On When I Misread a Student

I had her pegged so wrong.

She is young, beautiful, polite, a good student and writer,  but with a lovely inner stubbornness.  On the first day of class when I ask each student to introduce themselves she gave us her name and said that she is a proud Christian. (Not an unusual demographic at our college, with the local mega-church across the street.)

She struggled when asked to choose a topic for the rest of the term’s projects (a review of the literature on a controversial issue, and then an argument essay on that same issue). First, she investigated the issue of dating, and whether dating led to divorce.

This topic confused me at first, until an ex-fundamentalist Christian I know filled me in on the idea that some religious groups believe that young people should not date, but that their relationships should be arranged by their elders. The theory is that dating different people sets one up for a failed marriage in the future (because of the memories of those cool dates? that part I can’t quite figure out).

But the young woman student didn’t find any sources on that subject, interestingly, even after I tried to point her in the direction of arranged marriage (not where she wanted to go).

Now her topic is Are fathers necessary?  And she has found many sources on the subject: those arguing that fathers are not necessary for raising (rearing?) children; those that argue that fathers are necessary economically and for socialization; and those that take the middle ground (a father figure is necessary, though not necessarily the biological father).

I, naturally, assumed she would argue that a father was necessary; however, since their first essay is an objective review of the research, I don’t know for sure where she stands.

Until 3am last night, when it occurred to me that she is probably pregnant (I’m noticing weight gain, and odd food choices during class).  And that the biological father is probably not sticking around.  And that this is a serious issue for her.

I have no intention at this point of asking her: I’ll just see what I see in her writing. But this young, stubborn girl fascinates me. She is such a good student, a good writer, yet she tells me she’s leaving college after this term (more evidence, I realized at 3am, for my 3am brainstorm).  I can’t wait to see her essay.

Or should I talk to her?

Student E-Mails: Hey, You

I’m curious: does anyone else get e-mails like the following?

E-Mail #1: from a student who has missed 4 weeks of classes:

” Hey, your probably surprised to hear from me. I’ve been having some
real home problems this last few weeks. I really dpn’t want to get
into it much, but the gist of it is I was kicked out of my house and
have been just moving around. I finally have my feet on the ground
again, and was wondering if their was any way i would be able to get
back into and pass your class. If it would be easier i could meet you
tomorrow to talk about this further. I want you to know that i will
now be fully committed,and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to pass
your class. I’m truley sorry i didn’t communicate this to you earlier
it was something that caught me off guard and opened my eyes to some
harsh reality’s.
Sincerely, Young Male Student”

E-mail #2 from the same student as above, the next day, after I gave him a detailed overview of what he’d missed, and advised him that he should meet with me before class:

“Hey I got called into work today so i won’t be at class today, but I
will tell my boss the circumstances so i don’t have to miss anymore
class. Also I’ve made my advising appointment, and will take closer
look about what i should do with the class.”

E-mail from a woman student who also has missed 5 out of 6 weeks of classes:

My name is Female Student and I’m registered for your Monday/Wednesday Writing course. You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t attended class for the last three weeks [sic]. I have been struggling with depression, the flu, and impacted wisdom teeth. I am now seeing a therapist, have been to the doctor, and have had my wisdom teeth removed. Is there any possible way I can salvage this class? I know that I’ve missed a lot, but I would really like to try to at least pass this class, if possible. If you could please let me know my options, I would really appreciate it.

Frankly, dear readers, although I sincerely empathize, it’s nearly impossible to make up a month’s work of classwork and assignments in a work-shop intensive writing class, especially during the quarter system when there is only 5 more weeks of classes left.

I’m curious about the e-mails (there are more, but these are nicely representative): usually students with such horrific life issues simply drop or disappear, especially if they have missed nearly every class of the term and do not know me yet. But this term is different.

I assume that one reason is that the increased enrollment has increased the number of students who have chosen to attend college reluctantly, or as a last resort.  And of course there are probably more students this term with life issues. Our purpose as a community college is partly to meet these students’ needs. But in these cases? I’d have to reteach the last month to do so.  When and how does one say to a student: so sorry, but I strongly urge you to take a break and try again next term?

You’d think I’d be good at this after 20 years teaching at community colleges, but no, not so. Advice?

Added 10/2/09: Follow up from the young man quoted above: “Hey, it’s in my best interest right now just to drop the class. I just wanted you to know. Thank you for your time this year.”

