Are you ever SHOCKED by how butt-ignorant *SOME* young people are?

[laundry_queen]

325. How old are the students in your class?

Jesus, half my class is over 30. Maybe we're an anomaly. We have kids and elderly parents we have to make sure we are there for. One day I got a call from the school that my daughter had a large map fall on her head (the metal hanging kind) and she needed to be taken to the hospital for stitches and checked for a concussion. I'm pretty glad I didn't have some instructor with a rule against phones that day (I'm a single mom, so no spouse to take her). I find it depressing you think that nothing your students may need to talk about is as important as your stuff.

And, I find, in my classes anyway, the adult students who do have the phone turned on, or text, are usually ahead of where the instructor is in the material anyhow. It's pretty rare we sit and text during important explanations and then ask for clarification after we are done. But, again, most of us are mature students. The young students in my classes that text and facebook the entire class don't give a shit anyway and don't ask questions. I guess as someone who went to school in the 80's and 90's and university in the 90's and now university in 2012, I don't see any difference in interruptions now versus back then, even with phones in the class, hence I don't get the panic about them.