But I still don't GET the students. I've been attending these once a month seminars with our "whatever it takes to kiss up to students and piss off faculty" director.
 | |
| Let me care about you! |
Millennials also want to know that we care about them. Remember that they are still attached to their parents and not far from the nest. They are also accustomed to near-constant interaction, so they do want to relate to us. Showing that we care about their learning and well-being---by calling them by name, asking them about their weekend, promising we will do whatever it takes to help them learn, stating how much we want them to be successful, and voicing our high expectations of them---will go very far in earning their loyalty and trust.See, I want to get with that. I want to do what I can to make "it" work for my students. But, fuck me, I'm about done being the only one in the classroom trying to get it to work for all of them!
- Rayna in Racine
Obligatory "Don't care more .. " comment
ReplyDeleteRayna, I recommend you re-read "Future Shock," and savor the irony.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, with my military background, I look at stereotypical milllennials with disgust. They're so much like SUCH young children, so fearful, so utterly unprepared for living. I couldn't wait to leave home when I graduated high school, in the manner of a normal teenager. Kids that live at home until they're over 30 make me want to get out my STAPLE GUN, and LET THEM HAVE IT!
As student neediness approaches infinity, Froderick → Strelnikov.
Deleteand it isn't just living with mommy and daddy. TONS of students have no desire to even get their driver's licenses! They like being driven around by their parents. I too, could not wait to leave home, and i did so by picking a school over 1000 miles away!
DeleteI'm Yaro, remember?
DeleteI now suggest to anyone who will listen the wisdom of the gap decade. 28 is the new freshman.
ReplyDeleteI am horrified by this movement for profs to be 24/7 constant coaches/mentors/parents-in-abstentia to all students, not just the Millennials. A colleague of mine recently suggested--in all seriousness--that texting students to let them know when things are due is a reasonable endeavor.
ReplyDeleteAt the CC where I teach, many of my students are emotional vampires. They would eat me and my energy alive I let them. The younger ones, especially, have incredibly unrealistic expectations of what a prof should do for them and be to them.
"But, fuck me, I'm about done being the only one in the classroom trying to get it to work for all of them! " Yes, yes, and yes again.
Gawd, I am so done with this semester. I have spent the bulk of it worrying about my own sub-par performance but in the last week or so, I realize that even while having one of my shittiest professional semesters on record, personally, I'm still doing more work for my students than they are doing for themselves.
I want them to take ownership of their own education. That, my fellow Miserarians, is one of my primary goals for next semester...well, that and my continued efforts to keep alcoholism at bay.
"But, fuck me, I'm about done being the only one in the classroom trying to get it to work for all of them! " Yes, yes, and yes again.
DeleteAnd another heartfelt yes from me!
I hear ya Greta. As a wise man often said "I'm pullin' for ya. We're all in this together"
Fuck that. It takes a whole hell of a lot more to build trust and loyalty than just asking how their day is going at 9 am MWF. Drill sergeants build trust and loyalty too. Can I try that approach?
ReplyDeletePart of what sergeants do (not just drill sergeants) is to train subordinates. I once told a private (on two previous occasions) that, yes, he has to have a pen and little memo notebook on his person whenever he is on duty. Next day, said private failed to have pen and memo pad on him. Told said private to do pushups. Right here, right now. Do pushups all the way to China, Private.
DeleteThe expression on his face told me I failed to communicate my point effectively. He really wasn’t a bad sort; in part, I think he didn’t get it because I knew his parents helicoptered and hovered him too much. Thus, I added:
Jesus H. Christ on a fucking Ritz cracker, Private: how the fuck can I trust you to do your military fucking job or, God forbid, fire your fucking weapon effectively if things go fucking pear-shaped, if you can’t follow the simple fucking instruction to bring a fucking pen with you. You fucking fuckety-fuck; I can’t fucking trust you, Private. Private, in three months, as we all know, we’re deploying to Fuckistan. It’s my job to bring all of you back home with honor. I take my job seriously and I need you to do the same. Your job today was to bring a fucking pen with you. Do you want to fuck over your fellow soldiers? I don’t. Do you really fucking want to let them down? They fucking depend on you, Private. Do pushups and fuck your face in the ground right fucking here all the way to China. I will not tolerate fuckery, Private. You’re fucking over your fellow soldiers who have to depend on you. We fucking have to depend on each other every single fucking day.
So, when I read the misery here about students showing up to class without so much as a pen, I think a few pushups might work. However, in a college my approach would be unacceptable according to college regulations and I suspect the above f-lecture might get me escorted out the building and fired. (But, it did work.)
[training meeting at the "whatever it takes to kiss up to students and piss off faculty" -- after the speaker goes about the caring crap, raise your hand]
ReplyDelete-- I have a question. How do I know that YOU care about ME. I mean, I FEEL that you don't care for me as a PERSON, that for you I'm just a FUNCTION of student satisfaction. I mean, like, you are mean to ME [fake hyperventilation], I am sorry, I have to leave [leave the conference room in a hurry, faking tears]
[Capitals for emphasis. But you can pull this out only if you have tenure]
As a fellow proffie who recently turned 40 (you might be a little bit old!) you are an adult and sadly, your students are not. We can be caring and supportive without having to constantly hold their hands. What your administration is selling is the same BS that got these kids into the predicament that they are in- they can't self motivate, can't self soothe, and have basically no clue.
ReplyDeleteA lot of us are fucked, of course. If a department were to take on the challenge of stopping the hand-holding madness, and the at department didn't have to worry about cuts, it could be done, bit by bit.
ReplyDeleteI think the ship has sailed though.
I'm a late-boomer. My parents were so over-protective it wasn't funny. But compared to today's kids I was almost a feral child. And yes, I could not wait for my driver's license and went out-of-state for college.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHand-holding is great, so long as their hands aren't attached to their arms any more.... Don't get me going about pats on the back.....
ReplyDeleteI tell them I am the brick wall (the first of many) they are going to run into if they don't get their shit together and take ownership of their education. Then again, I have tenure.
ReplyDeleteThen aren't we merely extending their neediness issues?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/12/millennial_narcissism_helicopter_parents_are_college_students_bigger_problem.html
DeleteHere's a related article from slate.
Given that students rarely remember what my name is or greet me, I wonder who came up with that bullshit. The incongruency between admin and faculty and students makes for one big farce of a campus sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI think it's all the slopped-around specialness and self-of-steaminess. I have explained to my second-grader quite a few times: you are special TO ME. To the rest of the world, you're just like everyone else.
ReplyDeleteI cultivate a deliberate image of detachment from snowflake emotional neediness (as in "does not register"), and largely get away with it. Until, that is, one of them approaches me with what sounds like a problem (usually a request for an exception, or for reassurance in the face of contrary evidence.) Then I'm all warm-fuzzy smiles, and put on what I hope is a believable simulation of "caring". But the initiative has to come from them. And having tenure means I don't have to go to "snowflake appreciation workshops" (I don't think we even have those). If I'm ever pressed into one, I can always bring a book.
ReplyDelete