My wife is a professor and she deals with a lot of coddled students.

Speaking as a faculty member who has taught undergrads and medical students, I can tell you that by far the worst students are those who come from wealthy families. Not all wealthy kids are like this, but the worst ones do come from wealthy families and have had their entire life just laid out and taken care of for them by helicopter parents who are wealthy enough to have the time to coddle their kids either in person or with every kind of prep class and tutor available. Luckily, most of those don't make it into medical school. Some do, but med school is brutal, and after they get crushed on an exam or two they figure themselves out.

Isn't coddling students against the law?

I have several prof friends. I hear this a lot.

I feel bad for my wife because I know she wants to be a good teacher, but she can't bow down to every student. I feel tied because I can't do anything to help her out.

She also had a female student come up to her today (90 seconds before class started) to tell her that she's not coming to class on Thursdays any more because gas is too expensive for her to drive to campus on Thursdays. So, she told my wife that she wanted to reschedule the exam planned for this Thursday. My wife said she'd think about it and get back to her shortly. My wife then went back to the whiteboard to write a few final materials for the class that was about to start. The student then said, "Really? REALLY? You're just going to turn your back on me and now answer me?' (those are my wife's words).

Again, I get frustrated as heck when I hear stories like this. I could not be a teacher because I'd probably end up hitting kids.

I'm a professor myself. I encounter this all the time. And I can confirm that the students who try this crap are more likely to come from privileged backgrounds. I'll spare you all the long rant about how this sort of thing is the consequence of policies made by administrators who think that colleges can be saved by 'running them like a business.'

For now, I'll just say that this is just one of the reasons that tenure should never be abolished.

The best teacher she can be to a coddled kid is to hold him accountable for this personal failings so that he learns sooner rather than later that this crap don't fly. I have had similar situations as the one you describe. At first I just rejected them through email, but that doesn't get the message through. It just makes them angry and teaches them nothing. This kind of thing is best done one-on-one in an advising-type session.

OP, there is nothing you can "do" for her, other than to assure her that standing firm is the right thing to do.

u all needs to teach in the Ghetto if you want to see horrible students, your entire day spent trying to keep them from killing you or eachother.

"OP, there is nothing you can "do" for her, other than to assure her that standing firm is the right thing to do."

Thank you. I agree.

we had a kid who was the son of a partner of a major law firm on my college xc team. he was by far the wealthiest kid on the team, and he was also the biggest dumb*ss. he finished first semester with a 0.9 GPA. he quit the team and started smoking cigarettes. second semester ended with 0.0 GPA (he got kicked out of school)... he then emailed our coach asking if he trained this summer if he could get his scholarship back and help get him back into school. HAAAAA

ill agree, there is definitely a higher correlation of entitlement to wealthier students, based on my observations of students in my classes. they f*cking drive me nuts since i actually go to class and do my work while running and working to pay for school. these frat bros claim they dont have time to do a paper yet they dont do anything except eat, sh*t, and get wasted.

It's either privileged kids or the smart ones. The studious, highly intelligent ones show up to class all the time and do everything to a T. But it's the super smart ones that never show. At least that's my experience.

Congratulations, wifeprof. Good job.

I run about 45 academic classes on a pretty large university campus, and deal with this weekly. A student will email myself or the instructor of the class 8 weeks into the semester stating that they have not been able to find the class, and can't figure out why their mid-semester grade is a F. They explain that the room locations are not on their schedule (they are) and that they were never notified of a classroom location (a lie, because I personally notify every student by email, to hopefully avoid this issue because it happens a couple of times each semester).

100% if the time the student has just been lazy. I always ask the student why the other 29 students were able to find the class, yet, they were not able to. I then ask the student why it took them 8 weeks to reach out to me or the instructor.

I educate by failing those kids. Someone apparently needs to teach them the hard facts of life.

I think it's because students get special treatment at the high school level (I teach Spanish at the high school level).

In high school parents take their kids on a family vacation in the middle of January for a month and want teachers to prepare all the homework they will miss so they can take it with them.

In high school many parents request a an individualized learning plan where they ask for special instruction for their kids including retakes on tests and quizzes, extra time to turn in assignments, specialized seating in the classroom, and in some cases even different learning standards for their kid. I have had parents ask me to pass their student because he/she showed improvement or tried really hard. No joke. Meeting standards didn't matter to them.

I've even had a student bring in his grandfather who worked as an administrator at the same high school and "talk to me" because he got a B and not the A he expected to get. His grandfather basically came in and pressured me to change the grade (I did not), saying that sometimes we need to consider other variables than just academics when we give grades. In my head I was thinking "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? SO YOU WANT ME TO BASE MY GRADING ON HOW NICE STUDENTS ARE?"

I feel that in today's society we baby kids too much and they expect to get special treatment because that's what they've received their entire lives.

Not all students are like this, but many are...

Bingo!

NCLB and Race to the Bottom have placed all responsibility on teachers and administrators and left none for kids and parents. Because our jobs are tied to graduation rate and test scores we cannot hold kids as accountable as they deserve and as would make them more productive adults. Instead we have to coddle them so that our NCLB numbers rise.

And then you get them.

I also teach college kids and face similar stuff. I take the same approach as what was described above. The best service I can provide is to fail them if they don't perform. One of the things I get a lot are requests for extra credit. My standard reply is that if they can't handle "regular credit", it doesn't make much sense to give them "extra credit".

Wealthy kids blowing all their opportunities because mommy and daddy gave them too much and didn't make them work for it. Same old story.

I despised those kids that never showed up to class the whole semester, then around finals time, they would knock on my door and ask for the notes I took over the course of the semester. I said no. Unfortunately, because these kids were shameless, they did the same to other students and they caved.

Often times, I want nothing to do with the entitlement mentality of my generation. I cut people slack that have experienced some sort of struggle or hardship in life that they could not control, but those that want to live in their own personal hell or blow the advantages they have in this world, I reserve no sympathy.

well........... wrote:I think it's because students get special treatment at the high school level.

I am in total agreement with this.

Students come in with the expectation that due dates are always flexible, because the teachers in HS were always willing to take late work.

Students come in thinking that the test questions and answers will be identical to what they were spoon-fed in class back in HS. They don't think they need to be able synthesize the material.

Students come in thinking that trying hard counts for more than actual performance. Tests often carry a much lower weight in HS than in college.

It's not all their fault; it's what they've come to expect. The culture needs to change at an earlier age; not everyone is above average. Parents are often fight the teacher, rather than acknowledge that their kid is underachieving. To be fair to my HS colleagues, they are often caught between a rock and a hard place. If they hold the students to these stricter academic standards, too many will not pass. Administrators will then hold the teacher accountable for high failure rates, when we know where the real problem lies.

This is just another example of bashing the wealthy. First you want us to pay more taxes and now you expect us to adhere to the same educational standards as the great unwashed. Lets keep in mind tat these professors would not be employed if not for us. We don't get scholarships and grants, but pay our way. We pay your salary and you work for us. It would serve you well to remember that class has its privileges.