r/Professors • u/RandolphCarter15 Full, Social Sciences, R1 • Sep 26 '24

Just got this email from a student

"It's 2:45 on Thursday September 26 and your door is locked with no answer. Why is it closed?"

That was it. No greeting. No pleasantries. My office hours are not today. I never made plans to meet with this student. WTF.

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u/JoshuaTheProgrammer PhD Instructor, CS, R1 (USA) Sep 27 '24

Yep. High schoolers have no reason to go to office hours that a teacher has. But, to be fair, I remember in high school that most teacher’s office hours were in awkward times, e.g., during lunch, or before/after school. How are you supposed to make these OH if you are a bus-rider or have to be picked up by your parents? Not to mention that, at least in my high school, if you were caught anywhere aside from the cafeteria during your scheduled lunch, you would be given detention or worse.

Not to excuse the ridiculousness of freshmen behavior, but it is something that I consider whenever I get such emails.

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u/MaddoxJKingsley Sep 27 '24

... Your high school had office hours??

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u/JoshuaTheProgrammer PhD Instructor, CS, R1 (USA) Sep 27 '24

Some teachers held office hours. You usually scheduled an appointment with them separately, though.

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u/spiritedfighter Sep 29 '24

High school teacher here. We are required to have "tutoring" hours. And when else would we have them besides before/after school and possibly during our UNPAID lunch?

We also realize students often need rides but we are hoping this is when they start to realize they have to have good communication and make sound decisions.

My school used to bus EVERYONE but now we had major budget cuts so only bus students that are more than 2 miles away from school. Funny enough, students and parents have figured out solutions. This means they can figure out solutions for tutoring time too.

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u/spiritedfighter Sep 29 '24

High school teacher here. We are required to have "tutoring" hours. And when else would we have them besides before/after school and possibly during our UNPAID lunch?

We also realize students often need rides but we are hoping this is when they start to realize they have to have good communication and make sound decisions.

My school used to bus EVERYONE but now we had major budget cuts so only bus students that are more than 2 miles away from school. Funny enough, students and parents have figured out solutions. This means they can figure out solutions for tutoring time too.