Thursday, August 29, 2013

And so the semester begins. . .

Yes, a new semester has begun!  The promise of work submitted on time, all those shining faces with new books and pens and iPads and phones they're texting on!  As it begins, I've already had a winner of an email to share.  While classes for the university began on Monday the 26th, one of my classes is a Friday evening only course, in their attempt to accommodate our large adult learner community.  But hey, I'm not ditching a full week just because class doesn't happen until Friday.  So I posted in our learning management system the syllabus, info about the book, and some of the few assignments, telling them which ones could be done early if they so chose. 

One of those was an email sent from their university email.  It's an easy peasy assignment, meant only to ascertain they can access their campus email--through with EVERYTHING is routed--right from the start. I received an email from one of the students.  I am paraphrasing and correcting spelling.  I'm not going to hold this person up for TOTAL ridicule, yet.

Hey Prof! 

Is this a distance learning class? Are we handing in stuff on Moodle and not meeting every week?  That would be great, because this is my last class on Friday. I hope we don't have homework on the weekends.

Ok, see you soon!

Name Withheld 

Yes, that's right, internoodles, this student doesn't even know if this is a brick and mortar, hybrid, or online course.  Plus, he is pretty much telling me he doesn't really want to come to class on Fridays, because it cramps his style AND he doesn't want to do homework on the weekends, because we're, what, NINE?!  Keep in mind, this is the first encounter of any kind I'm having with this student.  Oh, and this is an upper level business writing course.  Can you imagine if he sent something like this to his BOSS?!  Oy, vey!

I didn't point out the glaring issues I had with the writing, but in my head, my response went something like this--

Dear Mr. Withheld,

I'm totally psyched you don't want to come to class or do homework!  It frees up my schedule in a number of ways.  I am, however, totally bummed that I'll be seeing you again, and probably again and again in this class, because those who have crap attitudes are doomed to repeat.

Sincerely,

The Prof who plans for months for each class

Yeah, I come off all valley girl, but I'm not up on the slang, and what I am has more swearing than I'd like to use. It's gonna be a fun one!

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