I am not grading right now, but I will be in a few minutes. After a whole freakin' day of grading, I came home and played Oblivion and ordered pizza. It was that or burst into tears from grading all day.
I am super emotional, something I freely admit to (and I'm not linking to any past posts or anything today, but they're there if you want to find them). The reason I was near tears was because a student that has been struggling all semester, that I really wanted to pass, turned in a failing final paper, which means that said student can't pass my class. An extra draft won't help either. The student just isn't ready to move on. And I feel like I've failed.
I have other students that are going to fail because they've missed a month of class and/or just haven't turned in any assignments as well as turning in failing papers. While I feel bad for them, they knew they were failing for quite a while now and didn't change their behavior. I'm not really sure why they even kept showing up.
But the first student I mentioned did try, but said student just isn't ready. I feel responsible. Student didn't really take my advice, and I gave student ample help and opportunities to revise - more so than I should have. I just don't like it when students who try fail.
And several students have jokingly (or maybe not) asked me not to fail them. I do the whole "I don't fail students, students fail themselves" BS lecture, which isn't really BS but sounds like it 'cause I haven't figured out a decent delivery yet. The lecture is met with "so then don't fail us" when I get to the part about how teachers don't cackle with glee when students fail. We don't want them to fail any more than they do. And I dread giving back the final papers. I have it worked out this semester to give papers back in person, and I'll know final grades at that point, so I'm just telling them then. Sigh. I don't like confrontation.
Am I oozing lack of confidence or what? I usually have really strong final papers because I push for high standards all semester, so even the slackers can revise their way to a B-. I require a lot of work, which makes everyone hate my class in the beginning, but realize that they've learned something in the end. Which is good. I like reading "This is the hardest class I've ever taken. I'm actually going to miss it" (paraphrase from several reflective essays - not the final paper, but an end of term one).
I wish I didn't care so much about my students sometimes, or at least empathize so much. It'd make it a lot easier to teach. Of course I'll probably read this tomorrow and think that I'm a fool who is imposing my own fear of failure onto my students who'll be just fine, either that or that I have some sort of martyr complex. The computer game/junk food distraction has obviously not worked. 3 classes down, 2 to go.
The problem with having a blog is that you're forced to see your own thoughts. I've always thought journals were too self-absorbed, and today I've made my blog a journal entry, which makes me very self-conscious. But I'm not going to delete this. I do, however, seem to keep writing, as if maybe I'll write myself out of this mess.
One problem (I know, why am I STILL writing. I apologize, dear reader, for subjecting you to my neurosis, but apparently I have something to get off my chest - sheesh) is that I don't have a support structure here. At Old School (I can't remember what I've been calling it and don't want to look it up), my colleagues were my friends. Here, my colleagues are colleagues, and I while I have some acquaintances, I don't really have but maybe one non-Husband friend. I've just been too busy (5-5 load and one grad class). But not having that support, someone to take a paper to and say "this is failing, right?" or "B- or C+?," makes a different in how confidently I give grades. I don't think it changes the grades at all, and in a real dilemma, I'd go to the program chair, but it affects my confidence. Which is really the root of all of problems, that and cheese and responsibility - the banes of my existence.
Oh good Lord, it's been 40 minutes since I started this. Nighty night.
5 comments:
If you gave them a D- instead of a F since they tried, would they still fail the class?
- Sister (who also has the over empathetic gene)
It is wonderful that you care about whether they are truly ready to move on or not - if they fail and have to take it again, they might have a better foundation to start with due to your efforts . . .
"self-absorbed" blog entries are not a bad thing . . . sometimes airing things out in the open helps us work through the thought process much better - and allows us to get feedback that we aren't totally crazy. I know that the friends I do have are super busy and can't be pulled aside for a chat real easily anymore - it's helpful to have this outlet.
I showed the essay to another instructor today, and she agreed, it was failing.
Sis - even with a D, the student would have to retake the class for it to meet the major's requirement.
rk - thank you.
Yeah...I of course know how you feel. I feel like I have (at Old School) invested WAY too much time in my students' work--often more time and energy than they invest. And then for what? For nothing.
So, this year I was like "I refuse to care about this," which has helped maybe a bit with grading, because I no longer agonize over things like B+/A-, I just go with what the math tells me and if anyone has a complaint I say "I can't change the math" (which students seem to respect, oddly).
However, by "not caring" I think my teaching in 05-06 was my worst teaching of all time. I never planned class, I never prepared anything, really used that whole BS pedagogy of "let them teach themselves" and I know my students didn't learn anything. They had no respect for me or the course. But, also, they don't care, you know? And I would care but I can't because my course load is too big and my teaching load is too big and there's this pressure to constantly be working on the dissertation and the reading list for all my classes was physically insane and impossible.
So, Tree, it's like we're in Kafka or Charlie Chaplan, they pay us to teach, but really we don't have time to teach, but no one cares. It's this elaborate lie, this Catch-22. They're paying us to do something we can't do, or at least I can't do. It sucks. But, I'm kind of embracing it, like "yes, bring on the Kafka experience! Now I can stop trying to do good."
I think this approach helped my school work.
I guess what I'm saying is we have to find a balance b/t what you're talking about--worrying too much about our students' grades on one end, and not caring at all on the other end. It's hard. It's so freaking hard. I don't have any answers, just experiences.
-CB
CB - experiences are what I need to hear. One of the reasons why I think this semester was so hard is beacuse (like last semester) I was teaching two classes for the first time (one for the first time here and one for the first time ever). And I wasn't always sure what I was doing. So my plan for next semester is to have everything planned out beforehand, down to a list of what and A/B/C/D/F paper is for each assignent. Of course, I'm goofing off for a month first.
I actually think that being in class will help too, because when I'm taking a class, it has priority over the classes I'm teaching.
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