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meredith_e

'I reject the question' Schooldaze

I am floored, the astounded-chuckling kind, by an exchange in school witnessed recently.

Could any of you imagine telling another [university] student that he/she rejects the question in front of the professor?!? Not the great debate style answer, but flat out because he/she thought the question was a bad one?!

Admittedly, it was cool to witness in that sort of ghoulish way like peeking at a car crash. He/she suggested we all ignore that question on our project, too.

Umm, think not, thanks.

Teachers out there, what the heck must that feel like? I'm sure I would have abused my power ;] Good that I'm not a teacher :)

Ah, just a little thing, and quite possibly uninteresting and you-had-to-be-there, but I do get astounded by these sorts of dynamics on occassion!

Comments (7)

  • sammy zone 7 Tulsa
    17 years ago

    Ha ha! I love it, but I teach 16 year olds. They can reject away, and I can give them a zero.

    If I go to the trouble to assign a huge project, I let the administrator know about it. I follow all the rules, and the arrogant ones - even the followers suddenly are quite humbled at the last minute when they are desperately begging for more time.

    In my sweetest and most caring voice, I explain to them that this is just one instance where there are consequences for their actions.

  • michaelalreadytaken
    17 years ago

    Well, Meredith without knowing to the last detail, what the situation is--I just don't know.

    Otherwise, teachers and instructors and professors are just people. I have yet to see one walk on water.

    You love and remember the ones who shared knowledge openly and freely. You forget, except to despise, the ones that were just doing their job.

    --and there's a special place in Hell for the duplicitous ones on tenure tracks that pretended to be the former but who were, in reality, the latter--

    Be careful out there.

    My two cents.

    MichaelAT

  • meredith_e Z7b, Piedmont of NC, 1000' elevation
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Oh, man, I have horror stories of college profesors [2 specific ones] who wielded huge power and were duplicitous and schmarmy and it was a bad, bad scene... wherein I lost a lot of me. Never again.

    Thank you.

    [They tried to play doctor and not in the fun way ;] Best friends with each other, too.

    Oh, they are people all right!

    This case is truly funny... the question wasn't the best, but OMG. I'm keeping my mouth shut there, lol ;]

    I wish I could give details but that doesn't seem fair to them. Sorry. Y'all would have loved the quotes.

    Sammy, I get the feeling he/she has been arrogant before and usually got away with it. We'll see, I guess!

  • debrazone9socal
    17 years ago

    I remember these debates in college...it was either a problem with the language of a test question being vague or ambiguous, or an argument that was constructed so poorly that the ultimate issue was irrelevant.

    Nowadays, I help my 8 year old daughter with her homework. More frequently than I'd like, there's a question that I just don't understand. Not that the material is too hard, but the instructions are so muddled, it's impossible to know what is expected. I think that is ridiculous to expect a kid to discern it!! So I usually write a note to the teacher about it, and don't make my daughter do that part of the work.

    Look, teachers make mistakes, too. Some of the most atrocious spelling and grammar I've seen has come from elementary school teachers. Really bugs me.

  • iowa_jade
    17 years ago

    Teachers & students are both people, human beans, and deserve to get in each others faces if they feel up to the challange, or are boared. (As long as the student aces the final and the teacher is over paid, who cares!)

    Most teachers are very deft on handling challenges to their authority. Some are forced into a position of being a cop like methreality to just have some sence of oder in their oversized classrooms or studented two excess trailers, and not to promoat a lerning environmant that they do not get at hoam.

    I am thankful that the local HS for our kids had an excellent TAG (tormented & grossed out) program so our kids had the best teachers and were challenged at every level and had a good time in their classes.

    In my college (Party Hardly U), I did know a few students who was smarter than I was. I know it is hard to believe, but true. One espethally who was a "techno greek" (I can see him exerting his verbage) while I was studing or not studing as the case may be; poetry and other valuable things to future employers like (DWI101a) and some other stuff I have thankfully forgotten while waiting for spring to sprung.

    DW was in a TAG college level groupe for English Majors. Poor soles! I had planned on finding her a good job after graduation, but she had other ideas like staying at home.

  • moodyblue
    17 years ago

    ...Smiling at you Iowa Jade - love your writing! I am sure, if you are not, you would make a great author - thanks for the smiles.
    Pauline - VI

  • meredith_e Z7b, Piedmont of NC, 1000' elevation
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Debra, that is exactly the case... more than one person remarked that figuring out the question was the hardest part! Fortunately, any really good answer will do, whereas as a kid [or with my neighbor's boy's homework] the teacher thought that there was only one correct answer to a vague question. In this program, I think the vagueness is intentional, to see how we think.

    lol, IJ... in this case the school is very British and particular and reknowned, so I'd love to 'hear' a cockney accent as you wax poetic ;]