College is not a game

As a college student, one of the things I love best is the ability to be able to blame teachers for things that aren't their fault. Whenever I have a genuine interest in a class and I like my teacher, I will sing praises about the teacher and the class. I love going to class, enjoy doing the homework, and I give the class my best effort.

Then of course, there's my Hyde side. When it's a core class I am not interested in, but have to take in order to graduate, or a teacher whose personality I am not particularly fond of, I have nothing good to say whatsoever.

Everything that a teacher does or says is without a doubt said to annoy me. I did not get an F because I didn't study, or because I procrastinated and waited till the last minute. Instead, the grade is clearly the result of my teacher being unreasonable and/or picking on me. I really believe that too many college students do not want to hold themselves accountable for their success or failure in school. It is too easy to blame the teachers, because they don't know what we are going through.

But really, the truth of the matter is that teachers do know what it's like. Obviously, in order to be a teacher, they had to go to school. They had to do homework, manage their time, take classes they didn't want to take, and put up with teachers they might not have liked. They survived and so will we. Were it only so simple that the fault of bad learning lied solely in the hands of the students. I don't know how many times I have read in a professor's syllabus that it is important we show up for class on time, and have good attendance/participation, only to have them waste our time by spending the first thirty minutes trying to prepare for lectures, sipping their coffee, or chatting with people that aren't even in our class. Teachers should be prepared to teach class just as students should be prepared to learn in class.

Regardless of whether or not the issue is a lack of owning up to your procrastination with your homework or hypocritical teachers, there should not be this unspoken war between teachers and students where teachers are tyrants holding our destiny in their hands, and students are bratty kids talking on their cell phones and walking into class late.

In order for a learning environment to be successful, neither teacher nor student should be late to class, talk on the cell phone, or chat with other people, because it is disrupting for all parties. The classroom environment should be about learning. Instead, it seems like there is a silent divide between teachers and students which is pointless and unnecessary.

A college education is not a petty game with losers or winners. Both teachers and students would benefit from a sense of mutual respect in the learning relationship they share.