It’s Just a Flesh Wound

I have a cough. That’s it: a dry, hacking cough.  A little congestion, yes, but really, it’s a simple dry cough.  No fever. No headache. No aches and pains.  So today I coughed into my long sleeves, sucked on a variety of cough drops (Ricolas are my new favorite thing), spread antibacterial gel on my hands half hourly, carried antibacterial wipes and used them every time I left my office (and everywhere in my office), drank quarts of hot tea and lemon, and went about my usual business of teaching one class, answering emails, grading essays and holding a few office hours. (Ok, I didn’t run today, and I slept in till 7am, but those were my only concessions.)

You would think I had the plague.  You would think I was playing the martyr. The embodiment of evil. The most self centered THING existing.  Some colleagues chastised me (only after hearing a cough or two since I am not obviously physically sick) for coming to campus at all, warning me that I had the swine flu and should have stayed home. They refused to come within 10 feet of me.

My students had an entirely different reaction. They laughed with glee at the note I put on the white board before class: “DANGER: Annie has a cough. Stay away. Put your essays on the table in the corner (and yes, I’ve wiped down the stapler). Don’t be insulted if I do not come close to you if you have a question for me.”  Despite my red-inked warning, however, they CAME  CLOSE TO ME to ask me questions and hand in papers. Some who were also coughing offered me their evaluation of the cough drop inventory at the supermarket, and then gave me a sample.  They even stayed late after class to finish working on the project outlines and research we had begun. Some of the students from this class showed up at my office hour after class to chat some more (luckily my new office is so incredibly huge, that the student chair could be placed far away from my germy desk).

So, what gives? Should I have stayed home? I feel FINE. It’s “just a flesh wound” as the knight on Monty Python famously said. Or am I being as famously stupid by ignoring what could be the precursor to the flu?  Since I will be missing a few classes next week for an out of town meeting, cancelling class today (a particularly important class, too,  in terms of the projects the students are starting to work on) seemed just wrong.

I suppose tomorrow morning will tell. 

Now excuse me while I take my trustworthy medicine for colds and coughs: a glass of cognac.

High Enrollment, High Maintenance Students

For the first few weeks of the term, we suffer crowded classrooms, since most of us did, despite ourselves, take in a few extra students on the first day knowing that once the financial aid checks were mailed, we’d lose a few.  And then again, once the first essays are graded (next week) we’ll lose a few more.

Next week is week 4 of the term, and they are starting to flit away. Those who were just enrolled for the checks have vanished already, and those who are starting to realize that there is actual work involved outside of classtime are starting to complain, loudly,  already.  Others are anxious, but plugging away.  I hold 5 scheduled office hours a week (per unspoken campus rule) and I’ve been swamped during most of them.  Prep and grading time is now clearly the province of nights and weekends.  So many more students, so many more high maintenance students.

• The older, returning student, who is appalled that her quest for an accounting degree requires communications and writing classes. She makes a point of grabbing me after each class to complain (in a very “church lady” sort of way, which makes me stifle giggles) about something: the workload, the vulgarity of the Anne Lamott essay we read (“Shitty Rough Drafts”), or the total waste of time peer evaluation is.  I’m stuck with her till the end of the term: goddess give me patience.
• The veteran who visits me during office hours every day, but only for 5 minutes or so, to ask me a question about an assignment (he seems to have some internal censor that makes him get up and leave even if we are in the middle of a conversation).  He’s a nice guy, though, so I’ve just come to expect my daily chat with him.
• The student taking a colleague’s Anthropology of Religion class who wears a giant cross around his neck, carries holy water (which he was caught sprinkling, not so surrepticiously, around the classroom), and who can’t help not contesting nearly every comment my poor colleague utters. 
• The various children of fellow faculty members who are taking classes this term: how incredibly DIFFERENT they are away from their parental units!  I’ve had longer conversations during classtime with these teens than I have for the last 15 years as I watched them grow up. They now want to chat–often and regularly.  The conversations are exciting and passionate, but, alas, time consuming.

