<p>Interesting article from a veteran professor who finds his perspective on teaching changing as he sends his own son off to college:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/11/21/yeager[/url]”>http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/11/21/yeager</a></p>
<p>It’s usually good to experience things from the other side of the fence.</p>
<p>Isn’t this an interesting article! It reminds me that when my kids were little, I viewed teenagers (especially boys!) with a suspicious eye. HS and college kids DID seem like they were all grown up. But now that mine are in HS and college, I want to protect them still from some of the hardships they’ll encounter. Just because they’ve turned 18 doesn’t mean they suddenly acquire wisdom and judgement.</p>
<p>This was an interesting article from my point of view because I am the child of two parents in higher education. I grew up with a university professor for a father and a community college instructor for a mother. I found it interesting that once I passed college age, my father suddenly thought his students were so more immature than they had been. I pointed out to him that they were probably the same…he just wasn’t used to being around kids that age anymore.</p>
<p>That is a phenomenal article. I want to send it to all the professors my son had last year who were so horrible to him. and me. yes, as we experience life, we learn. and hopefully gain some compassion</p>
<p>Interesting article, though as a former professor married to a professor, I’ve seen the other side. In my experience as a prof, I didn’t see professors who did the kind of egregious things that the author described such as thinking it was OK if their final exams were scheduled during another professor’s class.</p>
<p>What I ran into was students whose parents didn’t seem to have taught them that professors are people, too. I kept running into students who didn’t seem to believe in common courtesy.</p>
<p>These included students who talked loudly in class and became angry when asked to be quiet so that the professor could be heard.</p>
<p>These include students who didn’t bother to write thank-you notes for scholarship, internship and job opportunities that I helped them get, including by calling my professional contacts and opening doors for the students. Sometimes the students wouldn’t even bother telling me when they got the scholarship or job offer.</p>
<p>The department where I used to work even used to do a Thanksgiving dinner for students on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The professors, secretaries, etc. would cook the food and bring it in. The students would almost knock us down – including aged professors – in order to get the food. The students also would bring in friends who weren’t majors in our department, and the students would hog all of the chairs.</p>
<p>Then, the students wouldn’t bother to say, “Thank-you.”
A similar thing happened when my husband and I invited to our house all of the students in our department who couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving. We even told them that they could bring friends.</p>
<p>The students arrived 4 – four! – hours early because they wanted to watch our TV. They had a fine time watching TV and eating our food. Then, after dinner, when my husband and I finally had the time to settle down and talk to them, they left to go bowling. They didn’t invite us. They never really conversed with us. We felt like we were a restaurant.</p>
<p>Oh, and then there was the student who asked me to give – GIVE – her my old car and also give – GIVE – her my frequent flyer points so she could go to Paris, something she wanted to do.</p>
<p>I know that these students aren’t the norm, but neither are professors who treat students in ways that are overly harsh.</p>
<p>Northstarmom,</p>
<p>When I was an undergraduate, I was always shocked by how egregiously bad the manners of many students were. I always just thought it was UCLA students, however.</p>
<p>I guess, if you weren’t a professor at UCLA, that you’ve reaffirmed my complete lack of faith in humanity. :P</p>
<p>Nope, it wasn’t UCLA. What scares me is that when one of my friends, a professor at U Md. visited and gave a lecture, she described the students who attended as more polite than at U Md.</p>
<p>She said that even though students were making so much noise that I had had to ask them couple of times to stop talking. Some also started leaving the class before she was finished and before the time was over.</p>
<p>The visiting professor was a former presidential advisor, which was a high profile visitor for the low ranked college where I used to teach. That didn’t seem to matter to the students, however.</p>
<p>Well, I can’t say that most UCLA students were quite on the level of your wonderful urchins, but they had their moments.</p>
<p>The only thing that I think UCLA students were shamefully bad about was complaining about workload. They wanted the UCLA degree, but they didn’t want the reading that came with it.</p>
<p>C’est la vie.</p>
<p>In the interest of fairness, I did have some wonderful students, who were very appreciative.
Also, the student who led the charge to coming to my house 4 hours early, and who also asked me for my frequent flyer points and car, called out of the blue and apologized last year. That was about 8 years after I had last seen or heard from her.</p>
<p>Apparently, after she grew up, she realized that I’d been kind to her, and she finally was appreciative. That was one of the nicest phone calls that I’ve ever gotten. :)</p>
<p>Now that’s what I called delayed gratification…:p</p>
<p>I’d be more impressed if the student hadn’t called “collect.”</p>
<p>But what if she called with 1-800-COLLECT and saved Northstarmom tons of money?</p>