I enjoy the heck out of CM, and love reading some of the hysterical stories that all of your writers share.But yesterday I reached a tipping point with the post about "hating" students.
I have hated students, but briefly, usually expunged by one glass of brandy. But, seriously, I don't give a shit about them enough for that kind of strong emotion. I don't take it personally when they act like 19 year olds. I don't take it personally when they try to game the system. They're just going to fail.
They pull a fast one, they get caught. They offer up a lame excuse and pout - who cares?
Q: Is it possible to not take it all so personally? Have some of you been able to de-personalize the angst and problems and bullshit and just teach them without getting attached too much to the good and bad things? Or, does that de-personalization rob you of part of the pleasure (and pain) of the job?
A: Comments below.
I tend to let the student stuff roll off me. It's the colleague stuff that I'm having to learn to not take so personally. Like Denise says, I don't let the student crises or bad behavior get to me and never really have. (Never being a relative term when I've adjuncted for one year and I'm in my first year of TA-ing.)
ReplyDeleteI used to teach at a small, private university, near Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as an Accursed Visiting Assistant Professor. For me, it was the best of times, and the worst of times. Although the administration there treated us faculty like serfs ("The beatings will continue until morale improves" gets it about right), the students were delightful. It was like getting to teach at Starfleet Academy, and during a -more- interesting period in history, the dawn of humankind’s emergence into space.
ReplyDeleteMany of the students there very much reminded me of the young me. This led to a great deal of emotional investment on my part, in their progress and in their careers. This was recognized by everyone. It made me popular with the students, and even with the bastards who ran that university: they offered me a one-year extension on my contract and actually gave me a raise to $30k/9 months, how very generous of them.
It was also utterly, utterly, UTTERLY exhausting. I finally got enough of being a corporate slave, so I got a tenure-track job in another state, and left. Just before leaving, I made a wish for two things: (1) Better students, and (2) Not having to be as emotionally involved.
I didn’t get item (1). I am still horrified with what even my best students don’t know, thank you American public education and especially No Child Left Behind. I did get item (2), however. My present students, although still mostly physics majors, have a wider range of interests, as befits my new department’s wider range of research. My students therefore don’t drive me as wild, when they screw up. When you lose your temper, you lose control of the situation. Strong emotion is indeed both a help and a hindrance.
And remember the context of yesterday's post that pushed you past the tipping point. It wasn't a litany of stories about every student we've found infuriating and has robbed us of objectivity. These were stories about the one student in 20 years that HAS pushed us too far. I take it as a positive sign that even we, who love to complain, can only find one student in 20 years who did that. I'd call that pretty darn de-personalized.
ReplyDeleteI've taught for seven years as an adjunct (both in and out of graduate school) and as a full-time visiting prof. There are a couple of students who have really, really gotten under my skin. The first threatened my physical safety. The second had a mom who called me to tell me that I was "too young" to be doing my job because I hadn't taken attendance in a 300-level class. It wasn't the kid who was the problem, it was the mom.
ReplyDeleteIn the first case, I did everything I could to (a) make more responsible parties take charge and (b) ensure my safety. In the second case, I forwarded emails and phone call descriptions to my chair, spent a week in a vile mood, and got over it.
I think that earlier in my work career I did take stuff personally. But then I got a bit more confident in what I do and I was far less susceptible to student vicissitudes. Years of therapy probably helped, too, along with a healthy dose of Xanax from time to time.
I also notice that sometimes reading about people's other bad students increases my rage momentarily, so then I stay away from CM for a few hours...
Momentary anger at students, but nothing long-term. Like Snarky Writer, it's the colleague stuff that will get me long term, and cause me to really wish I didn't have to go in to work. And I have had it very easy, I know, compared to some of the stories about colleagues or departments from hell. I read CM partly, even largely, to show me how phenomenally lucky I've been.
ReplyDeleteMy colleagues take all of "this" too personally. When I see them arrive in the faculty lounge with red faces, I think, "Don't let THEM get to you."
ReplyDeleteOf course I've done the same thing, let a minor student dustup piss me off for the day or week.
It is hard, though, because it FEELS personal. These are human interactions, after all.
We don't hate students if we are fully realized adults.
ReplyDeleteWhy isn't anyone paying attention to my comments? I'm laying it all out there for you to learn from and use. Just saying.
@Tim: As I said, therapy no doubt helped me resist the urge to take students personally, and also helped me manage my relationship with my peers and supervisors. Therapy helped me become a fully realized adult. I have moments of backsliding, but in general, things are okay.
ReplyDeleteAside from therapy, how does one become a fully realized adult? Boy Scouts seems to have seriously helped Atom Smasher, but are there other ways? (No, I am not being sarcastic, he says the same thing about B.S.)
Because we are here as colleagues, Tim, not as your students.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it is personal. At least on their end.
ReplyDeleteA couple of semesters ago I made a mistake when transferring a score from the auto score system to the student's actual paper. (two people with the same last name, I gave her the score for the other one)
From that point on I was incapable of doing my job, didn't know anything about the content area, and apparently had a grudge against her personally.
