varying degrees of light

When can a professor be angry at students?

The students' answer, invariably, is never. "A professor doesn't have to angry at students." over and over again on the first unit quiz. And so, I'm trying. It's mid-term week at Kosin, which is really illogical if you think about it; why subject the students to examinations in all of their classes in the same week? Why, it makes them tough! Adam, Elijah, Ashley and I have schedules full of conducting interviews with our students and my question is: if a student comes in from the weekend, shaking from nerves and the crippling anxiety to perform and produce good grades and can't utter a complete sentence (in their case, from practicing their answers to the list of example questions provided the week before)... if all of this, and they admit that they did not study, or studied for ten minutes, do you get angry and promptly kick them out of the office? Do you laugh quietly, nod your head, and watch them squirm through an uncomfortable four minutes?

Question: How are you?

Answer: ... ...

Question: Nervous?

Answer: ... (nods head)

Q: Did you study?

A: ... ... (shakes head)

What I'm saying is, if you have the sheet of questions beforehand, you have absolutely no excuse to falter. (I'd go so far as to say you have no excuse to lose any points.) There's a space that Adam and I have provided before the exam to calm the students down and quell any debilitating nerves (hopefully), but again: if the student is unable to glance back into our eyes and speak at an audible volume at the end of the semester, who can say that they should pass the class?

I remember a professor begging our class to actually read all of the assigned material, to think through our individual response and struggle with the content. His concession to this outrageous request was that reading questions/prompts were not assigned. Oh, do you remember? I remember complaining to several of you of this--that the professor felt he actually had to ask his students to do the reading for the class.

Party Down has taught me many things--one of which is that you can't really be good at something you don't care about. This is fine. I don't think every Korean student really needs to learn English, as much as I love the language. (Perhaps they do, if what I'm being told is correct; that any college-grad needs English qualifications to even hope for a "good job.") I teach four Global English classes, which are for non-English majors to fulfill Kosin's mandate for English immersion, or exposure at the very least. It's been made clear by an amount of students in each class that they don't care. I think that's OK. They're old enough to think through their decisions, but not caring means accepting that a bad grade will be administered, maybe a failing grade, if one doesn't practice the language. The gall of these kids, I tell you. But back the question: When can a professor be angry at students?