Email Do's and Don'ts...

Finals are done. Grades are posted. And the emails are rolling in.

At the end of every semester, a good friend and I place our bets as to how long it will take for the first angry "why did you fail me" emails to show up. This semester, I barely had enough time to place my bet before the first message popped up in my inbox.

After 10 years of this, I'm used to the emails. I'm even used to the speed at which they show up. And though the students' names change each semester, the emails stay relatively similar. Most involve some modicum of begging or pleading. Others are riddled with disbelief. Some are just plain ballsy. Take, for instance, the email I received shortly after posting my grades today. To his credit, this student hadn't failed. But he told me that he felt that he had learned a lot, and asked if I would just give him the next grade up so he could save his GPA.

Yet another student took offense at an exam questions. In less than polite terms, he demanded that I credit him two points on his exam, because in his mind, there was more than one answer that had been correct. And that one I would have considered, if he hadn't chosen the one WRONG answer for that question. 

The best of the bunch this semester, as I've seen in the past, was the student that spent almost a full page going on about how she felt that her hard work and effort warranted a higher grade. But while her desperation was apparent, her writing skills were not, as there was not one bit of punctuation or a capital letter to be seen. To her credit, though, she DID spell her own name right. The same couldn't be said about mine.

This time of year, when emotions and stress tend to trump common sense, what students really need is a list of Email Do's and Don'ts--a little checklist they could tape to their computers or smart phones. Maybe even a cool little app that pops up before they click send, just to make students think before they shoot off those messages that make their professors shake their heads and sigh.

The checklist could look like this:

DO...think before you send that email you wrote IMMEDIATELY after learning that you tanked the final and failed the class. I'm not going to change your grade anyway, but when you yell and scream at me in an angry email, it makes me wish there was a "G."

DO...spell things correctly and use punctuation. You look pretty silly when you beg for a higher grade, but can't string three coherent sentences together in the process.

DON'T...tell me that you should have come to class more often. That falls under the category of "your problem, not mine." After all, I get paid whether you show up or not.

DON'T...whine. It may be bad karma, but I don't care that you had a rough semester, or that your GPA is a little too low for comfort. These are things you should have thought of BEFORE you slept through the first half of the semester, or spent each lecture making a booty call on the cutie to your left.

DON'T...tell me that you thought my class was going to be easy. I thought you were going to make an effort. Sucks to be us, but it's not gonna make me change your grade.

And finally, DON'T ask me why I "gave" you an F. I didn't give you anything. You earned that failing grade all by your lonesome.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go check my email.

And the winner is...

It's that time of year again. The leaves have fallen. There's a chill in the air. Hell, it snowed the other day. And the panic is so thick you can smell it from a mile away.

Now that I officially find myself as a member of the student body again, I have rekindled my appreciation for how stressful the end of the semester can be. Believe me...I get it, as any of my new colleagues who read this can surely appreciate. And I consider myself to be a pretty diligent student. Not that I'm perfect. I've been known to forgo my reading in lieu of a good third and long. But I can honestly say, with no reservations, that I've made a valiant effort to...you know, at least go to class.

I can only imagine how scary this time of year is for those people who haven't. And yes, Visitors. I'm talking about you.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know who the Visitors are. They're like the C&E churchgoers that showed up for holidays, weddings and funerals. But in every Visitor's semester, there's that moment. That "oh shit, I'm FAILING!" moment, that's akin to the C&E that realizes on their deathbed that the guy with the funny collar wasn't kidding. It's like Bill Cosby used to say about his mother. "You are looking at an old woman who is trying to get into Heaven now." This is how I feel around week 14 of the semester as I look around at the Visitors, who reappear in droves. These are not the same people that blew off my class all semester. These are the students that are trying to get out of the grade basement.

When the Visitors start to trickle back in, the real fun begins. The front row fills up, as if being seen is enough to make up for the previous three months. Some even raise their hands and try to sound like the reason they haven't been in class is because they've been so enraptured with the material that they've been unable to tear themselves away from their textbooks to make it to class on time. And every semester, one Visitor pulls away from the pack, like that last minute long shot who ends up winning by a nose.

