CHARISMATIC MEGAFAUNA

By Quiconque

A Long-Ass Lament

In the 1968 film, If, Malcolm MacDowell receives a savage spanking at the hands of some authority figure in his British public school. I was fourteen when I saw the film and therefore I identified more with the MacDowell�s teenage anarchist. Now that I�ve become somewhat of an educational authority figure, I find myself sympathizing with the teacher who can find no other way to reach students except to hit them. My great-grandmother used to say, �Them that don�t hear will feel.� This is fast becoming my new mantra.

In a class of ten students, only four students showed up to take the midterm exam Monday. Granted, two of the missing students already had permission to take the test another day. But that still leaves four no-shows.

One of the no-shows did attempt to contact me the day before the exam, but I did not read her email until Monday afternoon. In her email she explained that she had left her page of notes at her grandmother�s house and wanted an extra day to study for the test. (I not only gave the students a detailed study guide the week before, but allowed them to bring one page of notes to the test.) I replied that she could take the test on the next day, but would incur a 25% penalty because her excuse was not valid.

This did not sit well with her, and she tried to make a scene in class the next morning. �But I told you the truth! I could-a lied like everyone else.� --Who �everyone else� is in this case, I don�t know, since hers was the first set of excuses I was hearing for the day-- �Can�t we negotiate this penalty down a little bit? It seems really unfair since I did try to contact you before the test. Besides, if I�d-a known I couldn�t get an A, I would-a come in yesterday.� (Well, you see, here�s the problem: your excuse was not compelling. So, no. The penalty stands.)

She spent the rest of the class time grumbling, and when we broke for potty time, she tried to get other students on her side. She was unsuccessful in this since half the class had taken the exam on time, much as they might have wanted an extra day to study, and were not sympathetic to her pleas for leniency, and the other half was about to be subjected to the same penalty and were not going to support her bid for special treatment.

So, she took the exam, unhappily, and brought her complaint to the department. The secretary, in an incredibly lucid moment that belies all my previous dealings with her, tried to explain to the student that it doesn�t matter that she always comes to class and that she told me the truth. One should always come to class! One should always tell the truth! This is not behavior that deserves special praise! She also told her to stop measuring: what other students do or get away with in the class is none of her business.

As ridiculous as this situation is, it�s not the worst I have to deal with. My male student, let�s call him Jimmy, is really making my rethink the role of corporal punishment in higher education. Jimmy, as I have explained elsewhere, did not know if he was even registered for the class. Jimmy missed the first session, and came one hour late to the second and third sessions. After class I pulled him aside and explained to him that the course starts at 10 am, not 11:15. �Oh, I came late because I live in Queens.� Well, I�m sorry you live in Queens, but this means you need to leave your house an hour earlier to get here on time. I explained to him that summer session courses are compressed. One session is like a week in the regular semester. He�d already missed four hours of class�he was already two weeks behind. I told him he should probably drop the class, but he assured me that he was dedicated. �I�ll read the books and everything.�

The next day Jimmy showed up 2 minutes early, and had the nerve to tell me, �See, Miss, I came early today.� First of all, �MISS?� Second of all, I really had to bite my tongue not to say �What do you want, a biscuit?� Third of all, two minutes early is not early. It�s ON TIME.

Apparently Jimmy had exhausted all his mental and physical energies in coming to class two minutes early, because he still had to borrow paper from his seat neighbor and eventually fell asleep in the back of the classroom. Jimmy slept through all the lectures the next week, too.

Last week I gave out a detailed study guide for the exam and went over it in class. I even gave examples of what a good answer would look like. I entertained students� questions about the exam for 45 minutes. I even answered the crazy questions, such as, �Is there a page limit?� (Answer: No, you already have a time limit to deal with. Keep writing until you think you�ve answered the question adequately. Then stop.) �When you say, �short essay,� what do you mean?� (I mean an essay that is short. But really, I mean your answer can�t just be one or two sentences. You have to develop an idea. Each question has subquestions. You need to address each part of the question in subsequent paragraphs�.) And so on and so forth.

After class, Jimmy came up to me and asked me his own questions about the test. �So, what do I have to read to find the answers for the test? Do I have to read the books?� (Yes, Jimmy, as I have written right there on the study guide and just read aloud to the class, �A successful answer will incorporate material from the texts, the films, and the lectures.�) �So, how long should each answer be? Like a paragraph?� (No, your answers are supposed to be essays. One paragraph is not an essay.) �How many pages do you want? Like one page for each answer?� (As I just said, over and over, in fact, there is no page limit!) �So, one page is okay?� (There is no page limit! Jimmy, I just answered all of these questions in class. Were you paying attention?!) �Yeah, but sometimes I forget.�

Jimmy did not show up for the midterm. I got an email from him that night informing me that he was sick and couldn�t come to school. I informed him that he could take the make up on Tuesday and would not incur a penalty if he provided me with a doctor�s note attesting to his illness. However, since I had serious reservations about Jimmy�s ability to even pass the course, I recommended that he withdraw from the class. Tuesday Jimmy was not in class. On Tuesday evening I received another email telling me that Jimmy�s mother had advised him to stay home an extra day because his cough was very bad. At this point I told Jimmy not to come to class, but to go straight to the registrar�s office and withdraw.

Today Jimmy showed up for class 90 minutes late. I must say I was surprised to see him. After class I took him into the hallway and explained that as of today he had missed the equivalent of five weeks of class. I again told him to withdraw from the class.

�But Miss, I try to keep up!� (Really? You are seldom here!) �So you�re telling me that I read the books and did all that studying for nothing? Miss, I studied! I studied Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, I even studied yesterday.� (If taking the exam was so important to you, and you knew from my emails that you would have to convince me to let you stay in the class, why did you not come to class on time?) �I told you, I live in Queens. It takes a long time for me to get here.� (And I told you that you need to wake up earlier to get here.) �I wake up at 7:30. I have to clean my teeth��(Hold on there, EVERYONE in the class has to brush their teeth in the morning. Jimmy, these are not valid excuses.) �No, I have to brush my teeth, I have to have something to eat.� (Listen to me. DROP THIS CLASS. Everyone in the class is making some sacrifice to be here. Jimmy, I don�t even eat on the mornings I teach.) �I have to eat or my stomach hurts.� (Regardless, if you wanted to prove to me that you were worth the risk, you would have attended class more often, and you definitely would have shown up on time today.) �But my mom told me to stay home.� (How old are you?) �Nineteen.� (Why are you listening to your mother? Your mother is not in this class.) �She cares for me.� (You have not shown me that this course is important to you; so I don�t see why I have to go out of my way to accommodate you. This is the last time I�m going to say this, DROP THE CLASS. This conversation is over) �Miss, can�t you be sympathetic?�

The very first day of class, I did an exercise where the students had to complete the following sentences, �Men are�� and �Women are�� Unsurprisingly, the characteristics they attributed to women centered on women�s roles as emotional caregivers. At the end of the exercise, I warned the class, �I am neither caring nor sympathetic. Keep that in mind when you come to me with sob stories about late assignments.� Jimmy missed the first lecture, of course, and has only just begun to learn this lesson.

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LINKS

DIARYRINGS

READING: Aegypt by John Crowley

WATCHING: Various murder mysteries on BBC