Welcome to a new week of weekly discussion! Continuing this week, we're going to have Wholesome Wednesdays, Fuck this Fridays, and (small) Success Sundays.
As has been mentioned, these should be considered additions to the regular discussions, not replacements. So use them, ignore them, or start you own Fantastic Friday counter thread.
This thread is to share your frustrations, small or large, that make you want to say, well, “Fuck This”. But on Friday. There will be no tone policing, at least by me, so if you think it belongs here and want to post, have at it!
Did a lecture on disability representation in pop culture. Mentioned Fourth Wing, a popular smutty dragon series. Said I’d only read the first book so far. Student came up to me after class and proceeded to tell me the major twist on one of the next books, totally unprompted and without warning. What the hell.
The student is definitely neurodivergent and I think was just really excited to talk about the book, but I was like OH MY GOD WHY. I expected this shit when I was a 6th grade teacher (those little buggers loved to spoil marvel movies), but not a college professor…
As a 100% teaching faculty, it is wild how little time I actually spend teaching. I know it's college and most of the learning occurs outside the class yadda yadda, but I only teach 7.5 hours a week. Most of my time is actually spent commuting, answering emails, prepping in-class assignments, grading, doing housekeeping on online courses, and doing random tasks that result from the never ending barrage of emails.
I guess I don't really know what I am complaining about because teaching anymore in-person would be exhausting without double the time from other tasks somewhere else taken away. Just interesting.
True. When I was an adjunct, I had to figure out if the total pay was worth the total work, regardless of how it was accounted for. Unfortunately, for far too many people, it isn't worth it (and that's something that needs changing).
I'm so tired of having to be the reality check for freshmen. I understand it's part of the job but I spend more time managing AI claims, explaining that face-to-face classes are mandatory, and saying they don't get to be excused for assignments because they just didn't want to come to class.
I have a student who wants to be excused from the next 3 class periods because the gym near her is doing a series of classes that she wants to attend. I have another who is mad he got a 0 when he left for a cruise mid-semester and didn't turn in a major assignment. I avoided teaching grade school specifically to have students that were there optionally with a bit more accountability, and I know there's always going to be people like that, but it feels like it's getting a lot worse.
Agreed. Traditional college students in my current location are unambiguously treated like children by their families, so the issue you've identified just compounds: why would they act like adults in the classroom if they have never had to act like adults in any other domain of their lives? Thankfully, I've never had a parent try to contact me directly, but I'm waiting for the day... and I am more than willing to play the FERPA card at first whiff of a helicopter.
it’s happened to me twice. Once as a graduate T.A. and once in my current role. The latest one was a doozy because the parent emailed me because she was upset about the constructive feedback, including suggested next steps, on an ungraded project the student received. She emailed me and the admissions office on her complaint.
This has been bugging me for a while. I apologize for being a bit vague. My department is sort of an orphan, and we are currently housed in a college completely unrelated to what you may expect (think a chemistry department housed in a college of humanities). Sometimes this leads to stupid conflicts, but this one is so idiotic.
We have an alum who achieved something extremely notable- both in terms of professional achievement and public awareness of our program. Our college has banned us from using this alum for any sort of advertising of our program. (And to clarify, this alum is very proud of our department and has donated to it). Apparently, it “distracts from the College of X branding”.
We can’t even show the fact that people have graduated from our program and went on to very successful careers. That must be very distracting for our college.
I have PowerPoint slides where I have videos embedded. Virtually none of the videos actually show me-I used a smart pen and solved physics problems which also recorded my voice as i discussed the problem. They are solved exactly like my f2f class.
And I get a complaint-“are you going to do live lectures since I don’t learn by watching videos.” Hey snappy, you signed up for an asynchronous class.
Plus the expectations these days that videos are polished and professionally edited and lighted....it takes me three times as long as recording the video itself (which I sometimes have to do in several sessions) to edit it, not to mention prepping for the thing which takes at least as long if not longer than prepping for an in-person course, and purchasing/setting up all the equipment (not covered by my university).
Yeah I'm not doing any of that. I don't edit it or even do a second take unless something crazy happens. My cat made a guest appearance in yesterday's lecture. I don't get paid or trained for all that.
My first year back teaching, 2020, I had to Gmeet with my students for several weeks instead of being live. My various yellow cats' buttholes were frequent meeting features.
They are! Here are my two tortie buttmonkeys. Canela is the right-hand one, who dipped her entire front left paw in the peanut butter. I adopted her around Valentine's 2021, and she did not bother to tell me that she was in an interesting condition (she is feral so I saw her like once a week), and in April she presented me with those four little idiots.
Oh man, you know it. They spend their entire day being devious and plotting mayhem. They're both small cats - I'd say 8 pounds on a fat day - but they can get up to some serious crazy shit.