Funny how I didn't know any of this until she enlightened me on the course evals.
Isis makes an important point. It often does feel very personal for at least some of our students, while for us each student is part of a much larger picture. Keeping sight of that fact (and trying, on occasion, to help students see the larger picture) is probably key to keeping an even keel, and helping students do the same (we are, after all, teaching them life as well as academic skills, and, when available, teaching by example is often the most effective approach).
ReplyDeleteThat said, the fact that administrators may use one student comment on an evaluation (and/or one student complaint relayed in some other way) to justify bureaucratically-driven decisions that seriously affect our careers (and probably don't really have anything to do with what our students think of us) isn't helping matters. That all-too-common (and increasing) practice flips the power differential that usually allows us to maintain the sort of appropriate distance Denise describes, and can make every student seem like a potential time bomb waiting to be set off -- not a perception which improves the learning environment for anyone.
Actually, for me the experience of having a student that I could not handle is the very thing that helped me realize that I shouldn't need to handle any of them. Since that incident, that semester-from-hell, I have not really cared one way or another what anyone, student or colleague, thinks of me. It was one of the most profound learning experiences of my career.
ReplyDelete(That said, I never have quite been able to come to that point with her personally, as she still makes me feel angry when I see her, which is very seldom, fortunately.)
Along the lines of this being a human endeavor ...
ReplyDeleteI presume many of us can divorce ourselves from the expectation that every student will share our passion for our discipline.
However, when one is trying to further a class discussion on Advanced Basket Weaving by posing a VERY general question about baskets only to hear the chorus of crickets, well ...
Yes, perhaps hate is too strong a term, but when we seem to care more about the students' education than they do?
It may not be a personal affront, but it sure is demoralizing.
A&S, you're right. It is demoralizing. I have read elsewhere on CM this idea of us caring more about their progress than them...
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm going to stop it!!!!
I care about doing a good job, and to the extent that I think the student's attitudes and responses actually reflect my own failure to do that, I care. If I feel, after considered judgment, like I'm doing okay, though, I don't care very much about how well they do or what they try to pull, etc. I WANT them to do well, sure, but I'm not gonna get my pants in a twist if they don't. Once I do what I need to do on my end, if they don't do well, it's no longer on my head.
ReplyDeleteI would like to take Aware and Scared's "Yes, perhaps hate is too strong a term, but when we seem to care more about the students' education than they do?
ReplyDeleteIt may not be a personal affront, but it sure is demoralizing. "
And say, Wordy McWord.
You could argue that when a student is late to EVERY teacher's class, it can't be personal when they're late to yours, or when they do anything "to" you that they also do "to" other teachers.
ReplyDeleteBut you could also argue that that's bullshit. Individual teachers ARE individuals, and when some student craps on them, that IS personal, even if they "personally" crap on EVERY teacher.
Let's not be too charitable. I never treated my teachers poorly, all the way back to fucking PRESCHOOL.
@No Cookies: I think the larger question is, why would you consider it treating YOU poorly to be late to your class?
ReplyDeleteSure, it could be chalked up to "treating me with disrespect," but I'm not sure there's a case for that. If a student comes in late, even everyday, but does so quietly and sits in the back, then, sure, he has poor time-management skills, but is he being disrespectful? I don't see how. It's not like he disrupted class. He knew he was late, he sits in the back, he's quiet... where's the issue, exactly?
Is it that he doesn't show up when you'd LIKE him to? Is that enough for disrespect these days? It's not as if this is a friend, some personal acquaintance, who's standing you up for an appointment. Rather, it's someone who has signed up for permission to come and hear you speak, for a limited engagement. Is it disrespectful to the rock band if I decide not to use my tickets at the last minute? I can't see how. These kids paid for the privilege of hearing me spout off for however long, however many times a week, and what they do with that privilege, once it's purchased, seems to be somewhat irrelevant to my life (barring disruptive activity, of course).
So, yeah - the question isn't, "does it NOT count if they're late to EVERY teacher's class," the question is "why would we think being late constitutes treating a teacher poorly in the first place." Let's not beg the question by assuming that without some argument.
I was never on time for a single class in my life, except by accident, as far as I can recall. I hate to think of the kind of karma I'd unleash if I objected to a student being late for one of mine.
ReplyDeleteNow what I DO object to is disruptive behaviour. So long as they sit quietly in the back, and don't ask "what did I miss?", though, I figure they have to run across campus from another class and can't quite make it in the time.
Tim, I believe we agreed that politely ignoring those who annoy us is the best revenge.
ReplyDeleteI have to confess I take students a lot less personally now that I am a) old, b) tenured, c) decently published, and most importantly, d) a mom. The best advice I got about parenting was not to take your kid personally, and it's very useful with students. Mostly it is not about you; it is about their developmental stage, and that goes for 20-year-olds as well as 4-year-olds.