Teachers care or unfair?

The complaint that you hear from almost every student each semester is the workload they have. They complain about how teachers make it seem like they have nothing else to do besides the work for that class.

I am going to take the side of the students on this one, but I can see the argument from the teachers’ side as well. Students usually have two to three classes a day and an average week of 15 credits worth of classes, sometimes more. If you get an assignment from each class it is at least a nights worth of work. When you add all of these classes together it can really build up a huge pile of work for any student.

Not to mention if you forget about an assignment, it can mess up your schedule for the next week or longer.

The fact that teachers take points away for being late is fair and unfair at the same time. The fair part is that it is going to prepare you for the real world where you would get fired for having late work. The unfair part is that when you are a student taking five classes it is like having five jobs. With these five jobs you have a workload from each of them, which each boss might not consider.

Another part is that when you have to work in a group, a classroom technique that many classes put into effect, you have to plan a time that works for each member while still balancing the workload with every other class you have.

As you can tell, this is some very tricky maneuvering, especially when these projects are worth such a large portion of your grade. Sometimes you even have to take a hit in one class in order to be successful in another. I do not think that teachers understand we are just getting used to being “adults,” so this kind of balancing act is extremely difficult for us.

In the defense of the teachers who we believe only teach the one class and are only thinking about making us miserable for the time that they have, we are wrong. The teachers get up nice and early write their lesson plans down for the six different classes that they are going to teach in a day and still have to try and manage some time to grade and help each one of their dozens of students.

All these teachers have all been in our shoes at one point too, so some can see how stressful it is. Others who have probably been out of school a long time ago cannot really remember the stress that an average college student faces.

I do not think they really have a concern with our other classes, but they do want us to succeed. So whenever you think a teacher is being unfair, try to go talk to them and explain the situation and that usually helps to solve most of your problems.

Just try to think of it as you are investing in yourself and your teachers are trying to bring the best out of you. Once you get caught in the mindset that they are out to get you and want you to fail, you will ultimately give up and your investment will have been a failure.