Well, kids, we have a winner.

During this time of year, Visitors are often fill my appointment book, and I thought nothing of it when a student with a name I couldn't match to a face sent a polite email asking if we could meet. When he showed up for our appointment today, he launched into a soliloquy of how he's been President of This, and a Member of That, and somewhere in the mix, he'd forgotten to come to class.

As I started to pull up his grades, I asked if he remembered the last time he'd been to class. "Well, that's the thing," he said. "I haven't."

"Haven't what?" says me.

"Haven't come to class."

Before I can reply, my computer screen refreshes and confirms what I've just heard. Midterm: 0. Paper, 0. Zeros across the board.

As anyone who knows me will attest, it takes quite a bit to render me speechless. I almost wanted to give him some credit just for that.

He proceeded to tell me that as he was going through his notes in preparation for finals, he noticed that although he knew he was registered for six classes, he only had notes for five. It was then that he realized that he had forgotten to come to my class. Not once, or twice, or even since the midterm.

He admitted point blank that because he'd been so busy with his other responsibilities he'd forgotten to come at all.

Now this isn't the part that put him ahead of the pack. This is not the first time in over 10 years that I've had a student regale me with the same story. It was his next request that catapulted him to the level of "This is going in the blog tonight."

I mentioned that there was nothing I could do to help him at this point. But he interrupted me and said that he thought there was something I could do to help. Intrigued, I asked what that could be. He then proceeded to tell me that he had cleared his entire Saturday for me, and could I just meet with him and fill him in on what he had missed. And before I could decide whether to point and laugh or burst into tears, he said that this, of course, would be enough to prepare him to make up the midterm that he had missed.

There was no request. No pleading or begging. As if the assumption that not only would I be willing to give up my Saturday for someone who couldn't be bothered to remember he was a student in my class wasn't enough, he simply assumed that I would be dumping my entire policy on "no late assignments or make up work".

Imagine his surprise when, with a slightly bewildered smile, I stood and thanked him for stopping by, and wished him luck with the classes he had bothered to show up for.

Thanks for playing. Enjoy these lovely parting gifts of forfeiture of any second chance to take this class with me, and of course, a big fat and well-earned F for the semester.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and hug a Visitor. At least they make the effort once in a while...

A lost art...

So now you're thinking, twice in a week? In 24 hours? Aren't you in law school or something?

Well, yeah. But that's a blog for another day.

I'm back because of a conversation I had with a friend while driving home from work. I was regaling my  friend--one my oldest and dearest, and frequently the recipient of both both my rants and my wrath--with my latest "this is going in the blog" story.

The topic--as it is more often than not these days--was the constant state of wonder in which I find myself after talking to my students. And I'm not talking about that innocent "snow-falling-on-cedars" type of wonder. I'm talking "I wonder what I did in a past life to deserve this" kind of wonder.

It's that time of year again, and later this week I'm collecting term papers. With the papers due in two short days, I'd like to think that most people's papers are done, and they will be spending these next few days leisurely and thoroughly proofreading and reviewing their work.

Yeah, and while I'm dreaming, I'd also like a pony.

The more likely reality was driven home today by the student that came up to me after class, practically in tears. She was just getting ready to start writing her paper, was one source shy of the five that I require, and was at her wit's end. There's nothing online, she said. I've looked everywhere.

When I asked her where exactly she had looked, she recounted a frantic weekend filled with Google searches and Wiki-reading, and trips down a variety of other cyber-dead ends. By the end of her tale, she was visibly rattled. I almost felt bad for her, until I asked what she had found in the library.

She blinked, and looked completely baffled. The library? she asked, looking honestly and completely baffled.

Now I've been here a while. And I'm not ashamed to admit that I ache when it rains, need glasses to read, and still bust out the cassette player from time to time. But I've never felt as old as when this told me she didn't know that she could use a book as a research source.

