Students in Trouble

Today I write about as subject that is much on my mind - and far more often than I would like.  

College students are often young, but not always so.  They are sometimes immature and unsettled in life, but often not.  Sometimes they are sure of their career plans, and other times, they can hardly choose whether to take chemistry or basket-making.  

They are, in other words, they are an inconsistent bunch.  

However common their... uncommonness, one trait I have noticed over and over in my eight years of teaching is vulnerability.  Yes, that's right.  Students are a vulnerable bunch. 

The young ones are vulnerable because of their age, if for no other reason than that they are still growing up and don't always know how to conduct their own affairs.  The older ones are often vulnerable because they are in transition  - perhaps out of one career and into another, or perhaps out of a marriage and into independence.  Only the very fortunate have parents and friends and others to stand by and help financially and emotionally with the challenges of being in school.  

I am reminded of this today because a student confided in me that she is separated from her spouse and fears that she will have to mend the relationship and quit school because she is not financially able to make it on her own.  I am reminded of this today because another student confided that he has lived in his truck for most of the year because he couldn't make rent - and that the recent cold snap had been particularly brutal for him.  

Believe it or not, these stories are pretty common.  As teachers, what we are tempted to do ti try to solve students' problems as much as we are able.   Of course we want to help.  

However, the right thing to do is to advise students to seek counseling and support from student services.  While we are good at what we do, and while we like to think we are good people, we are not trained social workers or psychologists.  Our job begins and ends with teaching curriculum and silently submitting ourselves as good role models.  Counseling, advice, and aid are the jurisdiction of others.  

In which I fall on my own sword

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, Fellow Academics, Fellow Students, Fellow carbon-based life forms:

I screwed up. 

I can't believe it.  (Well, I can).  

A student's mom called the Dean this week and went ballistic over her son's grade.  Her argument against his F is that he never got feedback from me.  Nonsense!  I said.  Of course I gave feedback.  I feed people back.  It is what I do.  

Of course, it is what I do when I actually do it.   Meaning, when I actually attach the file to an email to return it to the student.   Guess what I didn't do?

Yeah.   So the student, apparently unconcerned about the lack of feedback, assumed that despite the Fs in the gradebook and a sizeable number of blanks indicating late work, chose not to worry about whether he would pass until the moment when he found out he had, in fact, failed.  

My failure:  attaching comments to emails. 

His failure:  failing to care until he got his grade and his mom got pissed at him.  

So needless to say, this has not been a great day for me as a teacher (and carbon-based life form).  More on this debacle - and what I plan to do to fix it - later.  

I have lots of other feeling sad and stupid to do before this day is over. 

Rules - Made for Breaking?

Each semester, I set standards for my classes, and one of them is "Students must turn in papers on time.  No paper extensions will be granted under any circumstances." 

Students are taken aback by this policy.  Most of them are either terrified by it - and some don't believe I will enforce it.  

Well, I agree with them on the first item: it is terrifying. It means you can't have an alien abduction, a car accident, or even a simple house fire the day your paper is due.  What kind of policy is that?

But they are wrong if they think I won't enforce it.  The reason I do is simple: it saves them the sting of the F later.  

An example:  Let's say Paper One is due February 1st.  Let's say that a student we'll call Bob decides to email the paper to me on February 3rd, citing the death of his grandmother and his unexpected departure for XYZ, Oklahoma for the heartbreaking funeral.

My response is to express sympathy for him and his family and suggest that if he is having a hard time coping with the loss, counseling services are available and confidential and free.  Regarding the paper, I regret to inform him that he did not meet the deadline and will therefore have to accept a zero for the assignment.  

The student, naturally, seems far more upset about the zero than he does about the loss of his beloved grandmother.  I, being a student myself, am obsessed with grades.  So I know just how he feels.  That's why I had my grandparents killed before the first week of graduate school - you know, to eliminate surprises and distractions.* 

What I don't understand is why the student will email the paper after he gets back from the funeral - when he just as well could have submitted it BEFORE he left for the funeral.  Even an incomplete or rough draft would meet the criterion.  I accept rewrites.  The zero could have been so easily avoided.

That is, unless he never even started the paper until after the funeral.**

Some teachers, the more compassionate and gentle ones, will simply accept the paper and give the student a cookie.  I will not - and no - it is not because I like to see people suffer and fail. It is because I like to see people with clean shiny transcripts, free of Fs. 

You see, that very student with the newly dead grandmother is likely as not to have ANOTHER dead grandmother by the time the semester is half over.  He is also likely to suffer a house fire, an alien abduction, a freak smelting accident, a failed relationship and at least one catastrophic hardrive failure in which he loses "everything."  

