Student Guide Corner

Here is an email that I sent to the faculty of my school (the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond) this morning as we all get ready for a new school year.   Time to get excited about the upcoming challenge. Greetings -- welcome back for another bright and sunny school year.    Possibly because I am so lost in the classroom, people send me articles about teaching that they have found worthwhile.   I received two within the last 48 hours.   I thought they were both great.   They got me back into thinking about how I might teach my classes better in the upcoming year.   I started getting excited about the opening day of class.   I might even send these articles to my students.   I find it helpful if students realize that there is some justification to all the weird things I do in class.   (I seem less eccentric to them.) The first article comes from a buddy of mine in ...

Several weeks ago, I had the privilege of speaking to 70 teachers or so at the Kentucky Accounting Educators� Forum. At one point in that presentation, I made a comment that working with students who can often be incredibly lazy is a real challenge for every teacher. My guess is that every teacher has mumbled similar words over the years. Later that day, Randy Hahm who is on the faculty at Kentucky State drove me to the airport. On the way, Randy told me about one of his favorite quotes from Zig Ziglar, the world famous motivational speaker: �There�s no such thing as a lazy person; he�s either sick or uninspired.� I don�t remember much else about that day but those few words have stuck with me since that car trip. My students rarely appear sick. So, whenever I�m dissatisfied with their efforts, is it laziness or is lack of inspiration? Lazy or uninspired? On the surface, you might ask what difference does that distinction make? I think it makes an important difference as you think abou...