Getting it out

In the interest of making my class more "interesting" for the students, I did a class activity today.

My "too cool for school" student showed up, but the full time I was introducing the activity, this person stood with their back to me.

I feel kind of disrespected by that. Not enough to bring it up, and also I suspect a reaction is what this student wants, but this individual is sucking a lot of the joy of teaching this class for me. They're currently earning an F, which means I will probably see them a THIRD time in my class. (No. I don't give pity-passes. Not even out of pity for myself).

I just don't get this person. No, there isn't any underlying issue that I can see; they interact fine with their classmates so I don't think it's an Asperger's thing or anything. (If anything, they are that annoying bro-dude type, TOO into socializing.) This is someone who is employed at a job where if they graduate with a degree, they move up the ladder, but if they don't, they get to keep the job they have now. In other words, little motivation to do well with their degree; not like our pre-meds or grad-school-bound people who either want to earn the highest grades possible or soak up all the knowledge they can now.

I think that's fundamentally what bothers me the most - this is not a stupid person, they can learn and do well. But they don't want to. They don't want to put forth the effort. And I wish they would just drop out and give that place to someone who DOES want to learn.

But the turning-the-back-on-me thing was just kind of the last straw today.

(I also admit I wonder if there's some kind of gender thing going on. My first semester ever here I had two men in my class who didn't think they could learn anything from a WOMAN and they were very open about that fact and it was one of the things that had me sending off applications EVERYWHERE wanting to leave here (none of them panned out; I didn't even get an interview). I haven't dealt with that for a goodly number of years now but this person may be another one. And I admit, if that's true, I can kind of go, "It's not me, then, it's who I am and this person's attitude towards women" but it's still kind of maddening.)

I know, I know: Illegitimi non carborundum and all that but it's just, I wish the microaggressions in this case weren't so aggression-y.

In most cases, I can happily interpret what some would term a "microaggression" (and I openly admit I hate that word) as "this person is just a sourpuss" or "they are being awkward" rather than "they are doing this specifically to hurt me" but in this case, it feels to me like this student is, for whatever reason, choosing to quietly disrespect me. I suppose I should be grateful it's QUIET; I have heard of some professors who had students stand up and challenge them on minutiae on a regular basis, or even just stand up and start talking over the class discussion.