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Sunday Links
Sunday, February 28th, 2010- Photos from Chile’s earthquake.
- British man jailed for six months for allowing people to smoke on his privately-owned property.
- Man quarantined after testing positive for TB. Naturally, he uses his time in isolation to make a charming, funny, self-produced rap video.
- NYU business prof sends complaining student a masterful dressing-down email.
- Some great selections from National Geographic’s international photography competition.
- ATF seizes shipment of toy guns.
- There’s really no part of your day-to-day life that politicians don’t feel they should be able to control.
I wish he NYU business prof would focus his energy on undressing ATF for stealing the $400 airsoft guns and the British govt for sending people to prison for defying smoking bans. Two businesses have been adversely affected by heavy-handed nanny governments.
Marty: what about the sniveling politician screaming “that’s not faaair!” regarding the Olympic coverage?
That professor sounds like a self-important jackass. I don’t pay over 40,000 dollars a year to go to school, to be scolded for being tardy. He’s the one who’s interrupting his own lecture and wasting everybody’s time over this matter.
Douchebag fiiiiiiiight!!!
I have argued before here that smoking bans could be reasonable. This is not one I’m willing to defend. If you want to ban smoking in bars by law, then it should be enforced by the state. Having the state require owners to sanction their customers is just not right.
Robin@3: I disagree. I pay my exorbitant tuition fees to get an education, but I don’t expect the fees I pay to excuse me from being on time and participating in class (and if I have to be late, I contact the prof ahead of time, which this student really should have thought to do). If I saunter in late, I also distract everyone else, thereby lessening the value they get for their money. While post-secondary education has its problems (the prof in my faculty who’s canceled a third of his classes this semester without reason, for example, is certainly not doing his duty to his students – and no one is happy about the fact that he’s somewhat protected by tenure), I don’t think educators owe anything to students who don’t bother, regardless of how much they’ve paid.
And that email is something I’d like to say – or better yet, hear my profs say – to every moron who barges into my classes an hour late and then takes five noisy minutes to get settled down.
#6–Why exactly do you contact the professor before hand if you know you’re going to be late? Does that somehow make arriving late less disruptive? And why do you think one requires an excuse to not participate in class? It’s their education, and their grade might suffer; isn’t that enough? They don’t owe anything to students who in their estimation don’t bother? Sure they do. They owe them all the same things that the other students have paid to receive.
Does that somehow make arriving late less disruptive?
Yes. An anticipated disruption is less disruptive.
And for a student to exert the effort plus whatever else it takes to contact the instructor beforehand sets the bar higher for the latecomer, so that s/he might more energetically seek to avoid disrupting.
That said, this prof was over-the-top in multiple ways.
And that said, it might have done some good.
I’m not a libertarian, but I wish the US gov’t had no involvement with the olympics. It is something US pays literally hundreds of millions of dollars on, basically for entertainment, the majority of which I couldn’t care less about. It’s fun to watch occasionally, but at the end of the day the athletes aren’t paying my bills or buying me a beer after work when they win. With the economy the way it is I would like to think that the government could figure out something better to do with the money, but that would just be stupid on my part.
Robin: It’s a courtesy that tells the professor that you do take their class seriously, much the same way I call when I can’t make it to work or am going to be late. It doesn’t reduce distraction for the other students, but at least it does for the professor, and it’s a way to be fair to people who are legitimately delayed in getting to class but who don’t want to miss the entire thing while still maintaining a policy that demands students show up on time.
I should perhaps refine what I said, though: professors owe all of their students competent teaching and fairness, regardless of whether or not the students are actually putting effort into their classes; in that sense, yes, all students are owed the same things. I just don’t consider it unfair to tell a student who signals that he/she is not serious by showing up an hour late without warning that the behaviour is unacceptable.
@Robin: Did you read the email exchange between the student and professor? I think it’s common courtesy to let a professor know that you’re going to be late to class, particularly if you know ahead of time that it’s going to be the case. Further, sending the professor a note that essentially says “You lost yourself a student!” is, at best, useless. The professor, in all likelihood, wouldn’t care one way or the other. A student that was late for a more legitimate reason would contact the professor in person to let them know the circumstances and apologize for the interruption.
