These students are going to drive me nuts! Now one of them has decided that “read the novel you will be analyzing” means “find some half-assed, abbreviated, error-ridden translation of the novel online and waste a month reading it.”
No matter how many lists of possible fuck-ups I amass and warn the students about on the first day of class, there is always some bizarre way of going about things that they manage to invent.
I have noticed that the resistance to visiting a library is so huge that students prefer to download some crap from the Internet, pay significant amounts of money to Amazon for sending them books they later discover they don’t need, anything to avoid going to the library and simply checking out the book they need. This is a sad mystery.
Clarissa's Blog 
This is something way more awful than citing some think tank in a project…
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I know, things get progressively worse as the day unfolds.
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Why they don’t regroup an buy only one copy?
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Nobody even needs to buy anything. These books are at the library, I just checked!
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It’s even worse that what I thought first! 😦
So, someone has to teach them step-by-step how to use a library? Jeez….
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“So, someone has to teach them step-by-step how to use a library? Jeez….”
– And we have done that!!! There was a workshop at the library specifically for that purpose. I honestly don’t know what more I can do.
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If the library has one copy and thirty studentrs need a copy, they cannot all use a library copy. Someone needs to buy a copy. Most students, in fact, will need ot do so.
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These are individual assignments. Only one student needs each book.
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But if they don’t go at this workshop? Jeez, I tought that I was lazy…
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The reading materials thing seems like a generational thing. As a cohort millenials are distinguished by avoidance of social situations, especially, unplanned ones.
A library is probably going to have people they don’t know inside and they’ll have to …. interact with them (ick!). How much safer and more comfortable to bask in the warm nurturing glow of mother computer and order things from the machine… sometimes think EM Forster must have been a time traveller,
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I have Asperger’s, I avoid social contact like the plague. But even I wouldn’t spend $35 on a book just to see if it might be useful for my research and miss the first due date for the assignment waiting for it to arrive – and all that simply to avoid people.
I think parents should probably take children to libraries from early childhood, just to get them used to the concept.
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“there is always some bizarre way of going about things that they manage to invent”
I can’t even get mad at this anymore. I’ve taken an “enjoy the ride” attitude toward bizarre misunderstandings of what I was sure were simple and unambiguous instructions.
What can still get me upset is someone who hands something in based on what a friend told them the assignment was (instead of looking at the written instructions handed out).
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“What can still get me upset is someone who hands something in based on what a friend told them the assignment was (instead of looking at the written instructions handed out).”
– Oh yes, I know! In my courses this is called “other kids have been telling me. . .” First of all, who are “kids” in a university classroom? And second, why is what they are saying more correct that what I’m saying, given that I will be grading the assignment?
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I love the library at my university! It’s very fun to wander through the stacks and pick out books, even if they’re not relevant to the research/paper/project I’m working on, I file them away for later inspiration. It also has a lot of natural light, which is a nice change from some of my other study spots.
I guess your students never learned the little ditty: “Having fun (or, in this case, getting A’s) isn’t that hard, if you have a library card.”
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For what number of days can the book be loaned? Are there enough books for all students? May be it’s for 1 night or only several days, and student is fined for being late.
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Why is everybody so ready to suspect that I’m an idiot? 🙂
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