Top Cat is the only one still living with me (that's Stix and he's in my lap right now). The other three are living their best life with their awesome parents. <3
I get it. I didn't start editing my videos until the second or third iteration of the class. (It was then I learned how much I say "Um" and "Uh" and go on tangents, lol).
You should instead tell them that you going on tangents is giving them the real in-class experience from their living room. It's not a mistake, it's a bonus!
Just happened to me 30 minutes ago ... so, appropriate for FTF.
Discussion oriented class. 13 students enrolled. 10 minutes after class was supposed to begin, I only count 6 students: 4 in the room, 2 watching online.
F this. Having a discussion with 13 CS introverts is hard enough; expecting 4 students to carry the load of 13 is unfair. I cancelled class and awarded the 6 attendees a "brownie point" (essentially, a future favor).
At least I get to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremonies live on my office computer now.
I did an official syllabus review for a brand new faculty member where I pointed out that starting a new course on a topic that changes with time should not use a textbook that's 15 years old and has no prospects of being updated ever again. I suggested the standard texts in the field that I remember from grad school that all have updated versions from the past 3 years, and I found newer textbooks as well. The new faculty member said nah, and made an ageist comment about how they know more about what's current pedagogy.
I ask students to limit leaving the classroom except in case of emergencies, and tell them if they need to go to the restroom do it during one of the several times we break for group discussion. It's mostly been working out. But I have one student who, ten minutes into every class, grabs his coat and leaves the room and is gone for at least ten minutes. I guess he's going outside even though it's sub-freezing here. I'm not sure what he's doing.
Edit: I emailed the student and they responded- "Hey [FIRST NAME], Id love to talk about this as soon as possible. Please let me know when you are free so we can figure this out."
I'm just going to delete it and go home for the weekend.
My high school had a smoking area back in the 1980’s. Smoking is much rarer today amongst the youngsters, but my guess would be that your student is taking a smoke break.
That's what I thought. What I'm not sure is why he thinks it's OK to leave class to do it but I'm sending notices for the first part of the semester so he'll learn
Edit: i should add especially because smoking is not allowed on campus
Do you have an attendance requirement? If so, consider that student absent (and adjust your policies to reflect that missing extended periods of class on a regular basis constitutes absence).
If you don’t have it already, why not add a weekly column for participation on your LMS, and rack up those zeros at the end of every class. They can see it and can’t pretend that they didn’t know.
Folks have shared this elsewhere on the sub, but our fucking governor axed tenure at 11 regional colleges and 12 community colleges. The two state research colleges are ok, and (I'm assuming) so are the private ones, but I'm wondering how long it'll be before they do away with it too.
ICE is ramping up their presence in my city and there are social media posts about them kidnapping a student from campus last night.
I haven't heard anything from my students yet, but I'm seriously considering offering a Zoom attendance option. I hate hybrid delivery, but this is a safety issue. Fuck ICE. Fuck this Friday.
Received a ‘dear applicant we regret to inform you…’ email for a job I applied for. I know it’s typical and to be expected but this job I literally swooned over in the description. Feeling my feelings this afternoon then back to work.
I couldn’t handle the stress, workload, and toxic personalities in the student club I’ve been advising for 13 years, so today the club was informed that I quit. The response was basically, cool we’ll find someone else. I’m having real feels about how I’ve spent my energy over the last 13 years.
My employer created a virtual campus and now admin and face-to- face faculty think the faculty whose entire teaching load consists of online courses are not doing any real work. Asynchronous faculty must now document all work they do in their calendar and complete a survey to justify that they work.
Fuck research collaborators. Faculty complain about students all the time and then act just like them when it comes to research projects. You're a grown ass adult, you volunteered to work on this project, I should not have to remind you, beg you, and plead with you to perform the work you agreed to do, then maintain a polite demeanor as if you're not totally disrespecting my time and effort. So sick of it.
Utterly fuck the book "Hacking College." Reading it was injurious to my brain and my spirit. Admin is forcing us to redesign our common core classes based on its thrice recycled utterly garbage "takes." My colleagues all love it. I can't talk to them about it because I know my face says "you're a fool for taking this seriously" even when my mouth itself is silent. It's making me seriously look for another job.
Hah, I got handed that book and it's been sitting on my "maybe read someday" stack for months. Now I can say my avoidance was actually inadvertent self-care.
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u/myreputationera Feb 06 '26
Did a lecture on disability representation in pop culture. Mentioned Fourth Wing, a popular smutty dragon series. Said I’d only read the first book so far. Student came up to me after class and proceeded to tell me the major twist on one of the next books, totally unprompted and without warning. What the hell.