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

A good way to avoid some of these student complaints is to have them sign something the first day of class stating that they agree to abide by the terms of the course syllabus (obviously you need to have a clear syllabus first).

allow me to explain wrote:

Ha, I'm not looking for simpathy, but is it really that unbelievable?

If your class is easy enough that I can learn it all from the book, again, why can't I just demonstrate that on an exam?

So far the only reason given is that it's on the syllabus.

The fact that it's on the syllabus is reason enough. The professor creates the syllabus and holds you to it so that everyone understands and plays by the same rules. He has to establish a baseline somewhere in order to fairly issue grades. You might not agree with the baseline, but tough - it's not your decision; you are the lowly student, not the professor.

This is a key princple for so many other things outside of school. Often it doesn't matter if you did it the "best" by your standards because you didn't do it the "best" by the standards of the person making the decision. A part of being successful is understanding and playing by the right set of rules.

I feel like this is a parellel to athletes who "would have been good if they never got injured," or students who "would have gotten better grades if they just studied more." Guess what? Not getting injured or studying hard is part of being good! There are standards that must be met to succeed. Not everyone meets these standards. Not everyone is successful.

Thanks for reading. /rant.

How dare you make so much sense!!!

If you are not going to attend class you are just checking boxes and not thinking about actual learning. I had a professor ask a question. He asked us once if we could just write a check for the 4 yrs of tuition on the 1st day of college and immediately receive a degree that day would any of us ever come to class?

the wealthy kids are definitely worse, those most of us encounter, not necessarily the top wealthy kids, who populate most of the elite schools. at the university of vermont, the proportion of complainers was higher than I've ever seen, and indeed most of the students were wealthy underachievers attracted to the skiing lifestyle. at my current state school, most of the students are hard working, or at least can be motivated to be hard working. among those who have academic problems, most of them have very good reasons for those problems, usually involving the death of a parent or simply having to work multiple jobs while also taking the high credit hours that the administration here insists they take. because of their high debt and lack of gov't and familial support (being middle class and below), they cannot concentrate on school as much as they should. my students in new york city in the cuny system were often from difficult situations and coped admirably. but the poorer kids do not spend their time complaining to the profs and gaming the system when they are having problems. most of them just drop out or are forced out when they fail a class and therefore lose their HEOP funding.

nordicmama wrote:

I would like to know what middle school and high school teachers think is "working too hard." Does that mean working harder than they ever did in school? After all, you be a slacker in high school, get in a no-name college, and graduate with C's and still become a teacher.

Maybe it applies to lower grades, but not with higher ones. It is difficult to pass the Praxis in most content areas for high school.

Not sure how I feel about this one. Are you saying that when you get a job, you should only work as many hours as necessary in order to make your quota?

nordicmama wrote:

I would like to know what middle school and high school teachers think is "working too hard." Does that mean working harder than they ever did in school? After all, you be a slacker in high school, get in a no-name college, and graduate with C's and still become a teacher.

I ask, because I just had a second teacher tell me my child was working too hard. I am so sick of inflated grades and low standards that let a kid do very little and still get A's. I insist my child actually do the work WELL. But this makes the teachers uncomfortable, because my kid just exposed their low standards. So in my opinion, sceondary school teachers and their bosses should shoulder a lot of the blame for this entitlement problem in the college-aged crowd.

I have been a teacher for 9 years. I had straight As in high school and attended a college that was recently listed in the top 10 colleges with the smartest students. I worked hard and made the Dean's List every semester except my first (where I slacked off a bit). Yes, there are many teachers who didn't work hard, who went to crappy schools and earned lower grades. However, the same can be true in just about every profession.

I can't imagine ever telling a parent that a kid is working too hard. I hold very high standards for my student, at least if they want to earn an A or B. Very few kids earn an A in my classes because they don't work hard enough. However, the only way to fail my class is by not doing the work. I tell my students on the first day: it's easy to pass my class, but it's very hard to get an A.