The most frustrating kinds of students? The ones who think they are low maintenance but are really high maintenance.  Like Sally:

World Enough and Time

If I had world enough and time, I’d be blogging about…

• the exceptionally decent writing assignments I am spending my weekend reading, sporadically, commenting upon, and evaluating…Did I suddenly TEACH better, or are students just a bit more prepared? motivated? 
• the odd trend in student e-mails that temper the usual excuses and “just to let you knows” with affirmations of my fabulousness, such as   ”I’m going to be handing in my essay late because my computer died. And I want you to know that you’re awesome!” and “My essay will be late, just wanted to let you know. And I really LOVE your class.” What’s with that?
• Joyce Carol Oates, whose novels, stories, interviews I’ve been immersed in for weeks. She’s a fascinating woman. I’m in the midst of reading what at least one reviewer called her “angry lesbian” novel, Solstice (published in 1985). I wonder why there were so many misreadings of this disturbing story about an odd friendship between women: an instinctive attack on a writer who disdains the “woman writer” label?
• the early 1960s-dress up party I’m attending in a few weeks. I can’t decide if I want to dress like Jackie O, or one of her more bohemian peers. Luckily, there’s Rusty Zipper, a wonderfully rich site for inexpensive vintage clothes…or, should I do what my mother says and wear a cardigan sweater backwards, with pearls, and one of my new pencil skirts instead?
• the hairdo that goes with the outfit: the Jackie O flip or the Babs poof (see below)? Or is Bab’s poof too late 60s? (Ah, another excuse to watch Mad Men!).
• and, finally, the big one: the earliest damned snowfall since I’ve lived in this town (with downed trees, no electricity for hours this morning, and it’s STILL snowing)…

But, alas, I can’t blog about any of these potentially fruitful ideas right now. I need to shovel some snow, dig out the flashlight and candles before the next power outage (tree branches are literally cracking and falling throughout the neighborhood), and finish reading student essays.

No Parking

As Dead (good lord, Annie, get some sleep) Dean Dad has noted, the enrollment boom at community colleges is fairly widespread.  Despite creating/enlarging two parking lots, and partnering with a church down the way to allow for overflow parking (with a shuttle bus running back and forth), parking is more abysmal than ever.

On the upside, I’m getting lots of walking in since I can walk from home while the weather stays summery.

On the downside, snow is in the forecast for tonight. Yes, snow. Ok flurries that won’t stick, but still….

So, yes, we are swamped with students, and this is affecting us all. The Advising Center, despite hiring 2 new non-faculty, full time advisers, stayed open 10 hours a day the week before classes began to accommodate the rush of new students. Faculty were asked to to do an extra day of advising that week, too.  But since literally NO new tenure track faculty were hired for this year, that means all of these new students will be assigned to the existing full timers, and we must meet with each student one-on-one sometime between now and mid-November.

In our department alone we’ve hired so many new part time faculty members, that we’ve run out of mailbox space (not to mention the overcrowded part timer offices).  Many of our new part timers are relatively new to teaching (we don’t live in a big enough city to draw on a limitless pool of experienced part timers), thus in addition to the dozens of new student advisees, we are also being asked to mentor several new part timers, each.

Those saints who are working for less than minimum wage, but that’s another story.

So, are there ANY benefits of this massive (I’ve heard 40% increase bandied about) surge of students?  Ya betcha.

• The students are highly motivated: so far I’ve found the percentage of students still engaged after week 1 of the term is much higher than usual. Perhaps because they are still so thankful to have gotten into the class (I had wait lists of up to 20 students), or perhaps because they are truly inspired by the motivation of others around them.  They are the usual diverse group (high school drop outs, honors students, veterans, returning adults, native born locals, and those who have lived and traveled widely), but they seem to be more motivated and engaged as a group than usual.  It’s wonderfully energizing for me.
• The possibilities: when enrollment dropped at the turn of the century, we cut the variety of humanities courses we were offering (when only 4 students enroll in a course, it’s immediately put on the chopping block), and focused on offering more sections of composition.  Now, we figure we can offer a course on, say,  Milton (no offense meant) and we’d have 50 students registered in no time.  The Curriculum Committee is already flooded with new course approval forms for next year.

So, as of the start of week 2, I’m mostly happy with the changes.  Students who were on mostly wait lists did manage to get some classes (maybe not the ones they wanted, but still…) and we are a lively campus for more than the peak 4 hours a day now, with students everywhere, all the time, 7am to 9pm, hanging out on the quad, streaming into the tutoring center, the library and the cafeteria, and already popping in during office hours.  I love it.

Now let’s hope the energy, on both sides of the prof desk (do any profs actually sit down at ”their” desks in the classroom?)  is sustainable.

A Weekend of Firsts

Annie Em’s first…

• Half marathon: 2 hours, 8 minutes, 15 seconds (on a forest trail, with many, many rocks, and a few mud puddles).
• Pure Romance party. And no, I didn’t buy anything.
• Graduation ceremony in which the number of graduating students from her once a year online class outnumbered those in all of her 11 live classes combined (and yes, I’m still grading those online final essays).
• E-mail from NPR asking me to develop the Three Books posting into an essay.

