Impromptu Poll
Okay, so you're a professor of philosophy teaching an intro class that has approximately 400 students in it. Your stated cell phone policy is "No texting/talking on the cell phone in class." One day, you notice a chick in the front row just texting like the wind. Do you:
A: Ask the student to stop texting in class
B: Confiscate the cell phone
C: Storm out of class in a huff and send a long, racially-tinged diatribe to all the students as well as the college administrators
D: Tazer the holy hell out of the kid and stand athwart her unconscious body screaming "ATTICA! ATTICA!"
If you're this guy, you'd choose C, then sit back and watch the collective freaking out begin.
Follow-up poll:
You're an academic, and you come across a story about a professor who walks out of his class because a student was texting during the lecture, then followed up by sending a long, racially-tinged diatribe to all the students in the class as well as select college adminstrators. Naturally, being an academic, you are SHOCKED! And must post a reply. Are you more horrified at:
A: The fact that the professor punished 400 students for the actions of one
B: The fact that the professor dragged race into the whole kerfuffle--and then use said shock to segue into your thoughts on diversity/politics/what is WRONG with you people in general...
C: The fact that the academy is still using the outmoded "lecture" method of teaching--and then use said shock to segue into your thoughts on pedagogy in general...
D: The attitude of entitlement pervading "kids these days"--and then use said shock to segue into your thoughts on giving professors properly obsequious respect...
E: The fact that more people don't do this--then use said shock to segue into your thoughts on classroom management tactics in general...
F: The fact that the professor misused/misspelled a word in his rant
G: The elitism apparent in everyone who picked option D in this poll
H: The fact that tazers aren't standard issue to professors in large lecture situations
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Hey! I know this guy! We work in some of the same areas (e.g. Family and the Political Self -- though our theses are, well, rather opposed).
My answer is I. Send my CV to Syracuse and ask for his job.
1) D, except yell "Do you feel texty now, punk? Well, do you?"
2) H. They should be built in to the seats so that the professor doesn't even need to aim.
Texting is disruptive how, exactly? As long as student A is not preventing student B from attending to the lecture, so what? This guy has such a big head that he thinks that every single member of a 400 student class is supposed to spend the entire lecture completely enthralled? And music during a lecture? That would distract the hell out of me! Could I ask him to turn it off?
The fact that he can't hold his students' attention speaks volumes.
I used to tell my students they could do whatever they wanted in class as long as they didn't bother anyone else. When I taught in the early morning I always got a number of "sleepers". So what? The inattentive and distracted got paid back at exam time because most of the questions were from the lectures. When they came in to complain about their grades I'd point out to them their classroom habits and suggest that they might want to tighten up a little bit. Generally the problem was solved.
I'd confiscate the cell phone. Then I'd continue lecturing.
I'd have put on my syllabus that if you text in class I will confiscate your phone.
How about:
E: Suddenly realize you're even more bored with your students than they are with you and run away to become an Aimee Semple McPherson impersonator.
There's no option, in the first set, for humiliating her in front of the class by asking her to read the texts out loud? That's what my grade school teachers did when we used to pass notes (which you could see as a kind of Ur-texting.)
I don't know. While I tend to be kind of laissez-faire in some areas, when you have a 30-student class and someone's texting...or reading a book...or necking with the guy next to them, it kind of gets under my skin.
Especially when the people who do those things come in the last week of classes in tears, trying to beg me to "give" them a passing grade even though they've done boo all semester long.
I suppose in the long run, the answer is: if they're not being disruptive to other students, let the university continue to take their money, because doubtless they will be repeating the class. Job security, yay.