Students! Or, more accurately, Student Workers! The are a blessing in that we couldn't get our jobs done without them. They are a curse in that the are Students FIRST!
You can't manage them the way that you would an ordinary worker. When a student worker is scheduled for 2 hours per day on Tuesday and Thursday, and doesn't show up you have to assume that there is a study session or a test the next day. You can't just say, "You weren't here. You're fired." That tactic would leave you struggling on alone with no help at all.
When the absent worker appears on FRIDAY morning - you have to look at it as if they are keeping their part of the bargain. They promised that they would give you 4 hours and you are getting 4 hours - it just isn't on YOUR time table.
This morning I was expecting to train two new workers. I had set aside time in my day to spend in the lab with them. I would be teaching them something new. Something that they will need to be able to do alone in a few weeks.
I get to the lab this morning. Tuesday/Thursday's missing worker is on task - doing the job that had been set aside for the expected Friday workers. She already knows how to do this task and she is doing it correctly and efficiently. The other two do not know how to do this task. By the time they get here it will be done. When they need to do this in the future, I may not have the time in the lab that I can dedicate to them exclusively.
As soon as I finish writing this I will spend the next little time at my desk trying to figure out something for the two new workers to do that will teach them something that will make them more productive, independant workers in the future...
Grrrrrrr.
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Friday, September 2, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Ratings
Yes, I KNOW that if you are a professor you hate "Rate My Professors" .com. Yes, I know that the ratings are subjective and voluntary...yes, I know all of that and I STILL recommend it to students.
They are spending money to get an education and have a right to know what they are getting into.
If your ratings as a teacher are uniformly awful that should tell you something. If they are wildly non-uniform it should tell students something about your style - no-nonsense vs. laid back classroom, etc. If you refuse to let students use their cell phones in class, it tells them something important about how you value education...
What I tell them is look at the teacher's ratings: If it says "Easy, easy, easy" don't take them. If it says "Easy A" don't take them. You will know you are in good hands educationally, when it says things like "Hard but Fair". There will be comments on needing to do the homework. It will say things like "He is amazingly hard but always available to explain something you don't understand". It will say, "This is the hardest class I have ever taken, but I learned so much". It will say, "She is the best teacher I have ever had, but you have to work your butt off".
Use ratings to look for the good teachers who will lay a foundation for future classes and you are using them correctly...
Use them wisely and you will enhance your education and make the best use of your tuition dollars.
They are spending money to get an education and have a right to know what they are getting into.
If your ratings as a teacher are uniformly awful that should tell you something. If they are wildly non-uniform it should tell students something about your style - no-nonsense vs. laid back classroom, etc. If you refuse to let students use their cell phones in class, it tells them something important about how you value education...
What I tell them is look at the teacher's ratings: If it says "Easy, easy, easy" don't take them. If it says "Easy A" don't take them. You will know you are in good hands educationally, when it says things like "Hard but Fair". There will be comments on needing to do the homework. It will say things like "He is amazingly hard but always available to explain something you don't understand". It will say, "This is the hardest class I have ever taken, but I learned so much". It will say, "She is the best teacher I have ever had, but you have to work your butt off".
Use ratings to look for the good teachers who will lay a foundation for future classes and you are using them correctly...
Use them wisely and you will enhance your education and make the best use of your tuition dollars.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Addendum
As requested by my (only) student worker this week:
You are the student worker who works "long hours down mill for tuppence a day" (to quote Monty Python, I think).
You are Moses, parting the sea so that the water walkers (instructional support)don't get their feet wet. You are giving up your last week of sleeping in, paint ball, laser tag, and computer gaming, to fill hundreds upon hundreds, nay THOUSANDS of plates and tubes of media (bacterial food). You are laying drip tubing in the 95 plus degree greenhouse. You are sweeping the floors because everyone from the facilities department is remodeling classrooms and striping newly resurfaced (last week) parking lots. You are eating nothing but noodles with butter (the cafeteria is not yet open).
And WHY are you the only student worker? Because the others who have been processed and cleared to work are either out of town or otherwise occupied this week. The rest are still in the process of having their paperwork processed or are waiting to add classes so that they have the minimum number of credits to work...
This week you are walking uphill both ways, into the wind, and it is snowing...
Thanks for everything, Stubble!
You are the student worker who works "long hours down mill for tuppence a day" (to quote Monty Python, I think).