Dead Weekend

The horrid quarter system (10 weeks of instruction followed by 1 week of finals) doesn’t really allow time for the traditional “dead week” of no classes and no assignments so that students can study for finals; however, for some instructors, we do have the lovely hiatus I’m called “dead weekend”: the weekend before finals week when advanced composition students are frantically revising research papers (I spent dozens of hours reviewing the drafts last weekend) and where my online introduction to fiction students are taking their “take home” short essay finals.

So what did I do during my dead weekend? 

I must say, it was divinely decadent.

• I chatted with students on the last day of classes who thanked me for my speech to honors students last weekend: I decided to go the personal/inspirational route. And, taking advice from Ink, my metaphor was: doing well academically is like training for the half marathon.  I also referred to David Wallace Foster’s “what the hell is water?” parable.  It was a speech chock-filled with imagery (and the obligatory “always wear sunscreen” reference got the chuckle I hoped for).
• I went out Friday night with colleagues and friends to celebrate the end of one friend’s rotation as chair of a department.  We ate, drank and talked outside in the evening sun—something we rarely do when classes are in session. Decided we needed a faculty lounge on (our dry, alas) campus.
• I leisurely ran my favorite trail along the river laughing to “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” and admiring the wildflowers in bloom.
• I went to a birthday bbq the next night, sitting outside by the fire pit, nibbling on those yummy chicken sausages and chatting about summer plans (reading, writing, running, the 3Rs, as well as socializing and travelling).
• I ran a 5K race on Sunday morning, and ran a personal best of 26:06: I came in 137^th out of over 700 runners.  The half marathon I’ve been training for is next Sunday and I now feel great confidence that I can not just complete it, but complete it well.
• I worked in my garden: I now have several pots filled with soon to be blooming flowers.
• I finished watching season 1 of “In Treatment”—the HBO series starring the studly Gabriel Byrne that has me oddly hooked.  I’ve had a few sessions of therapy, enough to know that this tv show is a wild exaggeration of what is probably mostly skimming on unethical therapy in real life, but ooh, what great drama it is.  Of course, the drama in Paul’s personal life (Bryne’s character) is the most intriguing. 
• Pondered (well, started to ponder) the definition of “happiness” as a result of Ph.D. Me’s posting on Friday.
• I finished reading Elizabeth Strout’s amazing novel Olive Kitteridge and had a sudden flash of an idea for a project I’d like to work on this summer as a result of the MLA’s new discussion group on Age Studies.

Today is Monday and finals week has begun: I’ll receive nearly 40 research papers today, the other 50+ written assignments later this week.  One student, who handed in her essay this morning, needs to return to her home country immediately to get her mother out of a war zone where her uncle was just tortured and killed.

Dead weekend is over.

Multiple Blogiality Disorder

Last December I gave a lecture on Oprah’s Book Club, and based on my emphatically positive spin on the Oprah Effect, I was recruited by an eager colleague to assist in starting a faculty and staff blog: a public space for our rapidly growing institution to remind each other who we are and what we do.

We’ve been active for a few months now: our small blog task force has reached out to those faculty and staff members who we think might have something interesting to write about (and who might actually want to take time out of their busy daily lives to do so).

Based on the blog stats, people are reading these postings (with truly novel takes on subjects such as post- modernity, social networking,  soap and chemistry, and “generation me”).   One faculty member “outed” herself as an anonymous blogger of mostly mother and teaching related reflections when she agreed to cross post on our college blog. Another faculty member who posted is also a blogger, but not an anonymous one: she links to both blogs on Facebook, and enjoys the cross pollination of the various public forums.

This week, for the college blog, we are encouraging faculty and staff to submit their summer reading lists.  I am getting some interesting titles, but not as many as I’d hoped.

Despite a slow start, it’s been rewarding starting this new blog—which has yet to really find its footing.  Is the college blog a public relations tool of sorts (not that the PR folks are selling it in any way), or is it just another form of a “Water Cooler” that we have on our internal e-mail system? Right now, it seems to be the latter, but what is most interesting is that because I am one of the public faces of this new blog, I am often confused as the writer of many of the postings—folks stop by on campus to thank me for my interesting posts about Facebook or teaching, and I have to stop and remember that they mean my colleagues’ posts on the college blog (not Annie Em’s posts on those same subjects).

