Today’s ProfHacker post will provide scenarios about how the “Disrepecters”—David, Debbie, Donald, and Desiree—can challenge your authority in a classroom and impede learning for others. You’ve certainly had a student or two who have exhibited disrespectful behavior in the classroom. You know the ones: students who ask questions that are supposed to put you in your place? Yes, those students.
Maybe these students don’t realize how disrespectful (and downright rude) they come across. Maybe they do realize this and that’s their aim. Maybe they are asking sincere questions. Then again, maybe they aren’t. In context, however, you understand by tone, inflection, and body language that the students mean disrespect. (Or for the sake of this post, let’s believe they do.)
How do you deal with these questions and with these students when you encounter disrespectful behavior? At the end of this post, we’ll ask you to provide your solutions to the examples of disrespect listed below.
As always, we must recognize a few caveats for this series (and really, for all ProfHacker posts):
- In this series, we will present a few scenarios, and it’s clear that how we handle these scenarios depends upon the discipline, the class size, and the culture of an institution. We try to include as many of these variables as we can, while understanding that we can’t account for each and every situational difference. What we are discussing here are behaviors that—no matter the discipline or the institutional culture—impede learning for other students.
- That said, ProfHacker is not a place to complain about students. That is not what this series of posts attempts. Instead, we want to focus on what we can do, positively and professionally, to handle the sometimes difficult situations we can have with students.
- Please keep in mind ProfHacker’s audience. You may have decades of experience dealing with disrespectful students in the classroom. That’s great. Many of our readers don’t have that level of expertise. Please be respectful of them.
- Lastly, please don’t focus solely on the examples in each scenario. These are merely examples that we chose to use. We could have chosen to use others. The examples are only important only in that they are common. in that they are controversial and cause the Thwarter to emerge. The point to these scenarios and indeed, this post, is how do we (as faculty) handle the student who expresses such a strong, immovable belief, one that stops discussion and learning from occurring for other students.
If you are unfamiliar with this ProfHacker series, you might take a look at these previous posts and the types of comments that others have left to get the kind of helpful tone we are striving for in this series:
- Meet Chatty Cathy and her BFF Conversational Carl
- What’s that Smell?
- The Case of Know-it-All Nancy
- Too Much Skin Edition
- T-shirt slogan Edition
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The Scenarios:
- You are a young professor, maybe your first or second year on the tenure-track. On the first day of class, a student asks you, “Are you old enough to teach this class?”
- On the first day of class, a student asks, “Are you gay” (or a derogatory term for homosexual)?
- You are teaching a fairly simple concept and a student yells out, “I don’t get this! You are a bad teacher!”
- You are working with the same fairly simple concept, and a student mutters (loud enough where you can hear her): “Who is he to be telling us about this stuff? What qualifications does he have?”
- You are new to a geographic area that is predominately one ethnicity and race, and you don’t share this with your new students. In class one day, as you are handing out a test, a student says to her neighbor, “She is just a [insert racial epithet here]. I don’t have to do what she says.]
- You are teaching in a large lecture hall and you notice that among the 100+ students in the room, a quarter of them are reading the student newspaper or playing with their cell phones.
- You are teaching the same 100+ student group in the large lecture hall. Twenty-five percent of the students are reading the newspaper and another 25 percent are taking with each other, conversations not related to the course content.
- You begin to notice a pattern in your class. You are lecturing (this is the typical mode of information dissimination for your discipline) and you recognize that students are leaving the class every 10 minutes. Only a handful of students remain in class at the end of the hour.
- You have a student who is straight from the Mark Waters Mean Girls film who says, “I don’t have to do your assignment because my dad is on the Board of Regents of this university.”
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OK, there are hundreds of these scenarios, but let’s stop with these. How would you handle blatant disrespect like this in your classroom? Please leave suggestions in comments below.
[Image by Flickr user Dani_vr and used under the Creative Commons license.]