There's an article that appeared in The Atlantic a few years ago. I make my students read it every semester. Called "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", it details how the web is slowly but surely "chipping away" at our ability to concentrate on anything slower than the speed of the Google search. No wonder the library's becoming obsolete.

Not that it stopped me from literally presenting my class with a map to the library, and ensuring them that yes, books are fine. Books are good. Archaic, perhaps, but in my class, they'll never be turned away.

Wanna see what I mean? Stop by my class anytime. Or check out the article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/#

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to curl up with a good book and call it a night.

What's in a name, anyway?

It's now week twelve of the semester. At this point, the end is closer than the start, "panic mode" is just around the corner, and students have begun to turn every class into a math class, calculating that crucial ratio between the points they've earned and the points that are left, in a desperate effort to determine the magic number they need to get an A, a B, or simply to survive the course.

I'd love to help them with that. I really would. But seeing that I can barely balance a checkbook, I don't think they'd want my help anyway.

For those--like me--who are either unwilling or unable to do the computations for themselves, this is the time of year where they fill my email box fills with requests for meetings, or questions about assignments. And while I'm not the best with names myself, I'm always amused at who my students THINK I am.

Now I'm hardly one to throw stones in this regard. After all, my ineptitude with names is  the stuff of Rate My Professor lore. As one of my former students wrote, "she'll never get your name right, but she'll always mispronounce it with a smile."

That student should count herself lucky. I ALWAYS remember the bad ones...

Now in my own defense, learning names when you teach a full load is a Herculean undertaking. Fifty-plus students times four classes, and they're lucky I know my OWN name. And I know who most of them are by the end of the semester. Unfortunately that's when everyone leaves, and the cycle begins anew.

Students, however, have it easy. Even those with a full load have six, perhaps seven names to learn. You'd think given those odds, by the middle of the semester, they'd get those names straight.

You'd be wrong.

I've long since given up trying to correct people. After all, I'd rather have them in class to get my name wrong, than correctly identifying me from afar. And most people at least make an effort. Some students even come close. Others get good at faking it, relying on titles alone.

When talking about this with a friend of mine--one NOT in academia, I might add--she shook her head. "Can't they just look you up on the Internet rather than risk becoming a topic for your blog?"

I shrugged and agreed. But even that's not always foolproof, as a colleague of mine learned earlier this semester.

The course listings at our school are not always updated regularly. Not surprising, given that our state could give Greece a run for its money--no pun intended. And while the professors of record are usually updated at some point, every once in a while a generic listing of "staff" is overlooked. 

Sure enough, this colleague received an email addressed to Dr. Staff. This would have been understandable, too, if her name wasn't in her email address.

So students, take the "A" for effort. It may be the only one you see...

Saskatchewan, here I come...

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I don't like where we're headed.

It's midterms again. They snuck up on me when I wasn't looking. Granted, I've been a little busy these days, as I'm now firmly entrenched in the wonderful life of a 1L (see my last, long-ago post). But I'm oddly comforted knowing that despite the quasi-psychosis that is my life of late, some things never change.

Take the exam I gave today for example. Five minutes before the exam was to start, a student came in and approached the lectern. I didn't remember seeing him before, but that wasn't unusual. After all, on exam day, all the Visitors come out to play. However, he strode to the podium with the unbridled confidence of a man on a mission, and one that was certain that he'd be getting his way.

I'm sure that's how he was picturing it in his OWN mind, anyway. But again, I digress.

He reached the lectern and proceeded to tell me that he wasn't prepared for the exam and he wasn't going to take it today. It wasn't a question of could he skip the test. He was set on doing it.

He was quite upset when I informed him that wasn't how it worked.

My exam policy is simple. Barring some extreme exigent circumstance or strange act of whatever god you believe in, you take the exam on time, or you don't take it all. Of course, I relayed this information using smaller words and slower diction. His response?

Crickets.

After a moment, he blinked and shook his head and informed that he hadn't been in class for a while. However, when I asked him if the absence was excused, he wasn't even able to come up with a good lie. He simply reiterated that he hadn't been in class, and furthermore I wasn't being fair for making him take the exam with the rest of the class.

