To expect my students to show a teensy amount of initiative?

[dontrunwithscissors]

I'm an academic in the Humanities. I'm currently teaching a third year class & they're driving me mad. (I work in Scotland so their degree results are based on grades in years 3 and 4.)

In order to make life as 'easy' as possible, the tutorial reading is either available digitally or I provide a photocopy. They're usually expected to read 40-50 pages so hardly a huge amount.

At the start of the semester, I warned them that there had been some issues with the digitisation license and that it was possible that some materials may end up not being available. I also explained that I don't get any notice in situations like this & to let me know straight away if there were any problems.

So, it turns out that the main text for today's class has disappeared from the digitised texts. The only person on the course of 23 students emailed me to tell me at 4pm yesterday. Class is at 10am today. There are 3 students giving class presentations today that's worth 15% of the final grade

AIBU to expect students to have bloody well pulled themself together and 1) attempted to access the reading earlier; 2) highlighted the problem earlier. I'm particularly shocked that none of the people presenting this week figured to ask for it.

I'm pissed off with students being 'babied'. It gets worse by the year. They want everything on a plate and go running to mummy and daddy when they don't get the 2:1 they assume they will get. They can't be arsed to read (keeping in mind that this is a humanities degree so reading widely is a basic requirement.) Ive even had notes from parents explaining that their snowflake should be allowed to submit work late becauSe they're not good at planning or had to go to a wedding...

Apologies for typos. I'm on my phone + on the bus n

Oh, ok, fair enough theycall.

HP - YY, 'contact time' never seems to mean 'coming to my office hour'!

I'd have been mortified if I'd had to get my mum to make excuses for me not handing work in when I was at uni. Seminars were so painful when no one had done the required reading, just long silences and it's worse when you can tell the seminar leader is frustrated with lack of input. I was hardly an ideal student but there were so many people who coasted doing nothing.

The worst case I came across of a 'special snowflake' was working in a UK school. An interviewee (for a teaching post, so at least 22) had her mum ring up and ask if her interview could be postponed as she wasn't feeling very well.

I'm currently doing an MA in the US and actually find that all of us are really engaged and the atmosphere is very respectful. BUT - we're all paying $$$ and totally committed to getting our MA as we need it for work.

I thought I would throw this in about students not working hard at uni, related by a family member.

In this particular large uni, students used to leave their assignments in a box marked with the lecturers name, similar to the ones for students in a college porters room. This one particular foreign student came along to the boxes, where there was a very elderly man in the vicinity, whom she totally ignored.

Going up to the boxes she sorted through one lecturers box until she found an assignment. She then removed the covering page carefully and attached another, which had her name on it, then left the area. Unfortunately for her, that very elderly man while no longer teaching at this particular uni was a well respected researcher. That student had all her marks for that year zeroed and she was disqualified from uni for the rest of the year, and informed that all future work would be carefully scrutinized on her return.

All assignments now have to go to that departments office and be date stamped and signed by staff.

We have also had in the last year news media reports of foreign students paying thousands of dollars to have their assignments written for them by a company in the eastern states (Au), which has been forced out of business since then. No wonder businesses are doing their own employment tests before hiring staff these days.

Actually, I think that students can be very hardworking and academically gifted while still being passive and lacking in initiative.

When I do practice interviews at my old university, there are always a couple of students who know nothing about how to get funding for the next stage of postgraduate or vocational education, despite saying they are desperate to do it. The careers people tell me it's all on the website, and they put on special sessions for particular jobs and sectors. They say to me 'If they won't read the website or come to the advertised sessions, how much do they really want or deserve to get on?' and that's a fair question. A significant proportion of the students want someone to hand them all the materials they need.

Then my trainees at work: very bright, very hardworking, and lovely people. But they struggle with the fact that it is now, to a large extent, sink or swim. There is always the period when they have to adjust to the fact that this is WORK. No, I am not telling you the answer. Yes, you did badly, learn and move on, don't resent me for telling you the truth. Some of them will endlessly argue about the task, or the fairness of the set-up, because they are finding the step up to a real work environment very hard, and that must be someone's fault.

