A little dictator

When I first started taking education classes, one of the main critiques my instructors always gave me was that I needed to allow for more student interaction. So throughout my years of teaching, I have always made it a point to open the floor up for class discussion. I have even gone as far as to put remarks like "ask class!" or "discuss!" in my lecture notes. And all in all, I like to think I've been doing OK.

Granted, when teaching graduate students, leading a class discussion is easy. These are students who know their material, who have completed the reading, and who really, and I mean, really, like the topic at hand. Why else would they be forking over thousands of dollars when they have already have one college degree gracing their walls?

Teaching an undergraduates can be much more of a challenge though. An instructor will generally face one of two problems. One, the students just don't care. They don't see the relevance of understanding the intricacies of measuring construct validity, it's ten in the morning, and the Alphas threw a rocking party the night before. Trying to start a class discussion with students like that is like pulling on taffy. Or, and this is the complete opposite, the students are dying to share their very personal opinion and accompanying anecdotes, in spite of not having read the assigned text, checking their Facebook status while you were lecturing, and whispering with their neighbor while you introduced the discussion topic.

So in recent years, having a class discussion has been painful. And today was no different. Even though I repeatedly told students they needed to "summarize, synthesize, and analyze", many of them felt that any comment that started with, "Well, I just think you're wrong.." was a valuable contribution.
It gets old.

Sometimes, I just let the class rant for a few minutes, and then reel them back in, closing the discussion. Other times, I try to steer their energy in a more academic discussion, and sometimes, I just tell them they need to think before they speak. A tactic that would probably have my old instructors frown. Frown very deeply. Today, however, I opted for a completely different tactic: I turned into a dictator.

You see, I'm all for class discussion. Positive, constructive, well-thought out class discussion. I don't care to hear people's opinions. And I especially don't care when people who have not read the text, did not pay attention in class, and whose current midterm grade hovers somewhere around a D, openly question whether the research I present is "true" using anecdotes from their personal life. Besides having obviously missed the discussion on "truth" and its non-existence in research, these students just get on my nerves. Especially when they proceed to interrupt me, and not listen to my counterarguments.

Today one student went to a whole new level when he accused me of not letting him finish an argument centered on his personal life that would undermine a specific, well-recognized theory, which he was now reiterating for the fourth time. It usually takes a lot to really tick me off, but this specific student managed to do it. And I wanted to really squash him, but you know, I can't. It's against the law and his parents would get upset. So instead I said:
"So, tell me, who gets paid for teaching here? Is that you, or me? Because I could have sworn I got a paycheck last month, but you know, I could be wrong."

Yeah. Not nice. Not good. Definitely not pedagogically sound. And definitely not what a mature professor should say. But you know what? I don't care. Not anymore. No more Dr. Nice. We are now no longer a democracy. My classroom is my kingdom, and I am the queen.

Although personally, I prefer "Dr. Dictator".

Do you think that means I get to collect 3000 pairs of shoes too?