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...