That’s how I read it, too. The context of the passage seemed to mean that.
Haha #14 2VU. I am currently taking a break from grading final exams and it seems some of them have not studied at all.
I think many students think, in this day and age, that if you attend class and show “effort” that you will pass and get an acceptable grade. They don’t seem to think it is important to show “knowledge” of the subject.
In the last few years, my classroom has become more like a study lounge. Students constantly get up and leave and return 5 minutes later. They constantly are texting. I call them out, ask them to please stop leaving and reentering and sometimes show my utter frustration. It doesn’t stop. At this point, other than being a total tyrant, not really sure what to do.
Today, at my final I told the class that I would not tolerate them leaving the room during the final and they would have to hand in their test if they left. I gave them a chance, at that point, to go to the bathroom, get tissues,water or whatever they needed. All went well except one student said he needed to go to the bathroom about halfway in. ( A few students had already left) I allowed him to go but made him give me his test and cell phone. I gave them back but noted what he had not finished and what he seemed to be having trouble with. He obviously noted what I did and asked if he would lose points where I circled. I told him “no” unless it was wrong. But he knew I was paying particular attention to his exam.
This is what we have to resort to??
The inability to arrive on time and sit through a 75 minute class is epidemic. I find it sort of astounding.
One student, who’s in danger of failing for absences and lates, told me his habit of getting up and leaving for a while during class was “ADD breaks”–not that he’d ever given me documentation for that, and not that any documentation ever says “wander in and out of class” is an acceptable accommodation.
garland–never mind 75 minutes. Haha I teach MWF and classes are only 50 minutes!
" Wander in and out of class" That is what it has become!
Though to be fair, have you ever run a professional development session for faculty? We’re some of the worst students for sitting still you can have sometimes! 
I have to confess myself irritated by the idea that if something is difficult it can’t be done. I’ve heard kids insist they must have ADD because they found it difficult to read dense materials or sit through a long, boring lecture. Since when was it easy? I remember having to get up and walk around the library to wake my brain up every 10 minutes when I had to read especially challenging work in college and actually biting the inside of my cheek to keep alert in soporific lectures.
@Agentninetynine --yes.
Kind of speechless, here. Can’t imagine leaving the room during a test unless it was some sort of emergency. Or wander in and out of class.
a friend is a tenured professor at an University. Her colleague, who is from India, was teaching her class and had to reprimand a student who pulled out their phone and initiated a phone call. On his way out, the student said, "Cee U Next Tuesday, " and because of the way he said it and how his friends reacted, she knew there was something odd. So, she looked it up in the Urban Dictionary. The stories that I hear about students behavior mirror some of the behaviors I observed working in a k-8 for 9 years.
Let me preface this with this–I really like my students on the whole. They are mostly kind, funny, interesting people.
That being said…I really think that a lot of parents would be sort of astonished to see what a typical college classroom looks like these days. I mean, I doodled my way through some classes in my day. But the amount of phone use, non-class involved computer surfing, getting up and leaving, off-track conversation, whining/wheedling/complaining, outloud editorializing (“this is boring, this poem is not ‘relatable’”,etc) is quite a bit different from how it was in my classes. There is definitely the expectation that this is supposed to be entertainment, and if it’s not… well…
And at the same time, numerous students have said to me in the last meetings how much they enjoyed it. And I get good evaluations. I don’t think it’s me, frankly. 
Wow, @amom2girls, just wow. Rude! Not what one would expect from a college student who is presumably paying (or mommy and daddy are paying) for the privilege to be educated.
Hats off to all of you university professors. It must seem like middle school some days. I’m wondering how many of these students see class as just an extension of high school, where they “have” to be there, rather than wanting to be in class.
I require attendance, phones turned off and tucked away, and no laptops in my classroom (all discussion-based seminars). My students seem to be fine with these policies, which I spell out in the syllabus and send to enrolled students a week ahead of the first class. So if they don’t like my classroom policies they have time to find another course. I have very few complaints about the college students I get, who tend to be engaged and respectful, but I don’t know how I would control the electronic distractions if I taught in a field where large lecture classes requiring a lot of note taking on computers was the norm.
If I was the professor, I might misplace the student’s tests and homework assignments going forward. Poor kid might fail.
Wow! A few old school college Profs I know of and few HS teachers I had would never have tolerated any of that. One HS teacher and those college Profs went so far as to close and lock the door at the start of class.
If one is even a second late, student is not allowed in and is marked absent for that class. Students will also get negative class participation points for disruptive behavior in class such as wandering in and out of class at will*.
That behavior is distracting to the instructor and other students.
- In HS, bathroom breaks are only given with permission and the use of a bathroom pass. And only one student could use it at a time.
@profparent --I hate going to an ultimate device ban, because some students do take notes electronically, and because a lot of them buy e-texts, so they need to be able to access them on some device–many read on their phones. Yeah, I do ding for lates. It’s tough because a lot of my students are commuters, and I get that the traffic is unpredictable and the parking a nightmare, but they ultimately have to figure that out anyway.
@garland My students need to be paying attention and responding to what other students are saying in discussion, and I tell them that they can take notes by hand if they feel the urge. But extensive note taking is not required in my courses as I don’t give formal lectures. I do understand, however, that my policies only work because of the specific way I teach. I would have problems adjusting to the distraction of electronics in another format. But students often mention in evaluations that they like the way the courses are focused on discussions and appreciate having their peers’ full attention, so I’m pretty wedded to the effectiveness of my no electronics policy.
One daughter had the experience this year of having an assignment given a 0 grade because it wasn’t done in MS Word, rather google docs. She reread the syllabus and reluctantly came home to use our laptop. A few words with the prof on the potential hardship to some students eventually got it turned around, but she did what she had to at the time.
The other has a prof that has an assignment that can only be done using a PC. #2D uses a Mac. Her group ended up with some very late nights in the on campus computer lab. But they did it.
We’ve told them that the prof is in charge and sometimes you have to suck it up. Just like real life, things aren’t always fair. They do have some stories about classmates’ behavior that disgusts them.
^ @zeebamom --The classroom manager we use at my college, Canvas–which is very commonly used–does not accept Google docs. So it’s not a matter of my being arbitrary; if I can’t access their draft, I can’t comment on it or grade it. Though, on the other hand, it is perfectly possible to save a document from Google docs as a Word document, which then they could upload to Canvas.
Also, Microsoft has a program for students to get MS Word 365 for free. Our school has a link to it, but I’m pretty sure it’s widely available.