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| image by Frank55, using befunky.com |
Because of the vagaries of our department's scheduling, I rarely teach small classes. I normally teach gigantic lecture courses of 100+, with microphone and media and guest speakers, etc. I have a slew of graders and discussion leaders and I'm - as one colleague puts it - old school.
But every once in a while I get a small discussion class of sophomores and juniors, most majors. Yesterday, after a particularly good set of presentations, we had a few minutes at the end of class and one brave soul said this aloud: "Dr. Frank, sometimes it seems like you don't like us."
Now, I'm 55. I have a rich life outside of the college. My own sons are older than my students and I don't understand or "get" even them. These undergrads are a mystery to me.
Among the things I said yesterday - which were all met with befuddled and shocked faces include:
- I don't like or dislike any of you. I guess I "nothing" you."
- My role isn't to like you. I'm a college professor. I'm here to teach you.
- My friends are all likely older than your parents. Do you aim for your parents' friends to like you, too?
- Why do you want an old professor to like you? Don't you seek that from people who are actually in your age group, your situation?
I meant none of it as it came out, I can tell you. But honestly, I don't know any of these people, and I'm not aiming to know them. My task as I understand it is to provide them a rigorous overview of my discipline, to prepare them for future work in the field or elsewhere as it relates to problem solving, critical thinking, and the rest.
But you'd have thought I told them that Jersey Shore isn't real or that Britney Spears doesn't write her own songs.
I even told them that I admire and respect college students, and that I "like" (although that is such a ridiculous and overwrought word for what our relationship actually is) the idea of college students. But I know I fucked myself.
Among the comments as we finished class were:
- I thought you liked us.
- My best friend in high school was my English teacher.
- You must hate us.
But the ones that didn't look at me with disgust as they left, hung their heads. The semester is almost over, yet I fear these moments are going to reverberate.
I know what I did was "wrong," in some sense. But I sincerely don't think I could lie to them and tell them what they expect to hear.
I handled it poorly, but also feel somewhat annoyed that I was put on the spot by the original question. Was there some path through this minefield that I could have taken?
I didn't know Katie taught high school.
ReplyDeleteYou're back! Goody!
DeleteThis made me laugh on two levels: (1) happy to see you, Wombat; (2) a Katie joke! ;o)
DeleteOMG the Wombat is back and the world is whole again.
DeleteSounds like there wasn't a lot you could have said, other than what you did say: some variation on "I don't dislike you. But my feelings about you aren't particularly relevant to this course, so don't worry about it."
ReplyDelete"My best friend in high school was my English teacher"? Sad. Sounds like that kid had an unfortunate social life.
Anyone who would feel that close to their English teacher in high school is likely to have had few options for a social life -- especially if they come from a small town high school, like most kids at NDSU.
DeleteI sympathize, and suggest that students are not looking at Frank as a buddy, but as a father figure. My World Lit prof at NDSU, the sainted Catherine Cater, was a mother / grandmother figure for me.
That said, I would never have asked such a foolish thing (I hope), nor was I disconcerted when she marked me down or even when we strongly disagreed about my conclusions from a research paper.
Delete"If I didn't like students, I wouldn't be a teacher" or some variation.
ReplyDelete"Sure I like you. Now, back to what we were discussing..."
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing here to me is that they don't really have more than one axis by which they judge anything. Good/bad. Like/dislike. Fair/unfair. It's all the same thing, and it shows in evaluations.
I'm reminded for some reason of a grade school class, where we were taught about 'improper fractions'. Upon entering another classroom, where "21/7" was written on the board, one self-important girl raised her hand and told the teacher that "that fraction is wrong". Although totally unconnected frmo this, that image stuck with me for a long time: an inability to distinguish between categories of thought.
I think you handled it rather well. The student asked a question, probably hoping you would assuage his anxiety about being liked. He was goading you to say nice things so he felt better. Remember this generation has received constant approval for everything because the ultimate goal is that they feel good about themselves- forget learning or hard work. The truth is sometimes unpleasant. You made them uncomfortable- which is what real learning often leads to -discomfort as you try to make the new information fit into an old schema. You may have burst a bubble or two but probably for the betterment of the students.
ReplyDelete"Due to the limitations in place as part of my parole agreement with the state, I may not comment on any topic related to my affection towards college students."
ReplyDeleteThat should shut the little bastards up.
Am copying this down for future use.
DeleteFor use only AFTER tenure.
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ReplyDeleteThe only thing I think you said that you shouldn't really have was the bit about not liking nor disliking: marginalia84's comment would have been appropriate, I think. But I can see how the reaction would leave you shaken. What you said was honest and reasonable.
ReplyDeleteAh, but unfortunately, "honest and reasonable" have no place in Flaketown.
DeleteMy typical response is to lay on the irony with a trowel and say something like "of course I like you. I think you're all the sweetest, smartest, most lovable creatures that Vishnu ever put on the planet. Have any of you seen that new "My Little Pony" show? Because I also believe that friendship--like this class--is magic."
