Altered Reality 101

First test grade: 32.5
Second test grade: 32.6 (weird)
Quiz average 37
Homework average 52 (Reader should here note that homework is graded almost
exclusively on completion.)

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I dropped the class but I still want to take the test is that ok
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Let's ignore the text formatting, etc. Specifically, he dropped the class 1.5 weeks ago and so hasn't attended since.
The third test is today.

Really?!

Well sure why not!?

My predictions:

French test: <32
Self-delusion: 100 

excuses for excuses

Can't wait.

Beginning of class "I have excuses for you." Excuses that are about a week late but whatever.

"OK." Expectant look on my face (I think) as in "Well?"

"I'll talk to you after class?"

"Fine." What the fuck ever.

Either you have excuses or you don't. Either they're valid or they're not. I don't really feel like talking to you about them. Especially considering that we've already had that discussion last week.

This for someone for whom I've already forgiven FIVE unexcused absences at the beginning of the term because of extensive private family issue (supposedly, but he could not divulge more and I took his word for it, for whatever reason - he caught me on a good day?) Our deal was no more missed days and I would not count those five.

And people ask me why I don't ever give SS the benefit of the doubt, or be a little more compassionate and apply rules on a case by case basis...

He's circling the drain anyway so in the larger scheme of things being dropped points for his absences really will have no effect. Prime example of someone who probably just shouldn't be in school right now. If life is giving you lots of crap to deal with you might be better off staying out a semester. But no. Instead they think it's our fault for not being understanding about their missing 15% of the semester, or any of another 2 dozen issues with numerous students each term.

When am I going to find something else to do with my life?! Hopefully before we COMPLETELY turn the corner and have ABSOLUTELY NO MORE students who make this all worth it. (At the moment I still have a handful per class thank heavens.)

If I have to listen to another student presentation about "Amélie" I think I'm going to chew my leg off.

Yes, it's a great film. Yes, it's great for students to find ANY French film interesting enough to use for an oral presentation. Still, from now on for oral reports I think I'm going to limit them to movies I've either never seen or at least not for a long time.

Lack of planning on your part...

Oh, we all know the quip:

Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

Or, as I like to modify it:

Lack of attention/responsibility on your part does not constitute justification for glaring at me for an hour and 15 minutes as you struggle with your test.

I truly think partly why my own generation achieved new heights in procrastination is because we were let off on certain things - it was the beginning of the downslide in our culture's treatment of failure or at least not measuring up or not meeting commitments.

OK sure, it does drive me absolutely fucking crazy when people don't do what they're supposed to do and always has and this perspective would be Pretty Danged Difficult to get out of my head after all these years, but also I might help a few people of the current generation to know that they cannot always blow stuff off with impunity. The hope is that maybe it will make them slightly more responsible but really more and more all they do is whine and get angry.

If it weren't for our absence policy I swear I'd just let them hang themselves. On average it would take them all at least another 1-2 semesters to get through French with passing grades and that way I'd be doing a service to the department and the university, too. Students could blow shit off to their hearts' content and the university would be getting more money from each AND educators' sanity might come off the endangered species list.

Win-win right?

Alas 'tis but a dream... for now.

Could you please pass me the mindlessness?

I love it how even the worst students, those who really need to be studying every single spare second, are sitting here with supposedly nothing to do as we wait for others to finish the composition. 


I pointedly said “Perhaps you could work some more on the reading if you finish your essay,” since over half the class was having trouble with the comprehension questions and at least a third I am positive did not read it at all.

And yet... 75% of those who finished early are still just staring into space with all their books closed. 


Another piece of me is troubled by how they don't even seem to have anything of their own that might interest them to do? I think we're truly entering the Stepford Student age or they've all been replaced by androids...? Oh but I forgot of course that the thing which eats up the vast majority of their free time, their TELEPHONES, aren't allowed to come out in my class. Still, not even a book or anything?


I'm more glad every day that I was born when I was and actually have rounded interests, many of which are not at all dependent on technology...


