Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Just Try One Bite...

Yes, I've done my share of complaining about students neglecting to staple assignments, students being presumptuous, and the rage brought on by I-just-want-to-be-loved colleagues, but the one thing guaranteed to bring me down faster than any whining student is the one who, for whatever reason, refuses to even TRY something new.

Instances where this has happened have ranged from attempting to fold origami in class (we were studying a geometrical unit at the time, so it was appropriate), writing a linked verse (the student claimed that poetry was just too hard; this was in a poetry class, mind you), and, in today's instance, reading aloud, to the class, their abstracts of their quarter-long research projects.

I'm not expecting them to get up front or even to do a full-blown presentation. They know this. They've been expecting this from Day 1. It's not like they get to class and I suddenly said, "Oh, by the way, you'll be getting up front speaking without notes to everyone." They're reading for less than a minute. Period. They're reading from abstracts that I have gone over with them and helped them to proofread in anticipation of this moment. Those who want to extemporize may do so, but the requirement is to simply read the abstract so everyone knows the conclusions drawn from this quarter's work. They've been working collaboratively all quarter on this project, and each person has contributed a different perspective to the overall project (I'm trying not to be too specific), so this isn't the first time the students have talked with each other or familiarized themselves with each other's work. They've engaged in peer editing and have provided feedback to each other on their projects, and seem like a cohesive unit.


We sit in a square of four large tables (it's an odd room to meet in) and each student goes in turn, reading hir abstract. Most take about a minute to read. We're saving questions for the end when everyone has read. Everyone is swimming with the current (a few more shakily than others, but they're swimming, nonetheless), until we hit Frantic Phoebe. She absolutely refuses to swim.

"I can't read," she says. I encourage her to go ahead, thinking she just needs a moment to compose herself. She shakes her head. "I suck at reading out loud," she says. I know this to be untrue because she has read aloud to me in one-on-one conferences for two quarters now. Her reading skills are no better or worse than anyone else's. "I can't do it," she says. Her friend next to her cajoles: "It's not that bad. It'll be over before you even realize it. Just read." Frantic Phoebe simply shakes her head, refusing to look up.

"Ok, we'll come back to you at the end of class," I say, not wanting to lose momentum. But momentum is lost. And I fear that for Frantic Phoebe, whatever insecurity has led her to refuse to read aloud for 30 seconds, has won. She has allowed herself to give in to the fears that inhibit growth. Her momentum is lost. She has stopped, and will sink. And she is OK with that.

But I am not OK with that. Her defeatist attitude is one I simply do not understand. I understand fear, and I understand insecurity. But I don't understand not even trying. If Frantic Phoebe were a one-time deal, I'd chalk it up to her fear of public reading and leave it at that. But Frantic Phoebe isn't alone. I've had students simply refuse to participate, like a toddler stoically keeping hir mouth shut when the airplane spoon is locked and loaded to land.

These students simply shut down before even taking a bite, and I don't know what to do with that. To mix my similes, they refuse to take a bite, and they sink, and I cannot swim for them...

I know the adages about leading horses to water and not caring more about their learning than they do, and whatnot, but this doesn't help me cope with the disappointment that their refusal to try something new has stunted their development. Every time they refuse to try something new, I envision another door in their brains shutting down permanently. Perhaps I'm being melodramatic, and they will bounce back, but I doubt it. I envision all of the ideas and learning that they're refusing to take advantage of. And this disappoints me more than the students who half-ass it (although those make me more angry than disappointed).

While I am a cynic at heart, I also want so much for them to not be the ones closing doors for themselves when they will face many closed doors not of their own making.

23 comments:

  1. For some reason, the spam made me laugh. Glue removal?

    Anyway, CC, my only encouragement for you is that they are young. Compared to us, they are really young. And on top of that, our society allows them to be more immature than their young age should even allow. They will grow up (they can't stay that stupid forever, can they?). OK, most will probably grow up and decide, "Of course I can do this. What the hell was I thinking?" For some students, the challenges of college come too early.

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    1. My spam tells me to 'date older women.' I wish I had glue removal!

      BB, I guess I want them to function at a BASIC level, and when I see that they're not, it's sad.

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    2. The spam was posted as a comment to your post. I guess RGM removed it.

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    3. Hi. Yes, we've had an uptick in spam, oh god it must be twitter, oh that's exhausting, but maybe true, who knows, I don't know, I really don't care, as long as God gives me enough whiskey and time, I'll zap them when they come along. I should have left that one, after all, Ben, my bad, as they say, in the manner.

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    4. No prob. I got a screen shot when I saw it. Now I can click on the link in the picture whenever I need some glue removal (more often than you think). Wait. Hold on, this isn't working. What the hell?

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    5. Whoa--a spam comment. Was it made by "Unknown"? :)

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  2. I recently surveyed my class about their specific fears regarding presentation: "Being judged by others" topped the list of their fears. Yet, when asked how they viewed others' presentations, they were generally positive in their approach to other people.

    Now, of course, they could be lying through their collective teeth on the second question, but it does suggest how much they build up in their own minds and how that irrational fear (I suppose all fear is irrational) paralyzes them.

    I mean, what is the worst they think can happen? Death by judgement?

    (Of course, they are quite happy to dish out the judgement on US -- but that's another story.)