In this day and age, particularly in competitive schools, I find it hard to believe a student doesn’t have any number of resources to make a class choice ahead of time. There are sites that rate professors, any number of mentors that can help you understand the class that’s going to fit your needs best. Making a decision based on 20 minutes of class time during the first day of the class is as close to being completely uninformed as one can get short of throwing a dart to determine your class choice.
Jay: regarding your last point, yes, all too true.
I’m not disputing whether or not this student’s behavior was courteous. I could care less what this professor puts up with dealing with rude students. I only believe that he probably wastes more class time chastising students for being late, than any of his students waste arriving mid lecture. And he’s being paid to be there. So forget common courtesy. How about a little customer service? That, and he sounds to me like a self-important jackass.
Customer service is a two-way street. Obviously the service provider felt the best way to provide good service to all his customers was to dismiss the disruptive customer immediately, rather than let the customer disrupt the learning experience further for the rest of the students. Without knowing how the classroom is laid out, I don’t think it’s possible to really know how disruptive a student coming in late is compared to letting the student settle in. If the entrance(s) to the classroom are on the same side of the classroom as the teacher’s lecture area, I would say that it’s more disruptive to have a student come in late than to chastise them for coming in late. A quick “You’re late, please be more timely to the next class” is going to be less disruptive than all eyes being on the student while they settle in.
It doesn’t matter if the Professor is a “self-important jackass” or the most humble individual to ever grace the planet without a halo. He has a method of dealing with potentially disruptive students that is likely consistently applied, and doesn’t rely on having psychic powers to discern why a student might be late. I’d be willing to bet that telling a student or two in the first couple of classes not to be late and sending them away is much less disruptive in the long run than letting students come in late the entire semester. It would only take me seeing one person get sent away like that to know that I shouldn’t bother trying if I’m going to be more than 15 minutes late.
Great to see an amateur Aussie Hip Hop due, hillarious! Chack out some more Aussie Hip hop here: http://www.filestube.com/e/elephant+tracks
I don’t know what’s going on with this link: “There’s really no part of your day-to-day life that politicians don’t feel they should be able to control.”
Here’s how I see the argument in the Outside the Beltway article:
1) There’s no right to observe the Olympics
2) NBC paid money for exclusive rights to broadcast them
Therefore
3) Government should restrict NBC’s choices of how to broadcast them
Whether or not that article is correct, considering regulating a major media company’s use of a exclusivity agreement to broadcast an event that receives immense public interest and public resources is surely not a shocking action for government to take.
On another level, the article is quite poorly written and does not deserve the link. (Seriously, a public good is not something a citizen has a right to. Not even close)
Jailed Brit – More proof that we were right to break away from England. Just think, if we hadn’t demanded our autonomy from England, WE, ourselves could be sitting in this very same position of having a nanny state government that desired to control every aspect of our lives…
Our professors didn’t give a rip if you showed up to class late, or not at all. But students understood well that they did so at risk to their own grade. If you missed material, and your performance on the exam suffered as a result, then that was your punishment.
Does this professor also berate students who have to leave to use the facilities during his class? He’s just exercising his his power as a big fish in a little pond. It is not a disruption to get up quietly and leave a class, or come in a few minutes late. It’s the students’ loss, not the profs.
Erm, Nick Hogan was *not* jailed for allowing people to smoke. He was jailed for failure to pay a fine. This is hardly unique – persistent refusal to pay fines can lead to a prison sentence in the UK, regardless of the offence.
Odd. I couldn’t get on theagitator from home all weekend.
Dave, I couldn’t either.
[...] h/t Radley Balko [...]
I couldn’t get on the site most of the weekend either. Kept getting a DNS error. I even tried switching to opendns.org’s server, same result.
I noticed the same problem, Dave. From my house, that is.
Robin–”wasting” class time to chastise a student for disrupting the class and making an example out of them is one (often very effective) way to keep from having to do it again. At least with that group of students.
It should be said that coming into class late may or may not be actually disruptive. If you can slip into the back of a 200-person lecture hall, it probably isn’t. If you walk in to the front of a small class room with 7 people in it, it is in fact very disruptive.