ReplyDeleteThat usually answers the question without answering it. And if any of them are dense enough to actually take it at face value, more power to 'em.
If not that, I would side with marginalia--the question's irrelevant.
"I don't know you well enough to like or dislike you. You seem like nice enough people but I am encouraged not to have an opinion on that."
ReplyDeleteIf anyone were to push me a little further I would be tempted to talk about how pathetic the profs I had as an undergrad were, who thought they were everyone's cool friend, when actually they were just creepy, and how very much I never wanted to be one of those. I mean, yeesh.
I would just say that the professor/student relationship is a professional one and that you need to remain partial in your evaluations. If you liked your students on a personal level and considered them friends, this would interfere with the responsibility that the university has placed upon you to ensure the quality of X University's educational standards.
ReplyDeleteI think you're all leaning towards truth - answering the question that was asked. Instead, you should lean towards good faith - answering the question that was intended. I think the student was really asking something like: "We get the impression that you hate us and are judging us in contempt, and this bothers us for the obvious reason that you are assigning us grades. Please reassure us that you are not out to get us."
ReplyDeleteThe correct answer to the latter question is "Everything is fine, don't worry about that." Or, more simply, "I like you fine."
I actually do like my students. While there are a few jackasses, and the occasional rude jerk, most of them are friendly, polite, respectful (in a general sense), and thoroughly likeable.
ReplyDeleteMany of them also: won't follow instructions; fail to do the reading; do the absolute minimum on any written assignment; have no idea about grammar and sentence construction; can't analyze or synthesize a text; submit work late; and miss class or turn up late.
The problem is that too many students think that my responses to issues raised in the second paragraph—my exhortations to do the damn reading, my criticisms of their writing, my insistence on class attendance—are somehow reflective of the issues raised in the first paragraph.
They think that if I do my job and criticize their work, or insist on maintaining standards, it must mean that I don't like them. They don't seem to understand that I can happily hand out a D or an F to a student that I like, and can just as happily give an A to a student who I think is a complete asshole, but who actually does the work properly.
Generally, I like my students, although there are always exceptions.
DeleteWhat frustrates me is what Defunct Adjunct noted; as an example, I posted a homework assignment which would have reinforced their understanding of statistical concepts-which, by the way, they are being tested on in the next meeting of class. At the beginning of yesterday's class, I asked the students if they had any questions on the HW-no one answered. I then asked if anyone looked at the HW-no one had done so. I then said to the class: "I don't understand students-you're going to be tested on this material next Monday, you have an opportunity to make sure you understand the material and ask questions if you don't and you don't bother to do so".
So be it.
Pride cometh...
ReplyDeleteI would have just made the conversation as short as possible by saying, "Sure, I like you." The End. Yes, it's a lie, but considering all the other lies I tell on a daily basis, such as "It's nice to meet you," or "I look forward to working with you," or "What a great idea!" and so forth, telling a bunch of college students that I like them would hardly condemn me. Unless they were truly despicable, in which case they ought to know the truth, but they sound okay from your post, just needy and eager for approval. But I guess you don't tell lies, which is commendable, but it tends to make life more complicated (and drag out conversations with needy college students).
ReplyDelete"Professors mustn't like their students too much, or else the grading won't be fair."
ReplyDeleteThat would work perfectly. They do all know that grading matters, and that fairness trumps everything.
That's a good answer, or in the right direction, anyway. Students take grading personally: it's not the work that got the grade, but themselves. We have to make it clear that whether we like them or not doesn't actually matter: when we grade a paper or a test or a presentation, it's their work product that's judged.
DeleteNow if I could just remember that the next time the peer review report comes back....
As an asshole, I would have turned that question back on the students, in the form of "Why is it important to you to be liked? Do you think my grading is based on subjective things like my feelings?" and had a discussion with them about their assumptions. I realize this is also risky, but I also see it is my responsibility to get students over some of these fundamental misunderstandings they have about what the college learning environment should be like. (I am reminded of that dude from the other day who was all, "your job is to be entertaining and only ask students to do stuff they already know how to do".)
ReplyDeleteThe MLP FIM answer is a good one, too, though.
This happened to me once--and it was very early on in my teaching career. It was a young woman who would come to every class stoned. I didn't care that she was high, but she had a disconcerting habit of blurting out personal questions (to me) whenever students were doing group work--for example, "Are you married? You don't seem like you are married, but you have a ring on your wedding finger." I would usually just answer her in the positive or negative without embellishment, and if she continued, I would say, "Let's concentrate on the task at hand."
ReplyDeleteOne day, after the students had come in from a break, and I was walking to the front of the class to resume a lecture, as I walked by her, she said (loud enough for everyone to hear and to immediately pay attention), "You don't like me, do you?" I laughed and said, "I don't even know you, Theresa, how could I possibly like or dislike you? I like students in a general sense or I wouldn't be teaching, but I don't know any of my students well enough to like or dislike them as individuals."
And, oddly (because I made so many other mistakes early on in my career), I hope I would give the same answer today. As someone above mentioned, the question itself contains multitudes of narcissism, but the young (most of them anyway) tend to have a narcissistic bent because they are not yet intellectually mature. It's a ridiculous question, however. I suppose what I'd really like to respond to a student who asked this question is "Well, I DID like you...up to this point."
