I have a disruptive student in my ESP and Aliens class. She sits right in front and, I'm guessing, has deluded herself into thinking that my lectures are a private conversation between me and her. After I try to make some point (e.g., objective reality is more fun than magical thinking), she will go off into a stream-of-consciousness monologue describing her personal views and experiences, and this monologue rarely touches on class material. It frequently begins with the statement, "I could not disagree with you more." When I call on other students to provide their comments or criticisms of the topic, students who have politely raised their hands to indicate they have something to contribute, she talks over them.
This sort of behavior is fairly common in this class, which tends to attract students who believe that their personal experiences with the weird are more important than anything science might have to say about it. In the social sciences especially there are students who do not see the need for learning empirical facts, and who believe instead that the answers to social science questions can be intuited with common sense. While I admit in some cases this may be true, there are many questions that have surprising answers that can only be understood by examining the data; much of the material in ESP and Aliens is of this sort.
So I'm okay when students challenge my materialistic views or provide their personal experiences as counterexamples to the points I'm trying to make. I would like, however, for such challenges to be made respectfully and to incorporate class material (i.e., advance the discussion somehow). But this student? She is not registered in the course. She has not done the readings because she doesn't have to. She has classes in the same lecture hall before and after my class, and she's just keeping her seat warm. Tomorrow I kick her ass into the hall.
Update: She wasn't there today. She made a comment on Tuesday that I slammed her for, and she left the lecture hall shortly after that. Maybe she's done with me and won't come back.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
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21 comments:
Wow. I was thinking what a jerk she was until I read, "She is not registered in the course." Then I realized that you have found a sort of iconic metaphysical prototype of "jerk." Congratulations!
And good luck.
If she's not in the class, she don't have the right to talk. Boot to the head!
This is just kind of shocking and horrific all at the same time.
Boy, do I wish I could watch. Have fun!
OH! I would so love to watch the expulsion - and I hope you use some well-placed barbs in the bargain. In fact, I wish I WERE there (party because...how much fun would THAT be?) and partly because my Advancing Age has dissipated my reluctance for confrontation and I'd like to place a few remarks in her direction as she is ejected ---
WOW. Who sits in a class that they're not in and comments? Amazing.
It's people like this who have helped me craft my restrictive policy with regard to auditors. I've never had an actual seat-warmer before, though! Nor someone who attended class regularly without getting prior permission....
Ass --> Curb
Do it.
Outta there. Can I have her seat? When are you teaching?
Wow, that's amazing.
You're going to do humanity a favor and tell her exactly why you're kicking her out, right?
Man, I love classmates like that. And by "love," I mean "want to stab in the neck with my pencil."
In my junior year at architecture school we had a guy show up in our design theory studio who was just like this. The professors did not throw him out, instead they just mocked him in front of the class for 2 weeks until he disappeared.
The guy was some kind of sad mental case who needed some type of mental care. He was really pretty intelligent and some of his comments were better than the professors.
The professors were just crude arrogant jerks who turned out to be a lower form of life. I have never forgotten the incident and I am still disturbed by the random cruelty of the 3 profs who where involved.
The correct thing to do would have been to what you are planning to do, throw him out on the first or second day.
Is there a mental health organization on campus you can notify? They may or may not be able to anything, but it may be worth a shot.
I wonder how long it would take before her "classmates" began to ridicule her and she got the point. Classes are sometimes very efficient mini-societies that exact social control.
Naw, eff that. Throw her out on her ass. And then tell us about it!
Oh, the horror, you have my sympathies. How on earth do students get it in their heads to do these things?!
I don't doubt the fact that these students are more common among social science undergrads, but don't put all the blame on profs! Most of us social science types do indeed value empiricism. That whole "science" part of "social science" is sometimes difficult to convey to younger students, though, who feel as though ideologically-based opinions are at least as good as actual data-based analysis. Weasels.
One can only hope.
ONce again you show how much better you are a person than I. The first monologue and I would have checkeg my roster, discovered that she wasn't in the class and asked her to either pay for the class or get a soapbox in the hall. Freeloader. Getting in the way of paying students' educations. Jeez.
My classes always attract weirdos, and I don't even teach "ESP and Aliens." Maybe the aliens have infiltrated my courses already? [scratching head]
Students not registered for the course are not permitted to sit in the course around here. Register or leave, college policy.
Yeah-- and those of us in K-12 have to deal with kids who have the "right" to be there, even if they're only there for "socialization"-- which means that the kids that are there to learn have to try to learn over their constant talking to their aides, their hissy-fits for no discernable reason, et cetera.
I feel for you.
Oh, these types drive me crazy. Had a few of them in my "Critical Analysis of the Paranormal" course my first time through.
I also had one in a linguistics class; very similar MO except she was registered. Once she interrupted a lecture to yell at the prof about a grade she had received on a quiz and lecture him about how he was wrong. He told her very politely to wait until after class and if she interrupted again she would be asked to leave. She broke down in tears, threw her book across the room, and stormed out of class. She didn't show for a week.
Some people.
OK. The kid is an utter waste of oxygen but srsly... you're telling us that you teach a class called "ESP and Aliens" and then, in the next breath, complain that weirdos show up?
The unmitigated gall!
Wait a second.. If she's not registered for the course, then why don't you just throw her out of the room? She's trespassing, isn't she?
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