How can I do better in this class?

There are lots of variations to this question, but typically the querry is heard during the last week of class from a failing or near-failing student. It is the last, and all-too-often the first, desperate attempt to demonstrate to the instructor a level of effort to merit a decent grade.* This is usually a fairly transparent plea for mercy with the plaintive hope that the demonstration of interest will garner clemency or at least an "edge" (hints/answers for exam, compassion for the sad story, a "deal" to allow for a grade upgrade, etc.). Sometimes it is more tragic in that they've been in the deep end of the pool for too long, and there are now no preservers to get them back to the edge. Yet we still go through the charade, going over material, outlining preparation methods, suggesting to the point of clubbing them over the head as to how to perform better, knowing all the while that most won't hear any of this as their visit is simply seeking papal dispensation. I wonder if they know what we're thinking during "the dance," which is that the only way to do markedly better in the class at this point is to book a trip to Lourdes.

* A somewhat related but more curious phenomenon is the student who has been AWOL for most of the semester who then suddenly shows up at the end, but rather than visit you to try to emotionally manipulate you with their particular tale of woe, they assiduously attend to the last few classes and assignments, apparently oblivious to the fact that there is no chance to pass the class without a reprieve from the governor. I actually have a strange respect- and pity, perhaps- for the honorable stoicism of this Polyannic futility.

Can I have an extension?

-or incomplete, or whatever is required now completed later?

Yes, instructors should be flexible and usually are, but what we are talking about here is the pervasive attitude that the reason that an accomodation should be made is because the student wants it. I once had someone ask me to move back an assignment because they were having a party that weekend (my response was that they had my permission to study early). The child-centric society attempts to become the student-centric university.

Can I take a make-up?

-or worse yet, the presumptuous "When can I take a make-up?"

There is the occasional student situation that may warrant a make-up, and if that's part of the class structure, fine. Yet when make-ups are not available, and even when provisions are made to make them unnecessary (drop a test, double-count a paper, etc.), students still ask, if not demand, for what they seem to think is their God-given right. I once knew an employer who would have a summer party for his employees, paid for by the employer's profits. He did this for several years, but one year, when business was bad, he decided to forego the party. Wouldn't you know it that the employees had their representatives storm into his office demanding that he restore their party, as he had no right to take it away from them. The point: his act of generousity had come to be regarded as an expectation, even a right. Similarly, students seem to think this way about make-ups. It is this attitude that is maddening, especially in those far-too-common instances where the "need" for a make-up is essentially a result of a choice based on priorities other than college, further exaccerbated by the expectation that it is the instructor's responsibility to fix the student's problem. While the character issues are frustrating, ultimately it is the underlying discounting of the value of education that we lament.

Will this be on the test?

There are a great many things that students shouldn't but often do say to professors. Easily number one on any list of annoying questions asked by students is the venerable "Will this be on the test?" This may have been the question that caused Socrates to conclude that the unexamined life is not worth living. How can anyone verbalize an inquiry that can so clearly signal such a profound lack of intelligence and manners? No single inquiry can so deflate the passion of an instructor. It is not a crime to be uninterested in a subject (and, relatedly, too interested in a grade), but it should be to so boldly and thoughtlessly announce it.

Emergency Appendectomy

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Is there any other kind?

Cut 'em some slack

I know, you get stuck behind them on the road, directional aimlessly flashing, careening down the thoroughfare at 28 mph, those old men with ears sticking out beneath outdated hats with sedans sporting "War Veteran" plates. Or perhaps you are behind the floral-scented blue-haired woman spending her golden years fishing through her enormous flowered "pocketbook" for an expired coupon or exact change. Yes, it feels like you are in the Matrix when near these toothless slothfossils, but the slowness in movements and thoughts, the sensory deficits, the bewildered frailty are not meant to annoy you. When you hurt, you get better; they do not. Your neurons are at full synaptic capacity; theirs about 50%. You think they don't understand you; they were you. And you will be them in the blink of a someday cataracted eye.

Cheating in the 21st Century

There was a time not long ago when academic honesty meant crib notes, frat exam files, and exam "sharing." While there is still the occasional formula written on an arm, well-placed cheat sheet, or exam "codes" (body/object manipulations representing answers, etc.), fraternity files have less relevance (as do fraternities, it seems), and "scoping" has not evolved beyond the basic baseball cap in the back of the room technique. What's different now is technology.

One reads/hears about text messaging being a cheating source, and it's easy to imagine laptops, calculators, ipods, etc., being programmed and used for nefarious purposes, but I suspect that this doesn't really happen anywhere except in the largest classes with the least attentive instructors, if then. Rather, the real problem is the internet and its impact on plagiarism.

In a practical sense, the internet sources are often difficult to locate unless the cheater is especially lazy (not exactly an uncommon attribute of cheaters) and uses a simple (ditto) search using obvious keywords. In the days when students knew where the library was, it was pretty simple, albeit time consuming, to walk over with a suspicious paper and locate the journal or book with the lifted passage. Now with the internet, it is significantly more difficult to identify and locate the plagiarism. For one thing, the majority of internet pieces are not particularly rigorous or well-written, in an academic sense, and might plausibly pass for the spell-checked work of a college student. For another, the internet is now essentially one big cliff note service, and the sheer magnitude of plagiarism sources makes detection problematic.

However, a much more fundamental problem is that many students just don't seem to understand what plagiarism is. In the old days, their dilemma was how to scramble the words sufficiently so that the words might pass as their own, or perhaps to discern what was common knowledge and what was not. Today, the concept of a citation is as foreign to them as the proper use of a semicolon. Oh, sometimes there will be a reference at the end of the paper, perhaps perceived as a get-out-of-jail-free card to account for any and all borrowed thoughts. Yet it may simply be a matter of not caring, or worse, looking for an edge. In both cases, this of course reduces to a matter of ethics. What are yours?

As I grow older I increasingly appreciate the fine line between negligence and willful misconduct.