dragonbook

61 We favor our male students because we wish them well in a world where conflict over the proper roles of the sexes has made it so difficult for them to know what kind of choices to make. We favor our foreign students. We favor our American students. We favor our Christian students. We favor our Islamic students. We favor our Black students, our white students, our Native American students, our Hispanic students, and—well, not quite all our students. There are some students we tend not to favor, and some that we really don’t favor at all. How so? While most professors tend to like and even to love their students, there are other things they like and love as well: their academic disciplines, the life of the academy in general, the love of learning, and the love of truth. And most of us are attempting to play a kind of matchmaker role. We are hoping you also will fall in love, not necessarily with our disciplines and with the life of the academy, but at least with learning and truth. And those students that show indifference or hostility to learning and truth and/or to the standards proper to the academic environment run a great risk of alienating their professors. No, we definitely do not favor those students. So how do you show that you are one of the students that should be favored, that you are not among those who are thoughtlessly indifferent to the academy and to the professor’s chosen discipline? Here are a few suggestions: 1. Show up for class. Not showing up sends a very negative message about your attitude. 2. Don’t talk to other students while the professor is lecturing. It used to be proper student etiquette to quit talking as soon as the professor walked into the room. That’s going a bit far, but it is still good manners to drop your conversations completely when the professor speaks. Don’t make a professor have to ask specifically ask for your attention and don’t ever make a professor have to stop lecture to deal with a distraction you are creating.