Friday, December 2, 2011

Blame the Economy!

Don't tell my advisor but I LOVE to teach. This semester I'm teaching "Approaches to French Literature" and I was able to create the syllabus and choose all the texts all by my lonesome! I know it's not *cool* to be overly enthusiastic but I love my class. Especially since I have some interesting students.

Since it's a small class (12 students), one absence is very noticeable. And absence excuses are the best. Today a student who has missed the last week of class told me it's because of the bad economy.





When I pried further I found out he meant he has so many parking tickets that his car was towed and he can't afford to pay the towing fines and tickets to get it back. And busses are just inconvenient. So he needs a job or needs to sell his car. I asked him how he was paying for the class. Loans. I asked him if he felt like re-paying for it when he has to retake the class next semester. He won't be absent again.

Is this mean? Harsh? Maybe. Ask me what I do if someone falls asleep in my class.

5 comments:

  1. Hey Andrea, great post! I was wondering, what do you do when one of your students falls asleep in class?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Drea - I'm waiting for you to answer Sara's question.

    ReplyDelete
  3. haha i spray them with a water bottle. or drop a heavy book next to their head. or sometimes i just stop class and have everyone look at them while they're sleeping until they wake up.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sarah, water bottle spraying! Genius! I've used all your other tactics. Or if it's during a movie I turn up the volume really loud for a second. tee hee.

    ReplyDelete
  5. in your stocking this year: http://tinyurl.com/7nj2dqm

    ReplyDelete