I found a description of a teaching style that is the exact opposite of mine:
I’m actually pretty intolerant when it comes to what I expect a class of mine to run like. What Koshary describes about students waltzing in 20 minutes late and then proceeding to text? It doesn’t happen in my classes. I don’t tolerate it. I ask them to leave. With a smile on my face, and with a spring in my step, so the rest of the class thinks it’s funny, but I don’t hesitate. It happens, and they’re out. Do that a few times, and it stops. Late papers? I don’t care about your reasons: you lose a full letter grade a day. I don’t care if your grandmother died and you were in the hospital – deadlines are deadlines. You show up unprepared, and you’re out. You complain about the reading and I’ll tell you, again, with a smile on my face, that this is college and if you’re not prepared to do the work then you really should consider dropping out. And then I giggle. In front of the whole class.
Mind you, the goal of my post is not to criticize the educators who teach this way. Everybody has their own teaching style, and whatever works for each teacher is fine. I firmly believe that everybody should run their classroom the way that makes them happy, and nobody should have anything to say about it. I just want to share what my approach is. The blogger I quoted is an admirable educator and scholar, and I’m in no way trying to be critical of her personally.
My approach, however, is different. I believe that my duty to the students consists of arriving in class, delivering the material, grading their work, answering emails with course-related questions, and being available for office hours. And that is where my duty ends. I’m not their Mommy, their life coach, probation officer, boot camp trainer, or nursemaid. I don’t have time or energy to police them.
This is why I don’t care how late, early, or at all they show up for class. I don’t care if they are listening to the lecture or texting furiously to their friends. Students are adults, and it is up to them to decide whether texting is more important to them than the lecture. Who am I to impose my system of priorities on them?
I have a student who always sleeps in class. The moment I come in, he plops his head on the desk and falls asleep. Maybe the sight of me does it to him, I don’t know. Today, we had a mini-quiz in the last 15 minutes of class, so other students had to make significant efforts to wake him for that. I never tried waking him during my lectures, though. He is a grown-up who decided that sleeping is more important to him at this point in life, so good for him. Why do I need to waste time on discussing this with him or waking him?
I also don’t listen to excuses as to why students have to be absent. I just let them go. If this means they need to come to my office later and write the mini-quiz or the exam there, why should I mind? I will be in the office during the office hours anyways.
As for late assignments, I never lower grades for them. Why should I? I grade the quality of writing. I’m a scholar of literature and that’s the only thing I teach. Personality flaws should be addressed by therapists at a patient’s request. I have never refused to accept late assignments. It’s actually easier to have them all spaced out in time because, honestly, who wants to grade 42 essays in one sitting?
You’d think that as a result of this attitude my classes would be an out of control mess, right? Students arriving late, barely ever showing up for class, asking to rewrite exams weeks after they were given, handing in assignments egregiously late, etc. Actually, this is not nearly the case.
Students see that I respect them and respond with respect. I can’t remember the last time a student was late for class. Nobody interrupts me, nobody talks while I talk. We have written 3 mini-quizzes and one midterm in one class this semester and 2 mini-quizzes in another class. Out of all these tests, only two students came by my office to do them outside of the class time. One of those students hopped in on crutches, too. Students love me for being so laid back. I love them, too, because I made a decision a long time ago never to be ruffled by other people’s decisions not to do homework, skip class, or snooze during my lectures.
This is why on campus I always walk around with a beatific smile on my lips. Since I don’t allow things that have nothing to do with me to upset or annoy me, I always have a fantastic, stress-free time teaching.
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