I am really really upset about my midterm grade. I bombed it and i dont understand how I cuold have done so badly when I come to class every day and read the notes and i thougt I understood everything. I pay attention in class and all we ever do is [all this stupid stuff] when I signed up for this class i thogth we would be talking about [all this interesting stuff] and we dont. Can I even pass this class now? I don't know how to study can you tell me how im supposed to study for [all this stupid stuff]?Angry Student
Dear Angry Student,
I'm sorry that you're disappointed in your performance. Please see me during my office hours so we can discuss your concerns, and I will go through the exam with you so you can get some idea of what you're doing wrong.Angry Professor
Let me point out, however, that this is a class about [all this stupid stuff]. It is not a class about [all this interesting stuff]. When we talk about [interesting stuff] we do so to illustrate central ideas in [stupid stuff]. If you have been focusing on [interesting stuff] without regard for [stupid stuff] then you are missing the point.
(Angry Student has never come to my office hours, not once. He has never opened his mouth in class. Despite his howls of protest, he has not been present for three pop quizzes, and has not done any of the extra-credit assignments.)
7 comments:
I take it from your previous letter to Mary, he's disappointed there weren't more questions about UFOs and ESP on the midterm?
If that's the case, while it's sad to think he entered the course with a poor understanding of what it entailed, it is slightly cheering to think of what he must have felt like when he found it in the course catalog - "Aliens and ESP? My god, they were hiding all the cool stuff in the statistics* department all along!"
* "The last place anyone would look!"
The "Hey" especially hits a nerve. I can't stand it when my students don't use proper salutations. Even worse is when they don't sign their emails--like I'm supposed to know who 2hot4u@yahoo.com is.
When I was an undergrad, we weren't given our professor's email addresses . . . Of course, I was one of those students who hung out and drank beer with my professors! LOL, sometimes I learned more about the subject at hand over a pitcher of beer than I did in class (although I was in class daily taking copious notes . . .)
Sometimes people feel only enough distress to complain, and once they complain, they feel better. If he felt enough distress to actually do something, well now, that's when change occurs.
Yeah, I seem to get one of those after every test I give. You did the same thing that I do, have them come in during office hours, which never happens.
Even in rhetorical analysis, when they have a great deal of choice to write about different subjects, still, they must analyze the appeals. And this seems, to some, to really be limiting their scope. sigh.
Thank goodness I'm not the only instructor receiving ridiculous notes like that!
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