Is it worse for your professor to catch you sleeping in class or texting?

Texting, because he/she might confiscate your phone do they do this college?

To me, texting is worse because it is a deliberate act. Dozing off could be due to medications, personal difficulties and do on, and is somewhat beyond the individual’s control.

I think they are equal. I wouldn’t want to get caught doing either one.. but then again, I wouldn’t do either one!

@hearkat True, but I think the professor still gets annoyed. Like today in my 8am psych class the professor called out some kid and was like, “Mike, if you’re gonna be with us, then be with us.” Or something like that. He could have been texting, but I assumed he was dozing.

I ain[t askeered of my perfessors. They are all about half my age. That being said, both texting and sleeping are rude, but texting is more rude, because it is voluntary.

Sleeping. Because you’re asleep, you don’t know what your professor (or other classmates) could do to you.

So far I haven’t met any teacher who gets really angry about texting in class. They kind of realize that if the student wants to not understand the material, that’s their prerogative. Usually they’ll tell people to silence their phones if it’s making a noise.

In my opinion Texting.

I think it depends, because I know some teachers who throw chalk at you if you sleep.

I find it more frustrating when students are texting. If they’re asleep (and not snoring), usually I’ll let it go because they’re less of a distraction. I have yet to see a phone though that doesn’t make any noise. Even when they’re on silent, I can still hear the little clicks, and the texting is more distracting to the other students.

The former.

I think it would be worse for you.

Texting. It is a voluntary act and thus a demonstration of your lack of interest in what your professor is saying.

I have never understood why people pay all that tuition and then find ways to not get what they paid for. I went to a private university and I decided, by God, that I would get every drop of knowledge they were offering so I could get my money’s worth. I missed two days of class in four years, and that was because I had the flu.

I’m trying to think of a situation where those are your two options. “Man, I could sleep or I could text. What to do?”

@kruger_d It’s not about making the choice between the two options, it’s just two behaviors which professors generally find to be rude. I’m asking which is probably more offensive to the professor.

texting. Atleast three of my professors this semester have mentioned this in the first class.. asking students to please not text during class. Which means they have noticed that students do this, and it annoys them.

@le_inferno I was being flippant. Sorry. It was funnier in my head.

Depends on your professor as all of them have their own pet peeves and what not. I would find both to be equally offensive…

Texting – I dont understand people who can’t seem to keep their fingers off of their phones for more than 5 minutes. Isn’t it annoying when you want someone’s attention and their looking down towards their crotch, typing away to someone else, having a completely different conversation? I text when I’m not doing anything else that occupies my attention. Especially in class, your attention is required. Aside from all of this – it could be disruptive to others in the class actually trying to learn. If it’s that important, why not just excuse yourself from the room and text in the hall way?

Sleeping in class – If you’re that tired, why would you even roll out of bed? I had a professor that would mark you absent if you slept in class and his philosophy was that in order to get credit for being there – both your mind and your body need to be present and sleeping in class kind of defeats the purpose in coming to class anyway.

Just like while driving your attention should be on the road – I think while you’re in class, your attention should be on the class. Otherwise, why pay for class?

Sleeping isn’t so distracting, but if you’re that tired, why come at all? Texting is rude, but I’ve had times when I needed to reply to my boss or my mom about something. how about that asshole who actually answers the call during class, or does that only happen here at WVU?

Sometimes students can’t help falling asleep though. I know with me, I’ll feel fine when I come into class, but sometimes when the professor gets going on the lecture, I just can’t keep my eyes open. It’s not like I deliberately want to sleep, it’s that I physically cannot maintain full consciousness. It’s actually quite frustrating and torturous, because I try very very hard to appear alert and not actually drift into unconsciousness. I’m sure you understand if it’s ever happened to you.
I would never actually, say, put my head down and sleep freely. I think that’s just totally rude.

I’d put my head down if it’s a sub or I hate the teacher

@SheWasAll_ It’s not always about going to school when you’re tired. Hell, yesterday I was perfectly awake, got a great night’s sleep. but half an hour into my Oceanography teacher’s lecture about Earth’s First, second and third order features, I was having trouble keeping awake.
When you’ve got a boring monotone teacher talking about a boring subject, it’s difficult to stay perked up.
(And I did see somebody asleep during that lecture)

@teh_kvlt_liberal re: chalk—It’s true. My professor did it the other day, then threw chalk at the kid who caught the initial chalk so it wouldn’t hit the sleeping guy. Eventually he ran out of pieces of chalk to throw at either of them. All in good fun though.

@Sarcasm Oh no, I completely agree. I had a chemistry teacher who actually had a very soothing voice, and it was near impossible to stay awake. But what I meant is if you’re going to just lay your head down when you get there (like le-inferno said) that’s just rude, why bother getting out of bed?

I’d say texting. With sleeping you can claim it wasn’t on purpose.

because your parents force you to go to school?

When I was teaching at college, I really didn’t give a rat’s behind if you were paying attention to me or not. It’s your dollar. If you want to take advantage of my lessons, great. If not… why did you bother leaving your dorm room this morning? That makes little to no sense. As long as you’re not disrupting anyone else who does want to learn, I really don’t care if you’re sleeping, texting, eating, or anything else.

I had a physics teacher with an incredibly monotonous voice. The only class period available was at 6 pm, after dinner (the cafeteria closed at 7 pm so waiting to eat until after the class was not an option) and after a long day of other classes. No matter how much sleep I had had the night before, physiology dictated that blood must go to the stomach to digest food, so I invariably became sleepy. I did everything I could to stay awake and never put my head down on the desk, but still at times would end up asleep.

OTOH, when I taught college classes, I never saw students sleep in my lectures. I did a great deal towards making my lectures interesting and using my voice to garner the attention of the students so that may have been partially why I didn’t see sleepers, even though it was an 8 am class. There was one idiot young man who insisted on reading the paper during class. I spoke to him about it and discovered that he figured it was all in the book anyway even though I had told the class that the book was a supplement to the lecture so not everything said in class would be in the book. At testing time he discovered that I had been truthful and since he did want to pass the class he stopped reading the paper during my lectures.

Sometimes when you see students sleeping in your class you need to take some responsibility for your lecturing style.

I had a biology professor who invariably addressed a question to a student seen snoozing in lecture hall. A chemistry professor was famous for carrying a fire extinguisher and aiming a jet at students whose naps needed to be extinguished. I wonder what those old boys (no doubt gone now) would have done in the age of laptops and texting.

I have seen both in my classes and by far the more objectionable is texting. Texting or working on a computer is always deliberate; sleeping may have any number of causes from health concerns to lack of concern for one’s health. I did not deliberately sabotage students, but I often lead the discussion to some topic that naturally caused students to react loudly, such as suggesting a ridiculously complicated assignment that was due in place of a fairly benign assignment…a 10-page, fully referenced paper instead of read these pages and let’s discuss it next class.

Since I taught public speaking for many years, it was easy to abruptly switch direction and go for a round of impromptu speeches and when teaching writing courses it was just as easy to announce a free write (stream of consciousness) about any fool thing that comes to mind for two minutes. I would always collect the papers to use for attendance, but I seldom spent much time reading them.

If I noticed a potential problem, such as serious depression, anxiety abnormal for a college student, a plea for help, or a high-level anger, I always followed up with professionals who were trained to help students. Every campus offers many kinds of support for student in these situations. I watched my young male students more carefully because they were far less likely to go for help or even know they needed help than were my young female students.