Archive through October 25, 2002
TV ClubHouse: Archives: The return of The Return of the Gripe Thread (ARCHIVE):
Archive through October 25, 2002
Mystery | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:30 am     Goddess, we had the same idea! |
Goddessatlaw | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:31 am     Mystery, are you my evil twin? Get outta my brain, girl. |
Oregonfire | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:34 am     Thanks, Mystery! I appreciate the advice. I have a student in the class who seems to think that it's his job to "fight the system" and plant seeds of doubt throughout many of his posts. I've run around and squashed many of those posts, but it is already getting old. |
Mystery | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:38 am     Goddess, maybe we've had similar English teachers in our pasts! Oregon, you should just forget about worrying about the "fight the system" student; it's doubtful that you'll get through to him anyway. He probably isn't even considering whether his posts are disrupting the learning process for others. If he really cared just about the vocabulary issue he would've made his point once and then moved on, wouldn't he? |
Car54 | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:45 am     What the heck is wrong with Maturity? How immature. |
Moderator | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:47 am     Oregonfire, try changing your title from teacher to class moderator. (DH) aka Fascist Nazi Micromanaging Shark Jumper |
Wargod | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:48 am     Oregon, Rick still has the girls trying to get near him. Has a nice chest still, LOL. If he's being disrutive to you teaching and the class learning, can you boot him out? Not a great choice, I know, but if he's disturbing the class and all... On the other hand, if he's just an annoyance, would ignoring him on just that point work? |
Wargod | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:49 am     LOL Mod(DH)! |
Goddessatlaw | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:52 am     Now, see - I'm with the Mod on this one. College writing courses should be dictatorships, not democracies. Let free thought be promoted elsewhere. This is about cracking whip on immature and undisciplined hiney. |
Oregonfire | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:54 am     I wish I could, Mystery, put his posts tend thus far to cause mini-rebellions all over the newsgroup, which causes more work for me, and frankly, I don't get paid enough to put up with this crap. As for myself, I could talk about this endlessly because I've had so many problems with classroom discipline over the past year. It an old wound that gets reopened when these things reoccur. Much of the problem stems from the fact that I can't express my anger directly to the student, so I fuss over the incident endlessly. When I have expressed my anger, it makes things worse. Thanks to everyone else for the laughs! I tend to turn into a puddle of self-pity over these things. Pretty unhealthy. Oh, and one last thing--posting my angst here prevents me from posting something really nasty over there, so thank you for letting me vent until I'm calm and "mature" again! |
Babyruth | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:57 am     "Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young." -W. Somerset Maugham Ain't this what you said? |
Goddessatlaw | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 11:57 am     Oregon, could you explain to us the nature of your class? First, I don't understand how an internet writing class works. Second, I am unsure of the subject matter of your English Class - creative writing, Shakespeare theses, or what. There are multiple trained writers here and we may in fact have some tips to offer in class management if we understood a bit more of this particular undertaking. |
Goddessatlaw | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 12:00 pm     Great quote, Babyruth!! |
Oregonfire | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 12:03 pm     Goddess, I'm a run-of-the-mill composition instructor, so we do the typical essays--descriptive, compare and contrast, cause and effect, and the grand finale, an argumentation essay. Some grammar and class discussion is thrown in for good measure. An internet writing class, in this case, works through Outlook Express. We have a main newsgroup, a chat room, and learning team newsgroups. Participation counts a great deal in this environment. Students post many of their assignments where other students can see them. Actually, I think the online environment is ideal for a writing class, as the subject at hand is continually being practiced and perfected. Babyruth, that sounds like a much better version of what I said! I went off about the Hegelian dialectic in my answering post (in so many words). |
Goddessatlaw | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 12:46 pm     What is the level and nature of your interaction with your students on these various boards? And what are the age ranges of those you teach, if I might inquire? The troublemaker sounds like someone roughly in your age range or a bit older with a chip on his shoulder. Also, anyone taking a bite out of their teacher as you've described has an overinflated self opinion which isn't likely to disappear in his posts without a major smackdown. Your tone with us here, which I'm sure differs from that with your class, is always very informative and chatty. In my experience, "chatty" with my teachers should and always was reserved for meetings or one-on-one instruction outside the classroom. In a group setting, to allow them to view you as a peer is a death sentence. Without knowing more about your particular interactions and the requirements of your class structure, I would say it may help to distance yourself and adopt a more authoritarian tone overall. It requires no anger and it also encourages no such donnybrooks as you're currently experiencing. You may not be LOVED by your students, but their learning experience will be enhanced in a more structured environment which does not encourage questioning the value of your offerings as their teacher. If you have studied Socratic methodology, it may be a bit more suited for the internet environment than I would ordinarily prescribe for a college environment. "Here's your assignment, discuss" or "what do you think about X." In this case, you would in fact become more of a moderator with a line of questioning designed to lead the students down their own line of reasoning to the correct answer. At that point, after they've hashed it out, you can interject with what you believe are the truest and most reasoned responses without necessarily encouraging response to your judgment of the issue. Whether they later accept and apply your judgment is up to them, but it certainly would shut down collateral and fruitless argument. As Hillbilly said, you are the final arbiter of what's right and wrong, good and bad. There's leading them to water, and then there's them drinking it. If they don't figure it out immediately, they'll figure it out soon enough when their grades start rolling in. |