    OTOH, an old office mate used to hold mini-oral exams for his students, just to ensure that they understood key concepts: nothing big, just a few minutes of chat. I walked in to find my office mate dealing with a student who was on the floor, curled up in the fetal position.

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    1. Wow, I can count myself lucky that Frantic Phoebe simply shook her head instead of falling to the floor in the fetal position.

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  3. I've had a few (only a few) of these. One student last semester who had participated quite ably in discussion, and put together a well-organized required short oral presentation, stuttered and stammered and giggled and stopped and started and hair-twirled her way through said presentation, much to my astonishment. But she did do it, so kudos to her (I hope it will get easier with time and practice).

    I also had a complete non-talker, but he had autism (and so had accommodations that allowed me to give him alternative assignments if oral ones were non-essential, which they were, and I felt too overwhelmed by other teaching duties to try to coax him even a step or two into a more participatory mode. I still feel a bit bad about that, and hope someone else with more time and/or skill than I will help him work on that).

    On the whole, I suspect I get more students who would prefer to give an oral presentation than write something than vice versa. But since they can't overtly refuse to write in a writing class, they just don't, with or without various lame excuses (and sometimes while still attending class, which gets pretty weird by the end of the semester). I'd like to think that assigning early small assignments that build up to the big paper help with that, but sometimes not (and your oral "assignment" would seem to come in that category anyway -- not early, but small/relatively easy).

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    1. I would prefer to write than get up to speak, but I hear you. I've had students who are very vocal in participation and in class, and then totally collapse up front (why? they're four feet away from where they usually participate).

      In college and grad school, I spent agonizing hours thinking about how to avoid public speaking in college (any form of speaking in front of others sent me into a panic), but even though I was debilitated to the point where my knees collapsed on me occasionally (one time I fell and hit my head on the podium on my way down and the professor gave me an A on my speech; I was mad about that b/c I knew it was a pity grade), I still got up and did the one thing that terrified me. Once my English proficiency improved, I lost some of that fear, but I know that the only way I conquered it was to get up and DO it. Repeatedly.

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  4. Just yesterday, as warm-up before introducing a topic, I posed a completely trivial question to the class; related to the topic, but in the absolute simplest context where the question would arise, something that would come up in a first course.

    Silence. Puzzled looks. I waited for a minute or so, and no guesses were ventured. Yes? Anyone? Okay, we need to get started. So I gave them the answer.

    "Ah, I knew it! Of course!"
    "That's exactly what I was thinking...it's so simple!"
    "I thought of it, but then if I said it, I'd come off either like a genius, or a total fool".

    This last one gave me an opening:

    "That's exactly the point! It shouldn't matter which one it is!"
    That, at least, got a smile from them.

    And this was my graduate class.

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    1. Yeah, I hear that, too. Participating when one is unsure is apparently not OK. I've noticed an upswing of students not willing to TRY something unless they can do it perfectly the first time, though. That disturbs me to no end.

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    2. I had a class clam up on me like that earlier this term. So I asked them for wrong answers. They actually got into that, it lightened things up, and then they started talking.

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  5. You have my sympathies. However I must add that this is an exquisite piece of writing.

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    1. I hope you're not being ironic and that you really mean that. No one has ever used the term "exquisite" to describe my writing, so I am ecstatic about this comment. :) Could you please email my fifth grade teacher who told me I'd never learn English and gave up on me, please? I appreciate the sympathy, too. People on this blog help ease the disappointment of the job.

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    2. Not ironic at all! What's your teacher's name? :D

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  6. CC, your toddler analogy is perfect. Slamming the mouth shut and refusing to open it, like a two year old. I hate that passive aggressive shit.

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  7. I wonder, though. If what they mostly do is memorize right answers for silent standardized tests, and are given increasingly fewer opportunities to risk sharing their ideas in discussion and presentation, then maybe reading aloud or presenting in front of a group seems like madness to them (I make them do it anyway, of course).

    I say this because my kid is in a great school, and the kids have to present their work to one another, talk about it with adults in conferences, and even introduce it to parents touring the school, beginning in 1st grade. So when I toured the school, one of the flabbergastingly impressive things about it was how at ease the kids were explaining their ideas and projects to total strangers who were adults. A friend of mine who is in secondary ed visited the school with me for a holiday show. Afterwards, she was quiet and kind of teary-eyed. I asked what her impressions were. She said that she could tell from the faculty introductions of the performers, and from the way students were involved in giving background information about the pieces performed, that this was a place where student ideas were deeply respected -- and that that was a stark and terrible contrast with the public schools she worked in, where mostly, the goal seemed to be to get large numbers of children organized into silence and on-task behavior. Now, it could be I am raising a speshul snowflake, but I do think that what's happened to elementary and secondary education does not empower students to lend their own voices to a classroom setting.

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    1. That's an interesting point to consider. Fostering an intellectual identity early on helps with being willing to share and engage in ideas in a more public way. And often, younger students are willing and happy to do so. Then puberty hits and self consciousness seems to take over.

      I think, too, that when students have been sheltered by parents and teachers, they also take fewer risks of their own to lead to their unwillingness to cross the road without someone holding their hand.

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  8. There's a great TED talk with an evidence-based trick for gaining confidence and being more willing to take a risk in public. I've started including it as a link for students in my course Moodle room.

    Be sure to watch the whole thing -- it's especially moving and inspiring towards the end.

    http://on.ted.com/Cuddy

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