Just because you pay for something does not mean that you are entitled to it…it can still be a privilege. (Think of having a driver’s license, for example.) This is certainly true for higher education–particularly of the “elite” variety– unless you go to a degree mill that takes all comers as long as their checks clear (then you are both perfectly entitled and correct to view yourself as a customer.)
Radley posted on his Facebook & Twitter that there was some sevrer problemo.
Is anyone else shocked that the death toll in Chile is relatively low considering the magnitude of the earthquake? Maybe it’s a little morbid, but historically earthquakes of this size had death tolls measured in hundreds of thousands. Despite all the damage done and the displacement, the overwealming numbr of people effected survived. The structural engineers over there are due some credit.
Doesn’t surprise me that a (likely) overpaid college professor at an (likely) overpriced (and likely state-subsidized) college would feel entitled to act as though he couldn’t care less about how potential customers are treated.
If this guy had to actually compete in a pure free market for students, he’d last about five seconds with this kind of attitude.
I’m one of those people who believes that if you are paying a professor’s salary through tuition, said prof doesn’t have any right to bitch at you for showing up late. There is a contractual agreement in place that needs to be honored.
The idea that showing up late is some how so disruptive that it prevents others from learning is total bullshit. If someone showing up late to a class is going to comprimise your learning comprehension that much, you are probably retarted and shouldn’t go to college in the first place. If someone comes into work late, I can’t use that “disruption” as an excuse for losing the company money or whatever.
Mattocracy–many professors’ salaries are not paid from tuition.
“Is anyone else shocked that the death toll in Chile is relatively low considering the magnitude of the earthquake?”
From what I read, it was centered offshore 200 miles from the capital and 21 miles down. If it had been a direct hit, things would be a lot different.
On the toy gun seizure, there is some debate as to whether or not the lower assembly could have a real trigger group and “upper” installed on it. These are very realistic versions of AR style rifles. The “lower” assembly is what has the serial # and is what is controlled on a real rifle. The toy rifle has no serial #. If you buy a real lower (even just the bare metal piece with no parts installed) you have to go through the procedures just as if you were buying a complete rifle, with the background checks and all that. You can buy trigger assemblies and uppers / barrels without going through these checks.
So, if you can buy a toy gun that has a lower assembly capable of taking a real trigger group and a real upper assembly and barrel, then you could potentially assemble a functioning rifle without going through the checks.
However, there is quite a bit of debate as to if the lowers in question are capable of doing what the ATF says. As far as the ATF is concerned, even if the resulting combination of parts only manages to work once before it falls apart / blows up, it’s still illegal.
ATF: Buy American!
That link about the smoking imprisonment was great, with the list of “lesser” crimes at the end.
Mattocracy: The word is “retarded,” it’s just one of thsoe words you can’t help but laugh at when the person using it spells it incorrectly or has a typo.
I thought the professor’s reply e-mail was awesome. As someone who’s frequently a few minutes late for things, I clicked the link thinking this was some douchebag professor who was grossly overreacting to some poor kid just being a little late. But…wow. How did the student think it was ok to just walk in an hour late? I will say that if he had a better excuse, like say…the part time job he’s working to put himself through school happened to keep him late that night and the professor still tossed him out and replied so insultingly by email…. My sympathies would be completely reversed. Awesome as that reply was, the professor could still be a jerk, he just happened to tangle with a bigger jerk this time and came out looking good.
Just a counter-thought to the NBC thing.
If a country’s government invests its (the people’s) money in athletic programs for the purpose of showcasing their athletes for the Olympic Games, shouldn’t that same government also be able to affect how those game are shown, especially when so many of “the people” complain.
Not saying I agree with Big Brother getting involved here, just playing devil’s advocate because NBC’s olympic coverage really was shit.
Damnit, I did spell it wrong. Did it in the post above it too. I’m usually really careful about running spell check before I post on this site knowing good and well what heppens when you don’t.
I still stand by the content of the post though.
And, of course, if the Brit in question had refused to go to jail, they’d have used more and more force to get him to comply.
In the end, they might have had to shoot him for defending himself against unjust incarceration over unjust financial penalties over allowing someone to do something on his own property.
