All Posts Tagged With: "Classroom conflicts"
The day I left class
I understand if students don’t have enough respect for me to pay attention, but they at least ought to have enough respect for themselves.
Two Ryerson profs created more waves than they probably meant to recently when they decided that they would simply stop teaching and leave class if things became too rowdy. Critics seem to take the view that while their concerns may be valid, there must be a better way.
As a professor, I am particularly sympathetic to the plight of the Ryerson Two, since I know first hand how soul-destroying it can be to do everything you can to be engaging about a fascinating topic and still watch students pass notes back and forth or try to make their cell phone spin like a top. I have never walked out for the reasons cited by the Ryerson profs. The most I’ve ever done on that score is stop teaching, walk over to an offending quartet and tell them quietly that they were causing a distraction. This was so mortifying to all of us that it was never needed again. But then, my classes are fairly small compared to those at most universities, and I can easily stroll over a few steps and correct the behaviour of a few students. But I wouldn’t want to climb the stairs to the back of a big lecture hall to tell off dozens of malcontents.
But one day I did walk out.
I had just graded a pile of papers so that I could hand them back in class. There were nine papers in the pile and of those nine, three of them had been blatantly plagiarized. And they were not the only ones that year. I had had enough and felt like I had to do something to convey to my students how serious the problem was. So I went into class and gave a very stern lecture about why plagiarism was wrong, about how it was an insult to me, to other students, and to the academy in general. Plus it was stupid because a bunch of them now had zeroes on their papers.
And then I left.
I don’t know what was said in the room after I was gone, but I’m pretty sure it made an impression. A student later told me that everyone in the class was now “paranoid” about citing sources correctly, which, in a way, was what I wanted because what they viewed as paranoid was merely what I considered diligent.
My case, of course, was something different than what the Ryerson profs are doing (or said they would do). It was a one-time thing, not a regular policy, and it was designed to make a particular point to the students, to actually teach them something. In that case, I felt like I could teach them more by leaving than I could by staying.
Looking back, I’m not entirely sure whether I did the right thing. There was no more misuse of sources that year, but when evaluations came around, it became clear that a lot of students were hurt because they felt they were being yelled at because of what other students did. No doubt some Ryerson students feel the same way about their profs walking out. And how much less will they learn because they no longer feel like they are being treated fairly?
Of course, it should never have had to come to that, and it should never have come to this. Students should pay attention for the simple reason that they should be embarrassed not to.
Each year, I talk to my students about my expectations around behaviour in class, including refraining from using their phones and laptops instead of paying attention. The reason I usually give is that it provides a distraction — not just to them but to other students and to me as well. But next year, I’m going to give another reason why students should pay attention: because anything else is beneath them. They are university students, for whom thousands of dollars of theirs (or their parents) and the taxpayers’ money is being spent so they can be there and to learn. They seek a university degree, a centuries-old designation, and a time-honoured mark of the educated man or woman. To do anything but pay attention is gormless and infantile.
I understand if students don’t have enough respect for me to pay attention, but they at least ought to have enough respect for themselves.
Dealing with classroom disruption
While bailing on students seems attractive, profs should find better solutions
Professors at Ryerson University are taking an interesting approach to dealing with a high volume of inappropriate disruptions in class. And it’s hard to blame them.
Paper airplanes whizzing past their heads, movies played at high volume during their lectures. It sounds like a free-for-all. One student even complained that it was hard to hear the lecture, even though he was sitting in the front row.
The two engineering professors, Robert Gossage and Andrew McWilliams, announced that if the behaviour continued, they would simply leave the class and it would then be up to the students to learn the material on their own. They also threatened to make midterm questions more difficult since “the class appeared to know the material well enough so as not to listen during lecture.”
But as satisfying as these strategies might be for teachers — and as much as thousands of teachers across the country have wished to be able to do the same — there’s a reason why we don’t hear about it very often: It’s irresponsible and ineffective.
Dealing with disruptive students in the classroom is difficult. Nobody is going to argue that point. But because it’s so difficult, resources exist at every institution, from kindergarten to grad school, to help handle the situation.
Most universities have established standards and procedures for escalating responses to disruptive students. Everything from staring them down in the middle of the class to banning their attendance until they show respect for their fellow students is explored in a number of academic articles.
Ryerson University president Sheldon Levy told the Eyeopener that walking out of the classroom as a means of dealing with disruptive students “doesn’t sound to me like it would be in our policy.”
He’s right. It’s not in anybody’s policy.
Ryerson’s two engineering professors became folk heroes among teachers in the same way that Steven Slater became a folk hero among flight attendants when he escaped via the emergency hatch after verbally berating a passenger. Everyone wishes they could do it, but almost nobody actually does.
Maybe it comes down to how Ryerson trains its teachers. Or maybe it comes down to frustration at a frustrating job. But Ryerson’s two professors should take a closer look at the literature on dealing with disruptive students. Escape hatches aren’t an option in this scenario.
Three strikes and I’m out
Ryerson profs threaten to walk out on their unruly students
Two engineering professors at Ryerson University have had enough of their unruly first-year students. After enduring weeks of disruptions from music playing laptops, constant talking and even a few paper airplanes, Robert Gossage and Andrew McWilliams are threatening to walk out on their classes.
In a posting on a university website, the two professors announced that they will be employing a “three strike” policy for their first-year chemistry courses. “After three warnings the professor would walk out and it would be up to students to learn the rest of the lecture material on their own,” the Eyeopener reported. Gossage and McWilliams also pledged to raise the difficulty of exam questions because “the class appeared to know the material well enough so as not to listen during lecture.”
Student conduct officer, Mickey Cirak, said the professors would be advised to address the problem in a more conventional way. “The approaches that can be used range anywhere from speaking to the entire class, to putting expectations on the syllabus all the way to taking action with individual students and filing a formal complaint,” he said.
