I really try not to get too annoyed in my daily life by what other people do. Honestly, we live in a world where far too many people choose to be offended (or triggered) by the actions of other folks. There are things that do bug me, like people who don’t move at a red light because they’re busy reading texts on their cell phones. But overall, I try to take a deep breath and move on. As my brother is so fond of saying, “Life is too short for such unpleasantries. Let us talk of better things.”
Now, when it comes to the classroom, I definitely have some pet peeves. Again, life is too short to get unhinged by these things. But these are the behaviors that, when they happen, force me to take an extra breath before moving on.
- “The Question.” Getting students to participate in discussions is hard enough, but sometimes we get a good conversation going about something we’re reading in class. Inevitably, as hands go up I’ll see one raised by a student who rarely – if ever – participates in these talks, and it’s almost always the same question. I’ll call on this student right in the middle of a spirited discussion and they’ll say, “Can I please go to the bathroom?” It’s almost soul-crushing for me because, one, the back-and-forth is at least temporarily derailed and, two, that student at least briefly got my hopes up that they had finally come up with a good response to whatever we were talking about.
Q. “How would you respond if someone falsely accused you of something you didn’t do?”
A. “Can I please go to the bathroom?”
Ugh. - Being Unprepared. Students are always coming to school without pencils, paper, their copy of the class novel, etc. But the thing that is blowing my mind lately is the computer and/or charging block. Our district provides a laptop and charger to every student, and almost every day there is at least one student who says “I left it at home.” For me, that’s like leaving your shoes at home. These laptops have replaced almost all textbooks, and they’re used in almost every class. And yet I have students who still don’t have a school laptop because they never turned their computer in from last school year. Or better yet, they’ve already lost their laptop this year. Or they leave it in the bookbag they usually bring on a different day. Or they leave their charger at home because it’s too heavy to bring in their bookbag. Or they’re letting their brother or sister use their computer today. Or… (fill in the blank).
Again, ugh. - The Big One. Technology is wonderful. And technology is terrible. The Internet is an incredible resource for doing all manner of research. Then again, it’s an incredible resource for students who hate to do work and prefer to use other people’s work in place of their own. Yes, “the big one” is cheating, and the Internet provides infinite opportunities for students to find answers to questions they don’t know and don’t care to find out for themselves. That was true before the explosion of artificial intelligence, but AI has led students to believe that they don’t need to research or write. Even worse, it’s made them think that the AI-generated answers are an acceptable substitute for their own replies because they came up with the questions that led to the answers.
Sadly, even telling them that this will result in failing grades or disciplinary referrals hasn’t stopped students from trying to get away with plagiarism. Rather, it’s made them sneakier in their attempts to get around whatever guardrails we put in place. This is not just a pet peeve for me; it’s the pet peeve and one that brings out the ruthless side of me. The others are mere annoyances by comparison.