You are Moses, parting the sea so that the water walkers (instructional support)don't get their feet wet. You are giving up your last week of sleeping in, paint ball, laser tag, and computer gaming, to fill hundreds upon hundreds, nay THOUSANDS of plates and tubes of media (bacterial food). You are laying drip tubing in the 95 plus degree greenhouse. You are sweeping the floors because everyone from the facilities department is remodeling classrooms and striping newly resurfaced (last week) parking lots. You are eating nothing but noodles with butter (the cafeteria is not yet open).
And WHY are you the only student worker? Because the others who have been processed and cleared to work are either out of town or otherwise occupied this week. The rest are still in the process of having their paperwork processed or are waiting to add classes so that they have the minimum number of credits to work...
This week you are walking uphill both ways, into the wind, and it is snowing...
Thanks for everything, Stubble!
An Homage to Educators
I am at the end of the first week of the worst two weeks of my year. The week before and the first week of SCHOOL.
If you want to believe the politicians it is when we sorry assed, lazy boned, parasites drag ourselves out of bed and say, "Ah, now for another year of sponging off the public and delivering nothing of value!"
Here is what really happens (part of it heavily fictionalized - you decide which parts are God's Honest Truth):
You are an elementary teacher, back to your freshly painted classroom. That classroom was supposed to be painted during your summer break, but due to the vagarities of the purchasing system, the contract wasn't signed until July 15th and your room is in the last wing of the school to be painted. How every single classroom is in the "last wing to be painted" is completely beyond me, but there it is. The custodians cannot wax and polish the floors until the painters are finished and they will be doing this, working overtime, over the weekend. Your locking, rolling, cabinet with all of your school supplies is still in storage and will be moved to your classroom late Sunday night. Your pupils will be arriving, fresh faced and ready to learn at 8:30 AM on Monday. Congratulations, you have 1.5 hours to put your classroom together!
You are the high school principal who finds that, due to a software "upgrade" over the summer, the computer did not catch the fact that AP Biology and the (required) Senior Civics course are BOTH scheduled for 6th period. The entire English department has been scheduled for TWO planning periods, and the Sophomore Class has not been assigned any English at all (hence the TWO planning periods). And the classrooms in the 600 wing are leaking.
You are the community college instructor, receiving frantic emails from students: The school bookstore does not yet have their text books; they are still on order from the publisher (who to be perfectly fair, did not receive the book orders until the end of June and has only printed 5000 Biology texts when 7000 are actually needed - STOP THE PRESSES and RE-PRIORITIZE!). There are also the students who will be absent on the first day of class: Their grandmother's funeral is on the other side of the country; their return from deployment has been delayed; they are in the hospital and awaiting test results; Please, Please, Please DO NOT RELEASE THEIR SEAT IN THE CLASS! If they are not in class on day one they will be dropped and you will then fill their seat from the waitlist. Day one dawns, registered students are dropped, ecstatic waitlisters are added and only then do you find that your email has now been changed from first letter first name/last name to first letter first name/last name/last two digits of the first year of hire by the college so none of the student requests got through.
You are a long suffering Division Dean at the local community college; while dealing with budget cuts, and parking shortages (CONSTRUCTION! - see elementary school example above) discovers, courtesy of the harried Department Chairs that several part time faculty members are not available to teach on the first day of classes. Their fingerprints and/or transcripts have not yet arrived at Human Resources, plus several other part time faculty members have JUST recieved contract offers from other schools and will not be available. Cancelling classes is not an option.
You are the academic administrative assistant who has been calling prospective instructors to see if they are still available - because of the aforementioned holes in the classroom instructor ranks. Most of them have moved out of state, or are already contracted elsewhere. Cancelling classes is not an option.
You are Instructional Support Personnel, who are supposed to have "everything ready to go", but the instructor informs you that as textbooks are not available, you will have to get publisher's permission and photocopy the first 5 chapters of the text for 300 of the 600 enrolled students, or substitute the week 6 lab exercise for the week 1 exercise. The fact that the week 6 supplies have not been ordered (they have a FRESH DATE!), and cannot be received in time, is but a small inconvenience - you can walk on water! You will be ready to go on day one! And you are.
You are a student, also in a tizzy. You need THAT ONE CLASS to transfer and it was waitlisted on the second day of registration. You have already been accepted by the University contingent of the completion of THAT ONE CLASS. You are lining up at the door of the instructor's office, from where you will be sent to the dean's office, from where you will stride purposefully to the VP Instruction's office - seeking both an explanation of HOW THIS HAPPENED as well as an override admission to the already full class. If you do not get the class, not only is your University admission in jeopardy, but you will be dropped from your parent's medical insurance because you will not be a full time student!
