The semester's end

This has been a tough one for a lot of reasons. Teaching an overload is most of it.

And it's not even the extra teaching, or the extra grading: it's dealing with THAT MANY MORE people. (Especially with two classes full of first-years on their first semester. That is NO JOKE. Some of the people are scared to death and need lots of reassurance; some freak-out midsemester because they never had to work so hard in high school to pull As as they do to pull Cs in college, some get a bit uppity because "I graduated in the top 10% of my class, how dare you 'give' me a C," some are just lost because of lack of study skills (though I try to do what I can to help)

Some students just don't know how to behave (this is called, my friends, "soft skills." Or at least that's the new name for what my parents "larned" me as "manners.")

I caught a student a couple weeks ago sitting in the back of the classroom taking a selfie. I was aghast and at first couldn't believe what I was seeing. (Then again, I caught a student a few years ago applying make up in class).

Well, the selfie-taking student is not, as you might have guessed, going to pass the class. They didn't earn a good enough grade, averaging about 50% on the exams. And the thing that makes me crazy is that there's a LINK there, I pointed out in the first weeks of class that there is a LINK between how you pay attention in class and how well you do on the exams and....people just don't believe me. And note taking. My A students are the ones I see taking notes in class. The people failing, don't. But people don't see a link between those things in some cases.

What frustrates me about this is twofold: First, I have a student with a seizure disorder in one section of the class. The student has been very up-front about their problems but has not asked for anything beyond a few absences being counted as excused-for-medical-reasons, for which they provided documentation, which I'm happy to grant. This student is going to pass the class despite their difficulties.

Second, I got an e-mail yesterday from another student, followed by one from the dean of students: this student has some kind of chronic condition that is going to require them to leave school RIGHT NOW and get treatment (or else, apparently, it's going to be really bad). Student was requesting an incomplete - student is currently earning close to an A. In other words, textbook guidelines for a person taking an I and then coming back and completing the work when they can (within a year). It's kind of heartbreaking because this was someone who was doing very well, was obviously working hard. And in their e-mail, they seemed to be not at all sure I'd be willing to grant an incomplete - but of course, this is, (as I told them) the absolute kind of situation Incompletes were set up for. I wished them well and I said I hoped their treatment went well (I hope it does, and I hope they stop by sometime this spring to redeem their I and to tell me that they're back in remission...)


So dealing with issues like those, it's really hard for me to have any sympathy for a selfie-taker who is unhappy with their grade. Oh, a certain percentage of the poorly performing students blame me, and I really only mind that if they go over my head and try to get me "in trouble" (though in most cases, the person they go complaining to knows that it's not me). But it's like, when someone with genuine struggles can manage - I don't know.

Incidentally, there's been a push for the faculty to teach "soft skills" to the students. It started with a certain administrator noting "Some of the students don't know how to shake hands properly, you should all teach them to shake hands." (Which led to a lot of hilarity in my department: should we teach them the "standard" method, or the "soul shake" from the 70s?  Or what about fistbumps, as a way to lessen disease spread? Or something more complex, one of those with all kinds of different motions?  And what about cultural differences? Some cultures bow or do a "Namaste" as a gesture of respect rather than shaking hands. (And at the end of all this, I got down on hands and knees, and lifted my right front hand like a dog that has been taught to "shake"- which got some laughs).

I'm guessing the admin's complaint was over "dead fish" handshakes...I have genuinely never seen a student who didn't know how to shake hands at all. But different people are different. (I personally really dislike the "crushing" handshake that some people use, where you can feel your fingers being squeezed together. And for people with arthritis, that can be a big problem. I'd rather shake hands with someone who does the "dead fish" than with someone who is trying to crush my hand)

But yeah - there are a number of our students lacking in social graces. I just wish we weren't being the ones tasked with teaching them to them. (There was also a mention of table manners. I'm serious. When it came up at a faculty meeting, I was like, "Guys, have you ever seen me eat when I'm in a hurry? You don't want me teaching table manners to a student." I also tend to do stuff like lean my elbows on the table if I'm not thinking about it..... though I guess I DO have 'social graces,' I just don't always use them (If I'm at home, eating alone, I don't worry too much about table manners....)