That is a genuine cultural change from when I started.

OP. Can you not throw out of the seminar anyone who hasn't done the reading? A pre-requisite for attending is they have done the reading? Maybe a 5 question quiz at the start and anyone who doesn't score at least 4 has to leave?

TeenandTween I've done that several times over the years. I tell them that they're wasting my time and theirs. Haven't had to do it for a while though, which is great. Or I'm getting soft in my old age.

But it's very effective: they come back the next week very well prepared And cathartic for me!

I totally disagree with throwing students out of a seminar. I'm not sure if there is any legal basis to do so. Moreover, it comepletely ruins any sort of atmosphere/trust, and makes it very difficult to build the sort of cooperative learning environment you need at higher level.

All of my classes include a certain % for participation, which includes reading the materials before the class. If I routinely didn't do the reading I would be downgraded. Professors also have the right to throw me off the course (not just one class, but the entire course) if I don't prepare and/or miss 2 classes or more.

I studied for an English degree from 2009 to 2014. I had agraphobia and latterly was spending 2 hours a week in a psychiatric hospital seeing a psychologist. I was also caring for family members and came from a difficult background .. I had extended leave of abscences, a repeated year, specific exam arrangements (computer, extra time and a single room) as well as at times an escort to lectures. I must have looked daft at 22 having an adult walk me to classes (the first time, quite literally holding my hand) and I'm aware that things might not have been so challenging for me.

However I'm actually quite proud that my university were able to help me achieve my goals, and am hoping to pay it back by taking a postgraduate next year (now that things are a little more settled). They never judged at all, never treated me like I was stupid, understood that I could show my understanding through essays better than I ever could in a tutorial. It was my essays that got me my degree in the end.

If a student hasn't read everything (I hadn't always been able to read the full set text) , hasn't prepared well or hasn't contributed to discussion there might be a reason beyond just not being interested - having an understanding lecturer can make a massive difference. I'm so glad I met people who were able to help me do what I wanted to do in a way that was possible for me , if that makes sense.

shouldhavesaid I agree, and I too am proud of the fact my institution works with students in special circumstances to enable them. I've worked with young people with communication difficulties and physical impediments to get structures in place that help them achieve. There are few things about my job more satisfying. BUT you were clearly putting a great deal of effort and commitment in. If students give me effort and commitment I'm delighted to work them and meet them more than halfway whenever possible. What gets me is the entitled attitude, laziness, desire for spoonfeeding we're seeing in a small but significant proportion, and the fact that an increasingly commercialized education system puts lecturers in a weak position to negotiate.

This thread is giving a lot of food for thought. I'm not an academic and my university career was in the dim and distant past, well before the era of VLEs etc. I practically lived in the university library and read widely around my subject, which thankfully has given me a lifelong love of knowledge and learning new things (but even then I remember two fellow-students rolling their eyes in a tutorial group when I mentioned knowing something from a text that wasn't on the reading list).

I do, however, work with a lot of young (mid to late 20's) university graduates these days, and I'm afraid there's plenty of evidence of the attitudes already mentioned. I'm often told that information I need isn't supplied because 'oh, yeah, there wasn't anything'. The main offender is a researcher whose role is to find the information. Instead they seem to take a cursory look, see nothing glaringly obvious, and decide they don't need to put in any further effort. Too often I find that they haven't even bothered googling.

Not every young colleague is like this, far from it, but it's a noticeable and depressing trend.

If a student hasn't read everything (I hadn't always been able to read the full set text) , hasn't prepared well or hasn't contributed to discussion there might be a reason

Indeed, but if the course requires those things then they should not be simply exchanged for something the student can do easily. I would not want to discover, for instance, that my GP had 'qualified' in this way.

