It's finally happened: I'm living a statistics joke.
This quarter, I'm teaching a night class for the first time. This requires more organization at my end than I've been used to in the past. It's easy to prep for a 12-week course in a general way and than tweak as the quarter progresses. For instance, plan for 4 exams but leave the dates open. Well, you can't do that when a course only meets 11 times. I realized very quickly that if a student misses a class this quarter, he or she will be in serious trouble. I plan on presenting a chapter per week. The particular chapter may be 5 sections long or 10 sections long. Miss the preview/lecture and fend for yourself.
Well, a student missed the first week of class. Since 90 minutes was spent getting organized, I didn't think this miss was too big of a deal. But I made it very clear to the student that her confessed excuse of "laziness" was not a good idea from this point on. She agreed and was happy to hang on to her seat in the class.
Well, she called an hour before the next class and said she was getting teeth pulled in a few weeks and would probably miss class again so she was going to drop the class.
Yup, she would rather get teeth pulled than take statistics.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A New Milestone
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4 comments:
She's not alone in that preference. Theoretically, I might also prefer having fingernails pulled.
You wound me. (sigh)
Come now. wouldn't you choose a root canal over postmodern literature? Or, god forbid, literary theory?
OK, I'll pass on the literary theory. And since my working definition of postmodern literature involves both Neal Stephenson and Joss Whedon, I'm content with my teeth the way they are, thankyouverymuch.
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