Sigh.

Another one for the "Who exactly wipes your butt for you?" category

Yet another 212 person who just wrote me (note: chapter test is TODAY) that “none of the activities have dates on the online workbook – how do we know when homework will be due?”


Sidenote: Course plan has weekly reminders that online workbook activities are due nearly every class day as well as a description of the ridiculously simple procedure for activating one's account and finding one's instructor's sections (due dates do not show for people who have yet to join a class section on the workbook). 


Side sidenote: We have already completed 2.5 chapters' of workbook, meaning that apparently this person (the second in as many weeks) doesn't bother looking at the WebCT gradebook or else just isn't curious about the 0's she has under "Workbook" so far.


I hear you readers who think I should have written such students to let them know they aren't getting credit so far on the workbook and do they need any help, etc.... In response, I say that I have to draw the line somewhere. If I reminded them about things they are responsible for and which they are capable of seeing on their own in the first place I would never get any of my own work done, plus I'm still firmly convinced that would just prove to them that there is no reason to be responsible since people will cover your ass for you anyway.


And yes, there is the argument that despite the actions of people like me who persist in trying to get these people to shape up, they simply Are Not Shaping Up And Never Will and one day we will be forced to give up. All I can say is I hope so very fervently that I've found something else to do with my life in the meantime. Preferably something where I'm never coming in contact with anything life- or livelihood- threatening since the whole of society and government and, more importantly, air travel and the military, will be run by these lamos by then.

For the kabillionth time: SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?

Open-book quiz, 2/3 of which was taken DIRECTLY from the fucking 112 online stuff that they were supposed to have done last night and I still get 3 different people coming up to the desk not knowing what to do and asking those questions there should be a sniglet for, the ones where they basically are asking what they are supposed to do but you can’t explain it any better than you already did in the directions without actually giving them the answers or basically re-teaching the lesson in condensed form.

And again, HOSTILE GLARES when I tell them, “I’m sorry I can’t answer that without giving you the answers; look at the guidelines in the book and do the best you can,” because OBVIOUSLY it’s my fucking fault if they don’t know how to use the stuff we went over yesterday and that they were supposed to do for homework last night and that the syllabus clearly told them would be on the quiz today (and incidentally will be on the test in two days).

And of course these reactions came from people who have never shown their face in my office hours or even emailed me or told me in class that they needed help...

Oh, right, because of the huge rock you've been under in all our classes so far...

Another winner.

• Student just came in
• We are all done with Unit 12 online workbook (Quia)  in 212
• She didn’t know the activities were ongoing b/c she had no dates beside hers even tho the syll says “Quia” over and over and over in the “Homework” column
• She finally asked someone in class yesterday when we would have homework due...
  

NOTE: she was in 211 and was on Quia “no problem”

Yeah you guessed it, she never put herself in any of my sections on the website.

“Isn’t there any way I can get credit?”

Um, well, notwithstanding the fact that you should have noticed right away, and you had me and/or the Quia IT people to get help from as well as campus IT... (plus I have asked in class two or three times if everyone is all set on there – mostly meaning those who didn’t have 211 with us but that would have been an opportunity to pipe up I would think... oh except she herself didn’t notice until now....)

I finally said I’ll give her half credit on that Unit at the end of the sem. based on her remaining Quia performance.


See, I'm not always a hardass. But don't blame me when you are in an airplane wreck years from now due to someone like this being in the tower, someone who was never held accountable for anything and for whom rules were constantly bent.

Your tuition is paying for them, after all...

For the last time I am not an IT specialist! If your stupid computer can't access the online workbook you need to go to IT! That's what it's for!

Even/especially if a campus computer is not working right or letting you onto the publisher's site, I am NOT your go-to girl for why it is not working!!!!

And once I figure out that you need to turn on your fricking cookies (by reading the error message you were getting that said, "Please enable cookies on your browser,") you could at the very least figure out how to do that much, or....

call IT!!!!!!