I think students with mitigating/special circumstances (such as a couple who've posted on this thread) are a different category of student from those the OP posted about. And yes, most universities offer very good support: we recognise that playing field isn't level for them. Indeed, I sometimes fid I have to insist that students take up offers of mitigation - they really don't want to feel that they are weak & need extra help (that's the way they see it, not how I think of them). I have great admiration for their coping skills & strategies.

But the students that worry me are those described by a number of other tutors on this thread: the bright, high-achieving, well-educated and indeed very privileged students. The ones who are so concerned with getting the "right" answer that they allow themselves to become overwhelmed with anxiety; or who badger me for the "right" answer, or complain when I will not (indeed cannot) provide it for them. Who are so hung up on their grade or mark, they ignore the actual learning which leads to the mark. Who refuse to take the consequences for their actions.

As someone remarked upthread, you only have to look at examples in AIBU to see the cultural shift.

I can't blame my students - they've been inculcated in a system where this is how they've been treated. I can ask parents (here on MN) to listen to what we're saying, and try to talk this through with their children. And to stop projecting their anxiety for maintaining their children's privilege onto universities and academic staff.

For example, I read elsewhere a parent saying that their UCAS applicant child "lost respect" for a head of department over something that HoD said. I find the whole concept of a 17 or 18 year old judging a senior academic, who has years of training, experience, knowledge & expertise, and deigning to offer "respect" just an indication of how far out of kilter the system is. I have 20 years of experience, knowledge, expertise - goodness even wisdom! I don't need to work for "respect" from 18 year olds - they should be realising what I can offer, and listening, learning, and talking to me.

The other thing I despair of from the experience of the OP is that - as experienced educators - we know that learning is a collaboration. Not a one-way process. So the seminar room is a collaborative learning space, where all take responsibility for learning or facilitating learning. Students learn from each other in a seminar (typical humanities one, anyway), and so yes they DO need to check the st materials in good time and take responsibility for their own learning by informing the tutor, as she has asked. THat's collaboration towards a common goal.

I think it's pretty immaterial whose fault it is that the VLE doesn't have the required text. They are university students, and should have the wit to get the text by other means - which as the OP has already flagged that there might be an issue - isn't exactly rocket surgery. It's a (very gradual,pampered) introduction to the real world - if you were at work and someone said something you needed to do your job wasn't available, you'd be expected to get off your arse and sort it out yourself. In the real world, shit happens and it's not always productive to spend ages whining about it's not my fault.

When I was at uni doing Chemistry, one of the first references for a lab was in a German language journal. Zero fucks were given when the lab supervisors were confronted with first year undergraduates wailing and moaning - I think pointing out that the library also had a English - German dictionary was as sympathetic as they got.

I'd happily kick students out of a tutorial - I have better things to do than pander to special snowflakes, many of whom are there as it's the next step on the treadmill, rather than because of any love for the subject. I also had no problems pointing out to them that whilst their fees may have increased, my salary did not, nor had my contracted duties.

I only have to deal with PhD students now

Meolscop I have noticed this as well, I quite often get students telling me they can't find a reference or can't find page numbers or something, and I google it and find it immediately! You would think having been brought up with googling, it would be their first port of call, but googling also takes creativity in that you have to think through which sites to target, what language to use, and if it isn't very straightforward, then often a few students just appear to give up.

Most are hard-working though, and although there may have been a minor amount of grade inflation, in the main I feel our standards are pretty rigorous in my uni, no students are getting firsts without being extremely well-read and original, not much different than when I was an undergrad. I think there is less tendency to give really low marks though, which I think is driven by not wanting students to fail (it is very very hard now to fail a uni degree, if you actually submit work).

But they've also been brought up with a host of worries about how to use google, HP.

