Tuesday, December 01, 2015

Don't let me interrupt that extremely important cat video you're watching

Back in the Cold War era, when sympathy for the Soviet Union was thin on the ground, students in my high school Russian class used to begin each class period by standing and reciting in unison a formal greeting to our teacher: "Dobry ootra, Ivan Vasilevich!" While this tradition seems rather, um, Soviet in our current informal age, I find myself wishing for the days when students would acknowledge the existence of their professors.

When I walk in the classroom with a cheery "Good morning!", I'd like a student or two to look up from their smartphones and respond. I don't expect them to snap to their feet and recite a formal greeting, but a muttered "good morning" doesn't really require all that much energy.

And when I attempt to make small talk before class, asking how they enjoyed Thanksgiving break or how they feel about the impending end of the semester or whether they've read of the latest outrage in the news, it would be nice if someone--anyone--would say something. Anything!


The problem is most acute in my freshman classes, but it pops up elsewhere as well. What to do? I can banish smartphones during class time, but students insist on protecting those precious three to five minutes before class. Imagine what they would miss if they put down their phones and actually engaged in conversation! How dare I expect such a sacrifice?

I grow tired of silences and averted eyes. I worry about how these students will act in job interviews and networking opportunities, but more than that, I'm annoyed when I treat them like adults while they insist on treating me like an interruption. It makes me want to stamp my foot and make them snap to attention with a salute. (Now who's acting like a child?)

One of these days I'll get a smartphone of my own and then I'll stand in front of class texting "Good morning!" to my students. And then we'll conduct class entirely in emojis.

(How do you say "Dobry ootra" in emojis?)

5 comments:

Bardiac said...

Oh, to the H E Double L yes. This.

I tend to say good morning, or happy day, or whatever. One person looks up. Another squirms. No response.

I say it again, a few look up, more squirms. Maybe someone says good morning back.

I say it again, and finally, people look up and say hello.

Seriously, people! And then they'll complain that their professors don't know them by name or something...

Anonymous said...

I am basically playing devil's advocate here. You say the following:

"Imagine what they would miss if they put down their phones and actually engaged in conversation! How dare I expect such a sacrifice?

I grow tired of silences and averted eyes. I worry about how these students will act in job interviews and networking opportunities, but more than that, I'm annoyed when I treat them like adults while they insist on treating me like an interruption. It makes me want to stamp my foot and make them snap to attention with a salute."

But is it not the job of all in higher education to address these situations head on? We can't worry about job interviews, networking opportunities and face-to-face interactions when it is our very jobs to prepare students for those very situations. In small colleges I think it becomes important on every level for every professor to directly talk with classes about these things. If it means all classes requiring no technology inside the classroom door, then that should be what is done. But it has to be ALL classes.

If higher education does not address these tech issues, then I think we fail students and we fail society.

Just my two cents.

Bev said...

You raise some interesting points. I do address this problem in many of my classes, but either students have short memories or else they're not really that into being friendly (at least face to face). Removing all technology from all classes simply isn't feasible; sometimes we need to use our technology. The challenge is to get students to use it wisely and put it away when it's not needed.

I can talk to my classes about the value of networking, make them read an essay about the impact of divided attention on learning, and even embarrass them when they're so involved in their technology that they don't notice what's going on around them, but at some point they need to take responsibility and exercise some impulse control.

Contingent Cassandra said...

I've never been very good at small talk with my students (or anyone), so I have to admit I've never initiated it, and am somewhat relieved to learn that I probably wouldn't succeed if I tried. On the other hand, I do reciprocate when students initiate such exchanges (and they sometimes do; no generation is non-monolithic, and our student body is diverse in pretty much every dimension in any case). And I have been known to encourage them to talk to each other rather than posting Discussion-Board messages to the person who is sitting right next to them, tapping away at hir own device (we actually strongly encourage/pretty much require the use of devices in composition classes, but also prefer laptops or decent-sized tablets to phones, which are a last resort for the other-device-less).

Contingent Cassandra said...

please excuse the double negative. I should obviously be in bed rather than commenting on blogs (but some decompression from the day was in order).