Racehorse wrote:

Not sure how I feel about this one. Are you saying that when you get a job, you should only work as many hours as necessary in order to make your quota?

If your pay is capped, yes. If you make more money by generating higher numbers, you should work as much as you want given your money vs. personal time priorities.

Since this is an analogy to grades, which are capped, yes, it's reasonable to only do as much as necessary to get the A.

My point in posting was to share the opinion of a 20-year old kid who has actually gone groveling to their professor even though it was his own (my own) fault. Clearly at the time I did not value that class, I was there for the class credit, nothing more. It happens.

As a 32-year old now who has gone back to school, I certainly value what I learn now, and yes, I do everything on the syllabus. I get more out of it, however I'm still not sure I would fault someone for having the mindset I did when I was 20. People have different priorities. Such is life.

WesternAdmin wrote:

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.

Excellent response. The hard facts of life are not being taught and/or enforced at home, and no administrations in elementary through high school want to hard nose about failing a kid, lest they be "left behind". Luckily, a college education isn't mandatory so professors can and should be as hard^$$ as they can be with a lazy student.

Mrs. M wrote:

WesternAdmin wrote:

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.

Excellent response. The hard facts of life are not being taught and/or enforced at home, and no administrations in elementary through high school want to hard nose about failing a kid, lest they be "left behind". Luckily, a college education isn't mandatory so professors can and should be as hard^$$ as they can be with a lazy student.

Someone please explain what these supposed hard facts of life are???

Well, as college's aim is to ready you for the work force, spending mindless hours in a class hearing things that you've already learned prepares you for that office job where you get your work done in an hour and spend the rest of the day surfing LR because your butt's gotta be at your desk for 8 hours a day.

You should be held accountable for the decisions (or non-decisions) you make.

The "hard facts" are if you don't put in effort, you don't get results. If you don't turn in your work quota in the time you're allotted or have that presentation ready in time for the meeting, you might get fired. Or are you one of the privileged folk that are accustomed to get something for nothing?

Just today I had a friend post on FB about how a student in her choir told her to her face that the student didn't like the piece she, the director, chose. That's like saying to the teacher, I don't like what essay you assigned to me and I'm gonna tell you what I think of it. No respect, no class: welcome to the entitled generation.

wifeprof wrote:

Her latest: she's had a student that has not showed up to class since September 27 and he just emailed her today and said he wants to make up some of his assignment. Do kids learn this kind of entitlement mentality at home? Where does it come from?

My wife is also a professor, and she sees the same things...fortunately that kind of thing is the minority and there are still responsible young people out there.

ygfvgh wrote:

Someone please explain what these supposed hard facts of life are???

I don't think there is a standard list, but these would probably qualify:

- 99% of people will not be successful, at anything, without legitimate hard work.

- Outside of school you won't be granted deadline extensions or extra credit.

- You will have very little direct control over the outcomes of many events in your life.

- Sometimes things just suck.

- Sometimes life is just unfair.

- Sometimes you won't get the promotion despite working hard because someone else worked harder.

These aren't unique life lessons - everyone experiences them. Being coddled in school doesn't help you adjust to or prepare for any of these things.

Clell Adams wrote:

Isn't coddling students against the law?

Maybe you're thinking of canoodle?

"Sometimes life is just unfair."

That's a big one, IMO.

Rocky Mountain Hi wrote:

ygfvgh wrote:

Someone please explain what these supposed hard facts of life are???

I don't think there is a standard list, but these would probably qualify:

- 99% of people will not be successful, at anything, without legitimate hard work.

- Outside of school you won't be granted deadline extensions or extra credit.

- You will have very little direct control over the outcomes of many events in your life.

- Sometimes things just suck.

- Sometimes life is just unfair.

- Sometimes you won't get the promotion despite working hard because someone else worked harder.

These aren't unique life lessons - everyone experiences them. Being coddled in school doesn't help you adjust to or prepare for any of these things.

And not being coddled through school teaches each of these lessons how?