Let me think of replies.
ReplyDelete- I don't like you, but I just love your mother.
- Sorry, I'm not looking for a date.
- I only like good students.
- Wait until I have a couple more drinks.
- I already have plenty of teenage friends.
The first one is epic winsauce.
DeleteI have been asked this exact question. I said, "I'll like you all more once this class is over."
ReplyDeleteAfter I caught one of my students cheating, she told me that I evidently do not like her! Oi vey!
ReplyDeleteYou tell her that she is a schlampf*; if she is a Germanophone, she might slap you, so try to catch her arm.
Delete_______________
* It's not like I called her a "schmutzigen Hure."
"Schlampe" is the correct term. And "schmutzige Hure".
DeleteStrelnikov - You know enough Russian to know about adjective endings! German has them too, of course.
But then again, David started with Yiddish. If "Schlampf" is Yiddish too, I suspect "schmutzigen" might be as well and yield the rest of my time.
I don't think you did them a disservice. I think it helps them to now ponder why it is that they assume a professor will like them when they don't have any relationship with the professor. In an age when they have relationships with people on Facebook whom they've never met, I suppose it's too much to ask that their professor not love them all when we see them daily. I hope things haven't become hostile in the class since this experience.
ReplyDeleteMy response to their "you're not my friend": I'm here to teach the course, not be your uncle. If I have taught the course well enough that you got an "A" in it through your own efforts, then that is our true friendship.
ReplyDeleteNow stop crappin' on my balls.
There needs to be less liking in the world.
ReplyDeleteFrank, I didn't read anything that was out of line. I think you've been sucked in by looking at a lot of trembling lower lips. If it comes up again, a lot of what's been mentioned in previous comments makes for great further commentary to shut down debate on the matter.
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ReplyDeleteRemember, these are the students who say their parents are their friends too. There seems to be a very strong connection in this generation to the idea of being "friends" even when it isn't appropriate or is essentially meaningless (like one's Facebook friends). I think that's why it came up.
ReplyDeleteI got kicked in the ass with this one my very first year cheating. A young lady who refused to do her work, was barely literate, and came to class once in a blue moon got angry with me. First she accused me of racism because we read a book in class which used a racial slur (used one time by an uneducated character). Then she went to my interim chair, who fancied himself the great mediator, to try to get me to "be nicer" to her. He made the two of us sit in his office to try to work things out. She at one point said, "I don't think she likes me." Idiot Chairperson immediately looked at me and said, "Well, do you you like her?" WTF was I supposed to say? I was a first-year adjunct, she was using every card in the deck to try to get me fired, and she was a crappy student. Hell, no, I didn't like her. I was so taken aback by even being asked that I hemmed and hawed through the question, which seemed to both of them to prove that I had a bias against her.
He ended up making me negotiate a deal with her so that she didn't have to come to class, could get notes from a fellow student, and would turn in her work in my mailbox. This was another steaming pile of crap, but as an adjunct, I had to take it. She came by my office three weeks later asking to come back to class. I told her sure. She still failed. Then she tracked down my home phone number and began calling me at 6:00 a.m. because she wanted to talk about her grade.
I reported her to the uni, changed my number, moved (was moving anyway, but the timing worked out well), and waited till she flunked out, which took another year.
Your interim Chair was grossly incompetent.
DeleteJesu Christu Herrgott im Himmel, modern students are SO much like VERY young children. I am talking toddlers, who haven't yet sensed that there's a big, bad world out there, who still think everyone is their friend. By the time I was in first grade, I knew better. But then, they routinely make spelling and composition errors I knew better than to make when I was in second grade, such as the difference between "to," "two," and "too." They're never taught cursive, which I learned in second grade. Fractions, if memory serves, I got in fourth grade, and half my students act as if they've never seen them, which they may not have. Their moral development is about at the same level. God help the future of Western society, if any.
ReplyDeleteI would have said "actually you're may favorite class but I didnt want to let it show, because my large class xyx would feel bad..
ReplyDeleteLast semester, an earnest student asked me if I'd miss the class when the semester was over. I was definitely surprised by the question. Of course I would not miss the class, I thought. I was sooooooo happy the semester was almost over, as I ALWAYS am at the end of the semester. As I assumed they were, too. I liked this student, as far my feelings for students usually go, I suppose. He did passing work as a "C" student, took his lumps with dignity when he did not do his work (definitely not a ball of fire, that Jake) and was a nice enough kid.
ReplyDelete"Will you miss the class, Jake" I asked. "YES!" he said. He meant it. Now I felt bad. I immediately went into faking it mode. I said they were a great class, and I would of course always think about them. It stung to say it, since there were some real assholes in there snickering at me over Jake's earnest face.
Jake still comes by to see me. He is enjoying his community college experience, and I wish him well. If he maintains his "C" average, he will automatically be able to transfer over to one of the state U's as a junior next year. Good for Jake.