Yet again, I'm not fair. Silly me.

I guess in a way, given the insanity I'm facing this semester, it's oddly comforting that some things never change.

And for the record he did take the exam. Or at least, he filled in the bubbles on the scantron form. Unfortunately they were the answers for the person sitting next to him, who was taking a different version of the exam, but that's a blog for another day.

 Am I scared for the future? You bet your ass.

Saskatchewan, here I come...

New Directions...

And...we're back.

While I had planned to take a small hiatus, I'd hoped to be back much sooner than this, regaling you all with witty anecdotes from my summer classes. Thanks to budget woes in my home state, however, my class got the axe, and I got an impromptu and elongated summer vacation. But now I'm back, and while I'm not necessarily better than ever, I'm going to have my work cut out for me this coming semester.

A little background, if you will.

I've been teaching for about 11 years. And despite the rants and raves and visions of disillusionment held within this blog, I love my job. But I also love to learn. I often look out at my students, envious of the opportunity they have to expand their educational horizons. I think back to my own undergraduate career and wonder how we survived without smart phones and the Internet. I remember having to physically go to the library. Many of my current students can barely locate the structure, let alone claim to have set foot inside of it. If I had then what my students have now...hell, who knows. Maybe my office would be a shape other than a square.

Well, okay. That's a bit of an exaggeration. And after the drama of late, I don't want that job anyway.

Flash back to about two years ago. A friend of mine mentioned in passing that she was thinking about taking the LSAT. For those of you who aren't versed in the alphabet soup of academia, that stands for Law School  Admissions Test, the gateway to acceptance to Law School. If you're not a fan of standardized tests, look away now. This one is a doozy, complete with nearly incomprehensible reading comprehension sections, logic skills, and my personal torture device--the deadly Logic Games section.

Games. The most tragically misnamed element ever.

When I think "games", I think of something that is mildly entertaining at the least. Logic games--no so much. Imagine a word problem, like the ones from your middle-school math class. Joey leaves San Francisco going 30 miles an hour at the same time Mike leaves Los Angeles going 50 miles an hour. In logic games, not only do you have to know when they're going to meet, you have to know what they're wearing and what they've had for breakfast for the last three days.

And if you're thinking, "hey, that DOES sound like fun...", the next LSAT is being administered in December. I still have my study guides if you want to borrow them.

Despite the horror of taking yet another standardized test, I told my friend that I would take it with her. This action  was not necessarily a whim, or a polite action to support my friend. The classes I teach are closely related to the legal profession, and I've knocked around the idea of attending law school for many years. I just needed a good kick start, and my friend's offer was exactly what I needed to gear up for the next chapter in my own education. To that end, I studied for, and ultimately completed the LSAT. Ironically, my friend who spurred me on has yet to take the test, as she fell victim to a collection of career and personal obligations. 

I knew I wanted to keep my teaching job, so I applied for part time status at several local law schools. My LSAT scores were good enough, but not great--a category a dear friend of mine calls "meh". With 'meh'-scores and the constraints of homeownership, a career, and the like, I wasn't optimistic about getting in.

To my surprise, I was accepted at my alma mater, which happens to also be my current employer. I remember turning the acceptance letter over and over in my hands, vacillating between excitement, delight, and abject terror. Just like that, I was going to be a student again. Class of 2014--or whenever my part-time status gets me out the door in a cap and gown.

Here's where this blog comes in.

I originally named this blog the way I did because I've taught these classes for many years, and teaching them comes naturally. Now, however, I'll be juggling not only a full time teaching schedule, but life as a "1L"--the common designation for first year law students. You'll be happy to know the terror has subsided a little. I expect, though--at least for a little while--that teaching in my sleep is going to take on a whole new meaning as I tackle the university from both sides of the desk.

So don't be surprised if, from time to time, you see a smattering of my own experiences within this space. Although, I make no guarantees on the frequency or coherency of blog posts to come. If nothing else, they should be fun to read.

Wish me luck. Something tells me I'm going to need it...