In class this morning:
Student: Can you tell me when we're having our final exam?
Me: It's on the syllabus.
Student: But the final exam schedule is so hard to read! Can you just tell me the date and time?
Me: The date and time are on the syllabus.
Student: I don't have the syllabus.
Me: The syllabus is available on Moodle. Look, right here's the link! Also, the date and time of the final exam are listed very clearly on the final exam study guide and on the Moodle page for finals week--right here!
Student: But another professor told me it's really hard to read the final exam schedule.
Me: Maybe so, but that's why I've listed the date and time of our final exam in three different places you can easily access.
Student: But can you just tell me when we're having our final exam?
On the phone this morning:
Me (politely, kindly, with a smile in my voice): Can you tell me your mask policy for employees?
Grocery-store manager: Employees are required to wear masks, but sometimes they slip up. Did you see an employee not wearing a mask?
Me: So I was in the store yesterday to pick up a few things, and I noticed that the employees around my age were all wearing masks but the teenaged cashier at the only available check-out line had her mask pulled down all the way under her chin.
Grocery-store manager: She's not supposed to do that.
Me: But wait! The bagger at the end of the conveyer kept his mask on until he needed to sneeze, and then he pulled the mask down and sneezed all over my groceries.
And I'm not going to repeat what the manager said except to note that he's going to have a word with the young people because they ought to know better than that.
And indeed they should. We all ought to know better than that. Can we please all just put our thinking-caps on and keep them fully engaged until the pandemic is over?
5 comments:
With conversations of the first type I start channeling my mom and explain to them how being able to look up stuff like this is an important life skill and they're lucky I'm giving them practice.
I like that approach, but I'll bet they rarely bother to thank you!
It works though-- I am VERY good at the Catholic guilt thing even when people weren't raised Catholic.
Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.
As a new chair, I'm finding that the number of times one or another faculty member asks me for something that they've received by email at least twice is about parallel to the number of times students ask me to repeat stuff that's on the syllabus....
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