Whatever Happened to Class (In Class)?

1. Whatever Happened to Class (In Class)? Civility Issues in the College Classroom

3. Are Classrooms Less Civil? • Why is this happening? • What is the cost? • How can we reverse the trend?

4. Where do Manners Fit? • Americans and manners – not always “perfect together.” • “Frontier Manners.” • What is artificial and what is “natural?” • Manners and etiquette seen as a way to make class distinctions (Cole)

5. Are People Less Civil? We are bothered by – • Road rage • Workplace incivility • Crude language (Shortman)

6. 2010 National Survey … • 95% feel that civility is important in politics • 50% feel it has declined (Levine) Why?

7. Increased tendency to question authority • Life is more technological, less personal • More mobile/less connected, less loyal • Technological distractions • Disconnected, alienated • Society is more open, but also more crude (Perlmutter; Sypher)

8. What’s Happening in the Classroom? • Talking • Chronic lateness, leaving early • Texting and cell phones • Inattention, lack of preparation • Rudeness • “Rules are made for someone else” • Sense of entitlement (Boice) • Bright students who take over class (Perlmutter)

9. Student Perceptions • Continuing to talk after being asked to stop • Coming to class under the influence of alcohol or drugs • Allowing a cell phone to ring • Conversing loudly with others • Nonverbally showing disrespect for others • Swearing • Sleeping • Making disparaging remarks • Arriving late and/or leaving early • Text messaging • Packing up books before class is over • Using a palm pilot, iPod or computer for non-class • activities (Bjorklund and Rehling)

10. Of Faculty as Well • Condescending remarks • Poor Teaching Style • Poor communication skills • Arrogance, superiority • Criticizing students in front of peers • Threatening to fail students (Clark and Springer)

11. Changing the syllabus • Lecturing too fast, with little student interaction • Unexpected tests and grades • Unfairness, rigidity • Insistence on conformity • Discrimination (Boice; Thomas)

12. The Simpsons on proper public behavior • Bart: [after watching a foreign film] “I was so bored I cut the pony tail off the guy in front of us.” [holds pony tail to his head] “Look at me, I’m a grad student. I’m 30 years old and I made $600 last year.” Marge: “Bart, don’t make fun of grad students. They’ve made a terrible life choice.”

13. Why? • Students are unprepared for college; “dumbed down” education; limited exposure to academic life • Poor parenting and guidance; coarsening of culture • Students have expectations out of sync with the classroom • Preconceived ideas (age, ethnicity, gender). (Alexander-Snow; Clayton; Kilmer; Trout)

14. The Wal-Marting of Education!! • Are we relying too heavily on the “customer-driven” approach? (Driscoll, Sacks) • Power shift to students (Clayton) • “I paid for this” attitude (“Tips for Dealing with Troublesome Behaviors”) “Wilkommen” “Welcome” “Bienvenue” Happy to see you, Bliebe, reste, stay!

15. What is the Result? • High levels of student incivility/low levels of student attentiveness and low teacher enthusiasm and approachability • Stressful student/faculty interactions • Student dissatisfaction with the academic experience • Other students have less energy for thinking and classwork and less engagement with the course material (Hirschy and Braxton; Morrisette)

16. Why Don’t We Take Care of the Problem? • Afraid to be seen as incompetent • Lack of support • Effect on students

17. What Can We Do? • Expectations, expectations, expectations! • Behavior/classroom procedures • Importance of syllabus as contract • Orientation/First-year experience, teach college culture (Clayton) • Do not make rules that are not enforced; be consistent (“Dealing with Disruptive Classroom Behavior”; Feldman; Morrisette; “Tips for Dealing with Troublesome Behaviors”) • Rapport-building techniques (Kilmer)

18. You are your own best advertisement • Learn how to deal with conflict • Take action immediately • Stick to class starting/ending times • Allow students to vent if needed • Approach students in private (Feldman; Reed) • Discuss the problem with students and encourage them to consider their behavior as a future member of the workplace • (Ortego)

19. Let Students Know What You Expect • Discuss the issue; • What expectations do they have about college? • What have their classroom experiences been in the past? • Why in a student-centered environment, are rules about behavior necessary? In today’s relaxed and democratic culture, why is civility still important? • How do students want to be treated by peers and teachers? • Have students experienced classroom behavior that was disruptive, rude or embarrassing? How did this behavior influence learning? If the class feels comfortable role-playing, this may help get the point across in an engaging way.

20. “Can Tell us How to Get, Get Away from Sesame Street?”

21. What Can We Do? • Administrative support • The issue affects all departments; address the problem on a college wide level • Procedures in place to deal with behavior problems consistently, with consequences • College wide training in dealing with student behavior and conflict resolution • Smaller classes (Alkandari; Barrett, et. al.)

22. The Simpsons on Customer Service • “Oh, pardon me, Santos—if that is your real name, Bart Simpson—but your phony credit card is no good here. Now make like my pants, and split.” Comic Book Guy

23. Suggestions? Questions? Thank you for coming!