Why? Because I, too, like homemade snacks. However, my juevos are not large enough to make it a working requirement.
“Students in George Parrott’s psychology courses have an unusual requirement: they must bring homemade snacks each week to the laboratory section, and they need to work out a schedule such that groups of students make sure each session is covered, and that snacks aren’t repeated from week to week. If there are no snacks, Parrott walks out of his class at California State University at Sacramento, and the students lose that week’s instruction.”
"Bitch better bring my profiteroles!"
Damn! The first question that pops into my mind is related to the criteria that they must be “homemade” snacks. That seems awfully judgmental. Are not Lil Debbie’s snacks also delicious? Must we discount the Keebler Elves entire genre?
“People typically bring muffins, cookies or coffee cake to morning sessions, Parrott said. One of his afternoon sections recently featured pizza.”
Surely that was not homemade pizza? Here Prof. Parrot explains the homemade requirement.
“As for the requirement that the snacks be homemade, he said that he wants the snacks to be healthy. “I’d like stuff without the total chemical treatment” that is found in packaged snacks, he said. He added that he rarely eats the snacks, but wants them there for everyone else.”
Shut your pie hole, you snack blasphemer! That chemical treatment is what makes Twinkies and all its little friends so wonderful. And, I wonder, is there any correlation between the quality of the snack and the student’s grade? I mean, do you get penalized for lack of quality snackage? That smells like a potential lawsuit, in my opinion.
Snack Pimp. The Internet is so awsome.
But perhaps I’m missing a bigger point here: Let’s keep in mind here that it IS a psychology class, so Professor Parrot may just be messing with his young charges, no? Apparently not. Homey is not playin’.
“….on Thursday, when students in the morning section of Foundations of Behavioral Research didn’t bring muffins (or anything), he enforced his rule. He left class and took his teaching assistant to breakfast. One of the other sections missed its snack obligation one day last month, and he left that class, too. Ever since, the snack schedule has been followed by the students in that class.”
Well, that is one form of behavioral research. And, according to Parrot, he’s just teaching his students valuable life skills.
“Parrott said that considerable research shows that students learn more if they develop the skills to work in teams, to assume responsibility for projects, and get to know their fellow students. Team members need to count on one another, he said, and his students learned Thursday that if someone fails at a task for the team, there are consequences. “They need to learn to check on one another and clearly they didn’t get that done,” he said. “This was an important lesson.”
Yes, pestering your fellow students to bring snacks to class IS an important lesson.
You know, maybe I should employ this in my own life. I think my coworkers could learn some valuable lessons if they choose to not feed me. Here I’ve been plugging along, just working for a paycheck and benefits, and all this time, I could have been holding people hostage for brownies? Damn you missed opportunities!
The ultimate snack negotiator.
But my favorite part about this whole story is how Professor Parrot is about to peace out anyway. He’s retiring after this semester and he’s a total honey badger about authority: he don’t give a hoot.
He plans to stick to his rule for his last semester. Given that he is on track to retire, he said that if told to stop enforcing the rule, “I’d probably ignore it.”
