In college/university, you are paying for the class. If you want to sleep through it, flunk, or skip to play ultimate Frisbee, that’s your choice.
If you are in High School, then pretty much everyone EXCEPT you is paying for it. You’re disrespecting the work/effort/sacrifice that the community is making on your behalf.
What’s worse, is that you/your parents will probably blame the teacher for your poor performance, or the teacher will get pressured to change grades.
In High School, part of our job is to take “Adults-in-Training” and help them become “Successful Adults”. Personal responsibility (like doing good work, not sleeping when you should be working, and the self-discipline to PUT AWAY YOUR STUPID PHONE) is part of it.
In post-secondary, that responsibility is firmly on you. You either are mature enough to handle it, or you’re not.
A great solution would be to require high school students to pay for their own education. But, that would disadvantage low-income families, and an educated citizenry is considered a good thing.
If only we could get students to appreciate the opportunity they have…
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Because, unfortunately this is becoming more and more of a problem:
In High School, a lot of the time, if the students start to do poorly in a class, especially nowadays, the teacher will get blamed, sometimes by the parents, and sometimes by the students.
While sometimes this is the case, if often is not.
If a teacher is approached by those crazy parents who for some reason blame them about their children’s grades, letting that kid sleep in class is not a positive thing to have on your conscience.
Also, sleeping isn’t going to teach you anything, and more often than not leads to dropping grades.
In college, parents are out of the picture.
College students are adults, and it’s their life to make mistakes in if they want to.
In fact, some teachers may even think that it is a good lesson for their students to be asleep in class, then realize how screwed they are when a test or exam comes around.
It’s really not for the right reason, I believe. I believe that a lot of teachers are simply waking students up out of fear of vicious parents, and not for the student’s well being.
It’s a shame.
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In high school and below, teachers are held responsible for the progress their students make or fail to make. If I suffer because you’re sleeping, I’m damned well going to wake you up.
In college, the students are responsible. If you suffer when you sleep, I don’t have to care, and when I taught at SDSU, I didn’t care if students slept or skipped class.
I think it’s because you are expected to act like an adult in university, while at high school you’re still not that mature yet, so teachers take responsibility in ensuring you stay awake in class. When you reach university, you are expected to take your own responsibility and make your own choice. If you want to sleep through this lecture that you (or your parent/guardian) are paying for, go ahead.
It may also have to do with class size. High school classes are small. Teachers notice you when you sleep. Teachers are responsible for a small crowd so they pour more effort and attention to each student. University lectures are huge. Professors won’t even remember you, let alone care.
Whether or not the class performance affects their pay is also another factor. I think most high school teachers’ bonus depends on how well their classes perform, but for university professors, their pay depends on research and other stuff, and anyway you can bell curve the grades to adjust the final performance.
Then again it really differs from school to school. My high school treated the students like adults, so although we get disappointed looks if we slept in class, most teachers do not bother us (in our defence we rarely do it, and when it’s really tough on us we would usually explain to the teacher and most of the time they would understand). If we nod off during lectures, the teacher just continue with the material and let you be, because they don’t think it’s worth it to keep the entire lecture at hold just for you. My university, however, is seminar-style so class size is really small (capped at 50 or below, I think), so it’s easy for your professor to notice you when you sleep in class. Most professors I encounter didn’t get mad at students sleeping in class, but I have seen too many of them making subtle (or not really subtle) jabs at their behaviour.
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I think that high school teachers are probably held to greater account for their results than college lecturers. Also although this is more of a generalisation, attending a lesson and being taught is often more of an interactive process that attending a lecture and taking notes, and teachers may therefore feel the need for more input from their students. Finally a school student may be regarded as more immature than a college student (although I think the jury is still out on that one) and a teacher may feel more responsibility to inculcate mature behaviour than a college lecturer would.
Having said that I don’t believe I have ever been angry with a student for sleeping in my class. In most cases it has been caused by circumstances well beyond the students own control, although I have counselled a few that they need to spend less time on video games during the midweek, so that they can be awake enough to study effectively, but I believe that those students would have correctly identified that I was concerned rather than mad.
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I never care if a student falls asleep in my classes. They are adults, overworked and overstressed, but still adults. They usually have little knowledge of how to balance time, manage stress, or take care of their health nor have the time to do so quite often if they did between their jobs and classes.
I absolutely feel sorry for a student who falls asleep. I may approach them later to ask if they need help, and offer advise if its requested. I can’t speak for why a high school teacher gets mad, nor even demonstrate statistically that your question is based on facts rather than anecdotal evidence.
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At the college where I teach, our tuition rates range from $75-$175 per credit hour, plus fees and books. If someone wants to spend hundreds of dollars for a semester-long nap, that’s their prerogative. It’s no skin off my back. Whether they get an A, F, W or AW, I still get paid the same. My job performance isn’t tied to my students’ performance.
For high school teachers (in the United States), it’s completely different. They do get rated based on their students’ performance and they can lose their jobs if the students keep doing poorly. The school can even be closed down if test scores are bad enough. Plus they will also get parents showing up to ask why they are letting Little Johnny nap in class. Discipline is expected to be part of a K-12 teacher’s job, but no so much in college.
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High school is a stage that can decide your life. It can tell you what you will do in you life. It is a very precious time. You can’t waste it. It is also the time where you are not yet adult. You are not yet allowed to make your own decisions. You need to be guided. You really need guidance in high school. You can’t just do whatever you want.
High schools are the place where you get to know what college will you be going to. That affects your job that you will get in future. Talking about jobs, they start from High schools. If you want to get a good job, you need to work hard in high school.
There are many types of people in a highschool. Some want to become engineers, some want to become doctors, some want to become lawyer, some want to become car racer, pilot, rockstar, singer, dancer and what not!
So, it is a teacher’s job to show your the direction. Which the teacher does. But a student’s job is to listen to their teachers. If a particular student doesn’t listen to a teacher, he/she will fail in life. That’s why the teacher gets mad.
But when you grow up, you attend university. You are wise enough to make your decisions. You know what you are doing with your life. If not, then your loss. Professors in college don’t bother to look at you. He/she won’t care if a student sleeps in class. Maybe he is sleeping because he wants to do something else in life. Or some other reason like that.
I know this might sound stupid, but this is the way college works. You care for what you want to be. Nobody else will come to you and say “please pay attention in class”. You have been already taught that in High school. Now it’s your choice to either sleep in class, or pay attention.
Maybe a student was tired from his/her band performance, and now is sleeping during lecture. But he has something to do in life. So that’s what professors think.
So basically, what I am trying to say here is that college students are wise enough to make their own decisions.