Oregonfire | Tuesday, September 10, 2002 - 01:43 pm     Thanks, Goddess. Excellent input! Frankly, the class is still recovering from some early confusion caused by a missing book and other errors. I didn't present my best Internet face that first day, that's for sure. In addition, the class is twice the size of my last, so I'm still trying to figure out how to corral everyone and get them all on the same page (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) There are still some loose ponies out there. I figure that I'll muddle through and the students will learn something despite their best efforts. It's funny that you mention the Socratic method. Indeed, it has been mentioned more than once in the online faculty lounge as a vital part of the online environment. In my post, I thanked the student for questioning my word choice and stimulating discussion. The problem is that now I face the "thread that won't die" dilemma. We need to move on to other material, and the same old material is being rehashed--perhaps because it's easier than actually doing their homework? I think I'll just let it lie, because they are going to get awfully busy this coming week, straight through to the end of the course. |
Lobster | Friday, September 27, 2002 - 05:58 pm     I really need to gripe! I miss Moondance and I hope she's okay. People are still fighting in the Big Brother 3 area. I'm not the least bit excited about the new Survivor but I'm hoping that will change. I'm also not excited about the new Fall TV season. It took me ten minutes to find this thread cuz it's all the way almost to the bottom. |
Abbynormal | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 03:37 pm     First, I spent the last 10 mins looking for this thread, because I respect our mods and didn't want to start another one. <insert kiss butt here> lol I get my phone bill, it's a little over $6.00 due on 10-25. Cool, because I always pay a little extra and it's been adding up. Check the mail yesterday, got a phone bill. A pink one which means, uh oh, something's up. It's for $78.00 and due today. So I call the phone co. and they tell me the check I sent for $78.00 in JULY has bounced. I don't think so. Call bank, bank says check has never cleared, has not been returned, money for that check is still in my acct. So back to phone co, that's what computer says so must be the way it is. So today, the day I'm supposed to pay the $78.00 that I have already paid in JULY, and they have obviously lost, they cut me off!! I go to the little local phone co. Nothing they can do, blah, blah, I ended up having to pay a $25.00 re-connection fee, all came to over a hundred, after thinking I only owed $6.00!! Get this, I go to write my check like I did in July, Aug and Sept. and she says we can only accept cash since you bounced that check In JULY!! Well, I know it's not her fault and I told her so, but I also told her she was just decoration. It just burns me that the harder you try to do right, the more you have to fight someone. They'll **** you everytime. I would like to add, one time I was calling the main office from INSIDE the local office and the woman argued me that I was mistaken, they did not have an office in that location! |
Car54 | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 03:45 pm     Abby that is better than here! I used to have a lot of problems with my phone service and I called to see where the nearest office is, and there ISN'T one anywhere...the only thing they have is a payment agent at a supermarket 3 towns away! Jerks. You need to get your bank to call them. My bank accidentally refused a check that caused me problems and they called for me and the place refunded the penalty they charged me. My bank was happy to help. |
Suitsmefine | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 03:51 pm     Well, I want to gripe about a "CERTAIN" long distance company that calls all the time wanting me to switch to their service I ALWAYS SAY NO!!! Well now they sent a bill 2 months ago saying I had switched my service !!!!! I called them and got a big run around, then called my local phone company who told me my service had not been changed, so they had no idea what they were talking about...so I call long distance company back and they refuse to take care of it....today I get a letter from them threatening to cut off my service and terminate MY ACCOUNT????, if I do not pay 5 bucks!!!!! what the #@##??? Who do these people think they are??? I mean their company is laying off workers left and right , is this how they plan to save themselves????By charging "customers" that aren't even theirs!!!! |
Whoami | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 05:43 pm     MCI is supposed to be famous for switching customers without their consent. I had them call me one time, and run a speil (too fast to catch every word), then said, "you have AT&T, right?" I was like, "uhhh, yea, but..." She cut me off with, "ok, thank you." And HUNG UP on me! It took me a few minutes to think, uh oh, I wonder if they just got me and are switching me over. So, I called their customer service center, let them know what happened, and that I was aware of their history of dirty tactics. I said, "In no way, shape or form are you authorized to switch my phone number over to YOUR service!" They of course denied they would ever do anything like that "without my permission", but said, "OK." Abby, I'd make sure they reimburse you for the reconnection fee, once you prove you wrote the check. It's not your fault they lost it! I had a medical supply company write me a letter a year after I wrote a check for my grandmother's walker. They said their books weren't balancing right, and they had tracked it down to an amount that matched what I wrote the check for. So could I please just write them another check so thier books would match? I said, "I don't THINK SO!!" I had to have the bank send me a photocopy of the check having cleared. Man, that was some odd book keeping on their part! |
Juju2bigdog | Thursday, October 24, 2002 - 09:28 pm     Suits, you should complain to as many consumer agencies as you have time and energy for, BBB, Attorney General's office, Postal Inspectors, Federal Trade Commission for starters. |
Wargod | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 10:11 am     I'm griping big time!!!! Tuesday I had to use all three of my booster seats for my daughters feild trip. And since I've been driving hubby's car all week, I left them there. Anyways, Fridays no matter what he always takes his car. Now up until this point, he's always made sure I have a booster seat in my car for Kota. This morning, not sure whether he was tired, or leaving to early or what,but he didn't check! Now comes the gripe part! I have two infant seats, two car seats....but she's too big for them, and now I'm stuck at home with no way to get her to my sisters so I can go to class. I can't drive anywhere today. The fun part is I didn't realize this until I had taken a shower, gotten dressed, and was on the way out of the door to take her to my sisters! I am so frustrated I don't know what to do. It's seven miles to my sisters house, so can't walk, mom is sick, so can't tak her there, and my neighbors are at the dentist with their girls....so none of my trusted sitters can watch her. |
Lancecrossfire | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 10:24 am     Can mom watch them long enough for you to go get a seat from hubby's car? |
Wargod | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 10:32 am     Lance, half hour drive to Darrens job, half hour back. Moms house is only two miles away, not too bad but would take awhile for Dakota to walk over there. So, by the time I got her over there, got back here, and out and back to his work, I'd miss most the class. |
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