And in the final analysis, it is you, the student (and your parents) that we do this for. We exist to give you the knowledge and skills that you will need to step out of our semi-isolated and semi-insulated world into the "real world" where you, if we have done our jobs correctly, will continue to learn and grow and ultimately be successful - and send your own children back into the system in their turn.
Happy Fall Semester to all of you!
If you want to believe the politicians it is when we sorry assed, lazy boned, parasites drag ourselves out of bed and say, "Ah, now for another year of sponging off the public and delivering nothing of value!"
Here is what really happens (part of it heavily fictionalized - you decide which parts are God's Honest Truth):
You are an elementary teacher, back to your freshly painted classroom. That classroom was supposed to be painted during your summer break, but due to the vagarities of the purchasing system, the contract wasn't signed until July 15th and your room is in the last wing of the school to be painted. How every single classroom is in the "last wing to be painted" is completely beyond me, but there it is. The custodians cannot wax and polish the floors until the painters are finished and they will be doing this, working overtime, over the weekend. Your locking, rolling, cabinet with all of your school supplies is still in storage and will be moved to your classroom late Sunday night. Your pupils will be arriving, fresh faced and ready to learn at 8:30 AM on Monday. Congratulations, you have 1.5 hours to put your classroom together!
You are the high school principal who finds that, due to a software "upgrade" over the summer, the computer did not catch the fact that AP Biology and the (required) Senior Civics course are BOTH scheduled for 6th period. The entire English department has been scheduled for TWO planning periods, and the Sophomore Class has not been assigned any English at all (hence the TWO planning periods). And the classrooms in the 600 wing are leaking.
You are the community college instructor, receiving frantic emails from students: The school bookstore does not yet have their text books; they are still on order from the publisher (who to be perfectly fair, did not receive the book orders until the end of June and has only printed 5000 Biology texts when 7000 are actually needed - STOP THE PRESSES and RE-PRIORITIZE!). There are also the students who will be absent on the first day of class: Their grandmother's funeral is on the other side of the country; their return from deployment has been delayed; they are in the hospital and awaiting test results; Please, Please, Please DO NOT RELEASE THEIR SEAT IN THE CLASS! If they are not in class on day one they will be dropped and you will then fill their seat from the waitlist. Day one dawns, registered students are dropped, ecstatic waitlisters are added and only then do you find that your email has now been changed from first letter first name/last name to first letter first name/last name/last two digits of the first year of hire by the college so none of the student requests got through.
You are a long suffering Division Dean at the local community college; while dealing with budget cuts, and parking shortages (CONSTRUCTION! - see elementary school example above) discovers, courtesy of the harried Department Chairs that several part time faculty members are not available to teach on the first day of classes. Their fingerprints and/or transcripts have not yet arrived at Human Resources, plus several other part time faculty members have JUST recieved contract offers from other schools and will not be available. Cancelling classes is not an option.
You are the academic administrative assistant who has been calling prospective instructors to see if they are still available - because of the aforementioned holes in the classroom instructor ranks. Most of them have moved out of state, or are already contracted elsewhere. Cancelling classes is not an option.
You are Instructional Support Personnel, who are supposed to have "everything ready to go", but the instructor informs you that as textbooks are not available, you will have to get publisher's permission and photocopy the first 5 chapters of the text for 300 of the 600 enrolled students, or substitute the week 6 lab exercise for the week 1 exercise. The fact that the week 6 supplies have not been ordered (they have a FRESH DATE!), and cannot be received in time, is but a small inconvenience - you can walk on water! You will be ready to go on day one! And you are.
You are a student, also in a tizzy. You need THAT ONE CLASS to transfer and it was waitlisted on the second day of registration. You have already been accepted by the University contingent of the completion of THAT ONE CLASS. You are lining up at the door of the instructor's office, from where you will be sent to the dean's office, from where you will stride purposefully to the VP Instruction's office - seeking both an explanation of HOW THIS HAPPENED as well as an override admission to the already full class. If you do not get the class, not only is your University admission in jeopardy, but you will be dropped from your parent's medical insurance because you will not be a full time student!
And in the final analysis, it is you, the student (and your parents) that we do this for. We exist to give you the knowledge and skills that you will need to step out of our semi-isolated and semi-insulated world into the "real world" where you, if we have done our jobs correctly, will continue to learn and grow and ultimately be successful - and send your own children back into the system in their turn.
Happy Fall Semester to all of you!
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