Mattocracy: by the logic you’re using, does a professor have a right to tell rowdy students to shut up? I’ll agree if you’re arguing that the prof should at least start out by asking politely, but I do think that whether or not students have paid tuition, profs have the right to exert standards of behaviour in their classrooms for the benefit of all students.
And while nobody is likely to fail a course because of other students coming in late, it is disruptive and irritating, especially if it’s a repeated behaviour, so why should it be tolerated from adults?
I brought up the workplace example as a way to illustrate that, although the on-time employees can’t use late employees’ behaviour as an excuse for poor performance, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that people will either be on time or give warning so that their colleagues or managers can accomodate and so that managers can track the performance of the late employee (e.g. is it habitual or the one-time result of unavoidable circumstances?).
[...] http://www.theagitator.com/2010/02/28/sunday-links-26/ Posted in Government. Tags: ATF, BB Guns, Conservative blogs central, Government, Gun Control, Liberty, Military, Obama, police state, Second amendment. Leave a Comment » [...]
#24 B–When it comes to these so called “elite” graduate schools, I would assume professors don’t have to worry about setting some disciplinary precedent in order to effectively control their classrooms. Give me a break; we’re not talking about a high school English class here. “Think of having a driver’s license for example”? –What a terrible analogy. I’m not saying the professor should be somehow barred from behaving this way. I just think he’s an arrogant dipshit.
A student shows up a hour late. They then tend to ask questions that were answered the first hour. I saw it a million times when I was in college. In this case, the kid wasn’t even enrolled in the class, something the Professor had no way of knowing. So it’s his policy that you do not come in late. The other kids in class also pay tuition and I am not sure why they are expected to cater to the students who just can’t make it in on time. While you say “If someone comes into work late, I can’t use that “disruption” as an excuse for losing the company money or whatever.” you do not mention what happens to the person that comes into work a hour late. Do you think most employers might have a policy about that? And suppose you are in a meeting and someone comes in a hour after it starts, you don’t feel there is any disruption then?
I wonder whether the ATF is required to reimburse stores in situations like the one above – confiscating a shipment of toy guns. I bet that if you really started to look into it, you’d find millions of dollars of economic loss every year due strictly to agents of our government simply stealing (without proof of private criminal activity) goods en route from one place to another.
Back in ‘84 while teaching an evening course at a Cal State U, I scolded a student who came late to class. My statement: “Where I come from we hang people for that!” Of course, my nickname became Dr. Redneck!.
But then one good example will put the others on notice!
My psych prof in the 60s simply locked the door, as did many others. You didn’t come late or you missed the class. It is called Respect.
“When it comes to these so called “elite” graduate schools, I would assume professors don’t have to worry about setting some disciplinary precedent in order to effectively control their classrooms.”
And your assumption, while perfectly reasonable, would be wrong.
I have taught at a very expensive, very prestigious school, and have had to deal with *exactly* the sort of entitled mentality that the student’s email typifies. I have had students be half an hour late to *exams*. I have had students who missed 1/3 of the lectures protest their grades. Cell phones go off, people talk, etc., etc.
Now, this behavior isn’t “typical” in that the vast majority of my students do behave exactly as you would expect high achieving young adults to behave. But it is hardly unusual.
The ATF was a great find. H/T from Bunkerville!
Let’s see, that car I just signed a sales contract for, I hear there’s a smart would-be MBA pressed for time and money who is having difficulty making up his mind and there are no others of that model in stock. Why that fellow ought to be able to amble into the lot at a time of his choosing, hotwire the car and take a test drive, don’t you think?
B–Yeah. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’ve let internet anonymity and three cups of coffee get the best of me.
“You didn’t come late or you missed the class. It is called Respect.”
Respect? Where’s the prof’s respect for the student? You act like it’s some huge hit the prof takes if a student comes late to class. Like I said before, it’s the students’ loss, not the prof’s.
Ive never been able to actually care about the olympics :(
Robin–no worries! We’ve all been there.
#30 Robert
Thank you, that’s a great aspect of the case that I hadn’t seen elsewhere.
