Professorial Power
For the second time in as many weeks, I’ve received an e-mail from someone I do not know. The first e-mail tried to beg off of a test due to illness, the second e-mail asked for help in regards to a paper that is, I assume, due tonight. I don’t think the second person has even started their term paper. Yes, either these students are incorrectly recalling their instructor’s e-mail address, or the instructor has a typo somewhere in her syllabus.
The tone of deference in the e-mails is quite amusing to read, and I suppose it’s probably the way I wrote to my professors in college, too. While I never consciously acknowledge it, for four months, about three or four people hold your GPA in their hands; their assistance can make or break you if you’re significantly lagging behind, and only their benevolence can excuse you when you feel like crap, physically. It’s not that professors or instructors are all-out gods, but as students we naturally give over to their superior position. The somewhat pleading tone in both e-mails were funny, given how they came to me instead of the professor, and I can only imagine what they must think when they get an e-mail back from me saying, "Sorry, not your teacher. Hope you do well on your test." One thanked me for responding, the other has so far ignored my kindness. I could’ve just let her drift in the wind, but I’m not that cruel — I can’t abuse the power that isn’t rightfully mine. A little sense of embarrassment surely overtakes them (if only in the "Oops!" sense), and then they have to scramble to really get in touch with their professor before their class starts at six tonight.
I guess it also gives me a hint of what I could’ve faced had I stayed the academic course and started teaching at the college level. "Oh, Professor WordNerd, I haven’t started my paper! Please give me some guidance — I work much better under pressure, anyway." And I could see how that would be true, to an extent — I worked wonderfully under pressure and produced papers I was told to submit to journals — but when you’re asking for guidance on a paper that day it’s due? Nah, you’ve just been slacking. As a professor, how would I handle that? I’d probably give advice, tell the person that they could turn it in a week late, but that it’d be docked by 10%. Like I said, it’s one thing to thrive under pressure, it’s another thing to not have direction the day that it’s due and claim that that’s thriving under pressure.
Ah, the power!
Really, though, if it’s a typo in the syllabus, I hope this instructor corrects it. I really don’t want to have to deal with a bunch of students clamoring for help when it’s finals in less than a month.