Knowing that these events are likely, I believe it is far kinder to let the F stand, and then gently suggest to the student, when he misses the next deadline, that this might not be a great time for him to be taking online classes, what with all the distractions and troubles he is having.  I then explain the consequences of having an F on his transcript.  I reveal that I, too, failed a course in college, and it sabotaged my GPA and kept me out of top notch grad schools.  (The first part of that sentence is true; the second might have been true had I actually applied to Yale.  I didn't).  I then explain that W grades are not counted in the GPA and actually look rather innocuous on a transcript.  And wouldn't the student like to just think all this over?

It's true, of course, that I sometimes break my own rules.  I once had a student two semesters in a row - a student who proved smart and responsible and mature.  In his first semester, he was a model student.  In his second, he lost his job, wrecked his car, and his wife left him.  I cut him a lot of slack. I was happy to do it because in all that chaos, he only missed one deadline, and he made up the work almost immediately.  

But such students are as rare as alien abductions and Bigfoot sightings - and also about as rare as instances of me breaking my own rules.  

Rules are rules, everyone.  I don't break them, and neither should you. 

* Oh, come on.  You know I am kidding.  

** We're assuming both the funeral and the grandmother were real. 

Beginning of the semester

Online classes started today, and it has been one snag after another.  I am sorry I don't have the stamina to create a longer post.  Just a few words for anyone starting a new semester

1)  Be patient

2) Be kind 

3) Avoid alcohol 

That goes for both teachers and students.  This is a stressful time and we need to be as level as we can until the smoke clears.  

Happy Monday - and I promise a real post tomorrow.  

Tips for Teachers - Email

Why on earth would a teacher need advice about doing something as simple as answering an email?  

Because so many of us don't do it - or do it so inefficiently that we might as well have three times the number emails we actually have.  

When I first started teaching distance education courses, I installed Microsoft Office and set all my email up on Entourage (similar to Outlook Express) and THEN I wrote a "rule" that would automatically check email every five minutes.  As a result, I got email... every five minutes.  It was great, except for one thing: it gave me a false sense of control regarding my email inbox.  I'll give you an example:  I once got an email that went something like this:

From:  Angry McStudent@learnstuff.net

To: Crazyteacher@teachstuff.net

Re: my paper 

Yo, I don't get why you always gives me bad grades on my papers and I think you are wrong.  You should read my papers and gives me grades, highest.  I have a problem with you. 

Now, I get emails like this more than I'd like.  (I would prefer never, thanks).  But when I got this one, I did what I normally do when I don't know quite what to think:  I waited.  Had I written back right away, I might have written something like this:

From: Crazyteacher@teachstuff.net

To:  Angry McStudent@learnstuff.net

Re: my paper

Hi Angry, 

Your papers are, as I clearly stated in my comments, not passing  because you did not follow the directions.  Also, your grammar is so poor that I often wonder whether you are writing in alien-script and using a transliteration button.  I can't pass you unless you actually learn something.  That's why you are in school.  And by the way, your problem is with you and your failing papers.  Once I give you the F you so rightly deserve, I'll forget about you entirely.  But your transcript?  That's forever, so I suggest you get to work.  

Cheers, 

Sassy MsTeacher 

So as might be able to tell, I was a little miffed at being addressed as "yo" and I didn't really appreciate being called "wrong."  Also, the student's poor command of verbs was irresistibly funny, considering he was complaining of poor paper grades.  In short, I was too conflicted to compose a response right that second.  So I went for a run and flossed my teeth and perhaps I even baked a cake.* 

Then I returned to the computer and composed an even-tempered and professional reply:

From:  Niceteacher@teachstuff.net

To: Angry McStudent 

Re:  my paper

Dear Angry, 

I am sorry you are having trouble understanding my paper comments and your grades.  Why don't we schedule a phone conference or an IM conversation and go over each paper?  Please let me know what time would be convenient for you.  I will be on instant messenger between 2pm and 4pm today.  You can also reach me by phone at XXX-XXX-XXXX.  

Sincerely, 

Nice McTeacher

Now you might thinking: ah, you are advocating letting your emotions cool rather than writing a sassy reply. If you are thinking that, you are WRONG.  

Here's the thing:  teachers are passionate about what they do and they are passionate about their fields of expertise.  As a result, most of us personalize our jobs far too much.  What I should have done was taken perhaps two deep breaths before writing the inevitable (and far more helpful) reply.  I knew exactly what the "real" reply would be; I did not need to bake a cake to figure it out.  And by waiting, I caused myself three very real problems:

1)  I put myself at risk of forgetting to reply at all - and I am sure I do not need to tell you why that would have been bad, indeed. 

2)  I let the student, who was probably very itchy and uncomfortable about having written the email, stew in his own regret for hours.  That was not very nice of me. 

3)  Worst of all, I caused myself to have to handle the same piece of email TWICE.  That's right:  I ended up spending two times the the amount of time answering that email.  And the end result was the same.  

Summary:  open it once, answer it immediately.  If you are having feelings, shake it off.  It's your job.  

Have a good weekend, and thank you for reading.  

*I don't remember, but I am sure this is close.