It’s a little unnerving.

This blog, too, is still trying to find its niche: partly educational, partly self reflection, partly a pastiche of links that amuse me.  But that’s ok.  I’ll keep writing and see where it goes.  While I don’t have the talent to write stories like TK,  or the charm to blog on life like Inky, or the wit of Acadamnit, I enjoy the process of writing a blog posting.  Tenured Radical (a rather well-known blogger) has a thoughtful recent 400^th posting where she reflects upon her rather satisfying “career” as a blogger, a public intellectual of the 21^st century.

That’s a marvelous goal, to be a public intellectual.

One of my students this term came to chat with me about that: he wants to be a public intellectual when he grows up (he’s 22) and asked me what he should major in!  I was truly at a loss. What would you have said?

Since he was sitting there in my soon to be small, old office, waiting for me to give him advice, I ultimately said something, though it probably sounded like a rambling list to the poor guy:  I said that it didn’t matter what he majored in, as long as he took a variety of classes, challenging classes, too.  I said it was probably more important that he write and participate in conversations as often as possible.  That he travel and become involved in the world around him. I gave him a list of titles of books by writers I consider to be public intellectuals, and encouraged him to take classes with professors on campus who I think would be possible mentors for him.

And then I said I hoped we could chat again someday after spring term when my brain was not quite as mushy.

I hope he does stop by to chat next week after he hands in his research paper (an approach on a topic that is, of course, original and challenging).  Maybe I’ll tell him to start a blog.

Summertime Blogging

The Academic Blogosphere (the blogging world in which I live) seems to go on semi-hiatus once classes end—or at least once they end for you semester system schools. We on the quarter system are still plugging away for 2 more weeks. Interestingly, I’ve found few community college instructors who are bloggers (as is also true with the academic novel—there are few that focus on community college faculty and students—another interesting gap to explore).

But I’m finding that the relatively light blog-reading the last few days has allowed me to get more done. I’m also less writerly these days myself: I have a list of blog ideas, but little time or inclination to pursue them right now. Instead I’m doing the usual end of term/start of summer chores:

• Reading research paper drafts—in fact, this activity should take every waking moment of the next week despite the high attrition in those classes. Most intriguing fact from this term’s papers: I have THREE papers on “evil” and one intriguing paper on women who choose to be exotic dancers.
• Reading my online literature class’s weekly postings—this week, they are on Flannery O’Connor and Raymond Carver, two of my favorite writers, so I’m looking forward to reading their postings. Yet, unlike the research paper classes, this class has no attrition, so I have 40 postings and responses to look forward to….so far, they seem to be getting O’Connor’s wicked sense of humor (and, as always, critiquing the hapless grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”). So far, no one has taken me up on my prompt asking for an analysis of why “Everything That Rises Must Converge” appeared in the season finale of “Lost”.
• Fine tuning the big speech I’m giving this weekend. I have the meat and bones nicely organized, but now I need to work on wording and delivery, and I should time myself, I suppose. Anyone know how long 1700 words should take to read in a New York-velocity accent?
• Choosing textbooks for fall—yes, it’s ridiculously early to even think of such a thing, but I’m already a month late on my fall book orders.
• Planning the summer vacation—this summer, it’s hubby’s turn to plan our vacation in August (itinerary, hotels, etc etc), but I suspect he’ll need a little pushing. Yes, I’m obviously the pushy one in this relationship….
• Gearing up to teach two back to back online classes this summer—luckily, both are graduate level, small classes, focused on researched writing.
• Training for two half ½ marathons in June
• Assorted social gatherings every weekend for the next few weeks (funny how mostly introverted faculty start becoming social and extroverted as the term winds down). One gathering is a “Pure Romance” event: think Tupperware-type party with dildos and edible panties.
• Still reading “light and uplifting” fiction each week in the endless task of finding a community read book. Has anyone read The Help by Kathryn Stockett? That was has been added to the list. Right now I’m reading Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout: a beautiful novel, not unlike Jewett’s The Country of Pointed Firs in terms of structure (each chapter focuses on a different character in this small Maine town), but so far, I wouldn’t call it “light” fiction.

I suspect in a few weeks, once the grades are submitted, the speech is done, and the gatherings are over that I will be able to do a few meaty blog postings. Till then, I’ll probably just do hit or miss links to interesting stories and sites, which I hope are at least mildly amusing (well, they are amusing to me, and perhaps that’s all that counts in the Daily Me world?).