There's a common resource - a dictionary - we'd use in my field, which is online but which is a bugger to search because it contains variant spellings and you have to guess the right one. I repeatedly say to students that if they google "middle english dictionary" + [word, in any spelling] they will get a result, because google will find the page even if the spelling they chose was one the dictionary lists as alternatives rather than the main headword.

All the time I get students who think this is 'cheating'.

I have no idea why.

They also think asking peers to proof-read an essay might be 'cheating'.

Andfaraway said "we recognise that playing field isn't level for them."

Absolutely. And here's the thing: there's a trade-off because time and resources are limited. I often feel like pandering to 50 fussy students who have no excuses not to cope apart from being completely incapable of exercising a bit of nous actually takes away from the time I could spend with those who are struggling for reasons that aren't in their own control.

And don't even get me started on the way that the students themselves tend to treat anyone who isn't as able as they are as a drag-anchor on their marks as soon as they have to do anything in groups. My DH runs a module in his area which replicates real-life 'work' scenarios (with all the politics that goes with these) and the students have to team up and work together taking a particular 'position' on a case. The whinging and the moaning and the gnashing of teeth that attend the idea that a less able student might drag their marks down are quite incredible. (From parents as well as students!) In the last 5 years, he's actually had to step in and remind some individuals that there are duties to other people as human beings that come way before a grade.

You would think having been brought up with googling

We're told they're "digital natives," but I find that I know far more about how to use the internet, computer programmes, and indeed computer hardware, than most of my students.

In the end, those who expect to be pampered and hand held suffer for it. I work in a high pressure, sought after industry and we have a string of interns coming in our door.

I have a big targets to meet, demanding clients and only so many hours in the day. I need the job done and I need initiative from interns. I'm not interested in a discussion about how it's not their 'fault' they don't come up with the goods and I don't have time to spoon feed. The ones with the initiative and the skills get offered a job. Simple.

I am sorry, laurie, but I can't get past your MN name when you write that!

Yes. I'm hearing 'I can't light gas. It bangs at me'!

Haha. I can totally see an alternative kingscot universe where lawrie abandoned her plans to become an actress and morphed into a hard ass career woman instead.

Or not . Agree she'd be the worst offender.

Andfaraway - yes I have found that teens are in fact not very IT literate. they may text, social media savvy and they know how to Google but really when it comes to sitting down with a spreadsheet or constructing a document or a database or researching online they are as illiterate as my MIL.

Its because they were never brought up in the world of the PC or laptop and mobile phones don't do stuff like that which is all these teens have ever really used.

I quite like the idea of Lawrie not wowing RADA and quitting in high dudgeon to become a Captain of Industry. Lawrence S Marlow, Terror of Interns.

I studied for an English degree from 2009 to 2014. I had agraphobia and latterly was spending 2 hours a week in a psychiatric hospital seeing a psychologist. I was also caring for family members and came from a difficult background .. I had extended leave of abscences, a repeated year, specific exam arrangements (computer, extra time and a single room) as well as at times an escort to lectures. I must have looked daft at 22 having an adult walk me to classes (the first time, quite literally holding my hand) and I'm aware that things might not have been so challenging for me.

However I'm actually quite proud that my university were able to help me achieve my goals, and am hoping to pay it back by taking a postgraduate next year (now that things are a little more settled). They never judged at all, never treated me like I was stupid, understood that I could show my understanding through essays better than I ever could in a tutorial. It was my essays that got me my degree in the end.

shouldnt, it sounds as if you did an admirable job. I don't think any academic I have ever worked with is not be impressed by the commitment and courage needed by some students to overcome obstacles. I taught a student years ago who suffered from severe social anxiety and agoraphobia, and used to have to run out of seminars on a regular basis. She handed in god written work, even though she was too shy to talk in seminars for a long time, worked on therapies etc, and got a veyr well-deserved high 2.1 - and the last I heard of her, she had founded a theatre company.

All I would say is that students with such issues need to communicate with the university, via the Disability Office, student counsellor etc etc - we can't make allowances for things we don't know about.