Sit Down

4:08 PM. Campbell Hall, Room A4. Rutgers University, New Brunswick campus. The class period is over at 4:10, in two minutes, but one wouldn't know from the sights and sounds of the room. The scraping of backpacks, the slamming of notebooks, the rustle of coats and hats and scarves. Some people have the audacity to be standing up while the professor is still talking, albeit simply announcing the homework for when next we meet, but talking nonetheless.

This has, and always will, drive me insane. In my six semesters at Rutgers, there have been professors I loved, professors I disliked, professors whose knowledge I appreciated the access to which I was granted, professors whose credentials I questioned. Those who could control a room and command respect, those who amounted to substitute teachers in high school. For each and every one of them, I didn't freaking move until they stopped talking and class was legitimately over, if not for basic human respect, then for courtesy, or at least the idea that if I was he presiding over a classroom it would drive me nuts.

"Ten points from Gryffindor. Assholes"

I have taught piano workshops, piano lessons, given presentations, led meetings, and been on the audience side of all those situations. I can say with all manner of surety and clearness of memory that it was distracting and irksome, not for prideful and haughty reasons, but because it violates the idea of common courtesy and deference to your fellow man, especially one who is spending his time trying to teach your ungrateful self something.

Of course, here you might say, "But Mike, aren't you writing a blog post during class? Isn't that a lack of courtesy?" Why perhaps it is, dear reader (if you exist), but it's distracting no one but myself and I'm at least taking notes at the same time. The idea that anyone thinks it's okay to make a bunch of noise while someone who has been deemed intelligent, scholarly, and fit to teach students who pay wheelbarrows full of money to a state university is beyond ludicrous. And it is these very students who decide to throw minutes of their money away every day by packing up while the professor is still talking. If it's a doctor's appointment in 10 minutes across town, if one smells smoke, if one has a particularly raw jock itch that simply needs to be scratched, well, okay. I can understand that.

BOOM!

But the fact is, it's not that. It can't be, unless thousands of students have a disease that gives one horrible jock itch a few minutes for classes end every single day. It is a habit that has been formed not only through deeply flawed judgement and the flouting of basic courtesy and respect, but encouraged by the fact that there are many fellow conspirators, scraping and murmuring and slamming and opening zippers and closing notebooks and carrying on. It's disrespectful not only to the professor but to the rest of us who would like to hear what the homework is.

I haven't had one professor who has done more than quietly point out that class is indeed not finished and perhaps how rude these actions are. If I'm ever a professor (God help those students), one of the first things I'll look forward to doing is tearing the first student that does this a new one (which is probably why I'll never be a professor).