As to the fines for businesses that defy smoking bans. Business people should never be unwillingly drafted into the role of enforcers. Cops pull over speeders, parking enforcement ticket cars why should the bar owner do for free what you are paying other people to do, especially at the cost of their own business? If you want to enforce the ban, pay for enforcement officers and harass the people that break the actual law.
#7
#6–Why exactly do you contact the professor before hand if you know you’re going to be late? Does that somehow make arriving late less disruptive?
It’s called courtesy. And yes, it can, if you enter quickly and sit down quietly, having turned off all your e-paraphenalia in advance.
#47–Yes. Arriving late is rude…I guess. What does contacting the professor have to do with entering quickly and quietly? Maybe these fancy pants schools are just full of a bunch of spoiled disruptive brats, and that’s why I don’t get this.
It’s called courtesy, damn it! Common courtesy!!!!!! You can’t just stroll into class late! It’s not polite!! Has the whole world gone crazy!!!!!!
The student explains in his email that he was late because he wanted to find out which classes were interesting. That is fine, and shows a degree of interest that is unusual among a lot of students.
But you need to get permission prior to doing so – it is not only disrespectful to the prof, who will now have to waste class time handing you a syllabus and answering the questions you inevitably have, but to the students who DID show up on time and now have to deal with your lateness.
To avoid this situation, ask for a syllabus before the first day – better yet, when registering, ask for 15 minutes of the professors time to discuss the objectives of the course. Not only will he be thrilled to talk to a student who is interested in his subject, he will be impressed with your initiative.
This kid is lazy and he is unfortunate that he won’t get to take a class with a professor that will exemplify the high standards that will be expected of him upon graduation.
Also – the concept that payment of tuition gives students to act disrespectfully or show up late is baffling. I am a student – yes, I pay the school that pays the teacher to teach me.
But I accept, upon payment of tuition, that I will uphold MY end of the deal – I will come to class, on time, prepared, and turn in assignments. If I don’t do these things, and I am failed, you think I could get angry at the TEACHER? Of course not! I pay the teacher to teach in his own way. If I do not like his policies – on grading, lateness, or curriculum, I am free to take another class or leave the institution. But he should never have to change his policies simply because I do not like them. If enough students dislike the policy, no one will take his class, and he’ll change them on his own. Its like the free market of academia.
Tom G @ #42:
The businessman (importer) who is at the center of this was interviewed on the Lars Larson radio show Friday afternoon…. according to him, he has, on more than one occasion, found that the ATF and/or Customs was (publicly) auctioning off the supposed contraband that had been stolen from him in the past.
The filthy thieving shitbags ain’t even trying to hide it anymore.
Unless Senator Kohl finds time to read every bill he votes for, fussing about NBC’s Olympic coverage is a gross misallocation of a limited resource.
Sometimes students have legit reasons for being late, like on-campus interviews. Professors understand legit reasons for being late. However, coming late because you’re class hopping and not telling the professor is really unprofessional and discourteous.
Just because you paid for a service doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. You can’t take a crap in the middle of a restaurant and say, “I paid $80 for my meal, you can’t tell me what I can do!” When I was in grad school, I always hated self-important jackasses that felt that they didn’t have to operate under the class’ rules because they’re paying tuition. Yeah a lot of professors are d-bags, but it’s their class and their rules (as long as they comply with university policy).
I think this professor’s email was perfect, and was a favor to the student. Having made it clear that the student had p-ssed him off, he was almost certainly not going to be seeing the student again. But he responded to the student’s complaint email with some sarcasm and snark, but also with some real and useful guidance at the end. That was valuable, and the snark might have gotten the kid’s attention enough to get him to listen.
When you can’t be troubled to do the easy stuff like showing up on time, being courteous, dressing as expected, being prepared for meetings, etc., your ability to do the hard stuff is not going to matter much. That’s an important lesson, one many people (like me) had to learn the hard way to get. Try showing up half an hour late for a meeting with the boss at your first job, and see if he strains himself being polite with you. Try coming to a meeting with a consulting client completely and obviously unprepared, and see how that goes for you.
There’s a time for letting someone know, in no uncertain terms, that they’ve fucked up and need to change their approach. Being too polite to do that means you’re not doing your job as a teacher or a boss.