A Funny Teaching Story

Published by

Clarissa

February 22, 2012

I know you like them. 🙂

We are practicing irregular verbs in the Preterite (those who have taken Spanish know what a pain in the behind those verbs are) when a student suddenly explodes.

Student: I don’t understand how everybody else is just guessing these conjugations!

Clarissa: They aren’t guessing, Andrew. They are consulting pages 267-8.

Student: Pages 267-8 where?

Clarissa: In the textbook.

Student: How did everybody just know that they had to look at pages 267-8?

Clarissa: It was our homework for today.

Student: Our homework? Where do I find the homework? Do you post it online somewhere?

Clarissa: It’s in the syllabus.

Student: Oh, the syllabus. . . I had no idea I was supposed to keep it. Do you have an extra copy?

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12 responses to “A Funny Teaching Story”

Tim

February 22, 2012

What is a syllabus? 😀

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Elizabeth

February 22, 2012

A lot of the syllabuses I got were “this is an amazing class and so interesting and please ask me if you have any questions at all, and by the way heres the attendance policy” and not much else. So maybe the student has been trained not to take them seriously.

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1. David Gendron
  
  February 22, 2012
  
  Attendance policy????
  
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  1. David Bellamy
    
    February 22, 2012
    
    My attendance policy this term is that after the end of late registration, a student gets one point credit (of a little over 110 required for an A, for example) for each day the student attends class. Thus, missing a class leads to the necessity of doing just a bit more work. The reason is that listening to what other students say or present in class cannot be made up.
    
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Off Duty Mom

February 22, 2012

Awesome. I have taught and worked in school administration at the secondary level since 1999. I could fill a book with the funny crap I have heard kids say (and the not-so-funny or even sort of tragically awful things they’ve said, too). Maybe that’s an idea for people like us… 😉

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Isabel

February 22, 2012

haha just today, on the eve of their first midterm, the students I TA asked for advice for studying for the test. I suggested using the professor’s notes (published online after every lecture) as a guide and one student said “There are notes??”

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  February 22, 2012
  
  🙂 🙂 It’s like that joke where during the final exam the prof asks if there are any questions and one student asks, “What’s the name of the course?”
  
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Fie Upon This Quiet Life

February 22, 2012

I think I’ve had this exact conversation 35 times already this term, and it’s not even spring break yet.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  February 22, 2012
  
  Good to know I’m not alone! 🙂
  
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David Bellamy

February 22, 2012

Do you spend time the first day explaining the syllabus in case anything is not clearly written? I find this helpful.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  February 22, 2012
  
  Of course! I explain this at length and reiterate why the syllabus is very very important. My sillabi are always extremely detailed, so that people who have missed a class know exactly what was don in class on that day and can catch up.
  
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scratchy888

February 23, 2012

That used to be me in school. How does everyone know stuff? I daydream too much.

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