Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Hi My Name is Gypsy Queen and I'll be the one Standing in the Front of the Classroom...

Every Thursday for (roughly) the past 8 weeks I have stood in front of two classes full of students answering their questions about what they "learned" in class and discussing plans of attack to come up with solutions to their homework problems. I am a graduate assistant to two professors at the university. I have (somehow) taken the time to learn the first names of (most*) of the students, but today I realized that some have not bothered learning mine. How did I figure this out, you ask? Here's your answer:


Ok so one train is leaving Chicago at 4:13 pm at a speed of 51 mph and the other is leaving from Dallas at 8:07 am...wait a minute, wrong audience....Here's the answer I meant to give:


Ok so, I was sitting at my desk tonight minding my own business writing up my homework for tomorrow and all of the sudden my phone rings. A phone number came up that I did not recognize, sticking to my To Do List I answered it. Within the first 12 seconds I knew it was somebody looking for a tutor so being the money whore that I am (just currently, not usually) I jumped up in excitement nodding and saying Uh-huh Uh-huh to everything she said so as not to lose her. After about 3 nods (that she obviously could not see) I recognized her voice and placed her as one of my students. She continued our pseudo-conversation (at this point I still had only said Uh-huh Uh-huh) by saying, "I have this test tomorrow at 10:10 am and I've been cramming all night. I have a few loose ends I want to tie up so can you meet at 7:30 tomorrow morning?" At this point I was positive that she was one of my students. Needless to say, I was stunned: one of my students called me (without knowing who I was) and offered to pay me to meet with her the morning of her test (at 7:30 am!?!?!). I did what any self-respecting person would do and said I had class at 8:00 am so I couldn't (I really do have class at 8 so I didn't have to lie, but I could have obviously given her numerous different reasons). Then she hung up on me.

Moral of the story: she should have come to my office hours for a FREE tutoring session with me.

*By most of my students I mean the ones that actually show up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just love it when a story has a good moral ending!! Lesson learned for her as well I hope. Good job of sticking to your guns.

Anonymous said...

Here is what I would do:

Where a shirt with your name in big read letters across your chest.

THEN, remind the class that many teachers offer free tutoring sessions to their students and re-tell the story (minus the part where you knew it was one of your students).

She will feel very silly and you will get a giggle.

Giggles are always good :-D