
<p>Rather than say “I’ll get back to you next week on that…” I now ask some to look it up on their iphones and inform the class immediately. It keeps things lively. I think their generation/age keeps them from abusing or casually surfing the net during class. I don’t feel offended; rather it enhances the class when they consult the 'net --at my request --for specific answers.</p>
<p>The next hour, I teach teens (8th grade) who text in braille with hands in jeans-pockets while nodding/smiling at me. That’s more challenging. What I do is raise my left eyebrow while staring at their pocket; they look back sheepishly and hit a button. Nonverbal communication at its finest.</p>
<p>I’m astonished that professors are taking roll in a college class. It’s not elementary school!</p>
<p>I consider 30 students to be a very large class. In a well-conducted class of under 20, where discussion and participation is expected and the professor is adept at drawing students out, no one could sit there and study something else or surf the internet. Or sleep.</p>
<h1>57 “Who cares if people sleep your [sic] not their mom.”</h1>
<p>I care when students sleep because it’s disrespectful and unprofessional public behavior in a communal endeavor, which class is. And because I’m not my students’ mom, I don’t have to find their behavior forgiveable or adorable either. I have contempt for students who sleep, text, or otherwise don’t want to be there. I don’t give them the benefit of a doubt and they get the grades they deserve-- no slack.</p>
I’m not convinced that the overall level of attentiveness was any better 30 years ago. What’s changed, I think, is that it’s become more obvious that some students aren’t paying attention, because of the cell phones and laptops. But I have to note that a lot of students take notes directly on their laptops now, so it might not be as clear to the professor who’s taking notes and who’s Facebooking (it’s more obvious from the back of the classroom). I don’t remember eating or drinking, either. Believe it or not, 30 years ago, people didn’t find it necessary to bring water bottles with them everywhere.</p>