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29 Responses to Disruptive Student Behavior: The Disrespecters
lkcoleman - September 2, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Starting with the lecture hall with students reading newspapers and chatting or playing with cell phones. I always include information about what constitutes professional behavior in my syllabus/course policies at the beginning of the semester, so there’s an agreement to refer back to: no texting, no reading newspapers, and no wifi on laptops (I allow laptops for note-taking only). If I see the behavior anyway, I usually approach the issue directly with a brief general comment at the end of a class period. I point out that reading newspapers and chatting (and doing things other than taking notes on one’s laptop, for that matter) are distracting for other students. It’s also worth noting that much of professional life involves paying attention when you don’t feel like doing so–this is good practice for the kinds of jobs they’re probably hoping to get.I make the point that I know that sometimes we’re covering material they may already know but that others in the class need to hear. I also point out that I saw a fairly high-ranking person called on the carpet for checking his cell phone during a meeting, so these are the rules of the professional world. If attendance isn’t part of the grade, it’s fairly easy to tell students that, if they don’t want to attend, they don’t have to, but if they do attend, they need to be professional about it. If a student is particularly problematic, I’ll often call him/her in (via email) for a special conversation. I have sometimes learned more about what is causing the student’s behavior, and generally it stops once we’ve had a chance to talk one-on-one. The conversations start with pointing out the behavior and explaining why it’s a problem. I try to work in a question about what kinds of difficulties the student is having with the class, so we focus on helping the student rather than simply eradicating a kind of behavior.
drnels - September 2, 2010 at 4:47 pm
In general, I tell students that they don’t have to be there. I, too, have policies on the syllabus about work from other classes and device usage. I would point those out and tell students they can leave or abide by the policies I set up.For the things about students complaining about doing work or my authority, I would point out the person they can contact to complain and give them that person’s email and campus phone number. I would say, “If you feel the need to question anything I’m doing, then you need to contact so-and-so at this number now. Otherwise, stay and do it.”I have had students ask me if I’m gay, but it’s never been in a derogatory manner. When I say I am, those students usually say, “Cool.”
newyorkyankees - September 2, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Sometimes, it’s a matter of students testing how far they can go and how much they can get away with. I, too tell my students about professionalism and the like, but sometimes a well timed response will be perfect in the appropriate situation.Once, I had lectured my tax class on the necessity of practicing, and the the more they practice on their assignments the better they will do on exams and in real life practice. One young lady yelled out that I had said the same thing in her financial accounting class the previous semester and it didn’t help her pass. I said to her that she would have had a better experience and better results if she had come to class more than just occasionally. She didn’t open her mouth for the rest of that semester.Another student threatened to complain to my chair that I gave her an unfair grade (after I explained why she got that grade). I simply responded that she has that right, and all of her bluster died as soon as I said it.I don’t know that there’s a “one size fits all” solution to this problem, but I think a little common sense along with standing your ground and not being intimidated (in a professional manner, or course) goes a long way toward short circuiting disrespective behavior.
angustias - September 2, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Call their bluff, but be exquisitely polite. A freshman hoping to get into the Physician Assistant program loudly decried being forced to take my class, “they just do it to keep you liberal arts people employed. I don’t need to know this cr*p to be a physician assistant.” I smiled and told him that it was the accrediting body for PA that required the Liberal Arts courses, but I’d be happy to pass along his name and complaint to the head of the PA dept.”No, don’t blow me in” he said.”So you think it’s OK to be rude to me but not to Prof X in the PA dept?” I asked. “Well, noooo…” I reminded him that as a future health care provider he would have to learn to be respectful of all kinds of people and all kinds of ideas, and wasn’t it a good thing that he had several years to work on that. By then the rest of the class (who pretty much had had it with him being such a blowhard all semester) got on his case about thinking he knew it all, and being open minded etc.
velvis - September 2, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Sheesh when will people listen when I say shock collars?!?!?!If people are talking I ask them to leave. If they’re facebooking or tweeting or _____ but not disrupting anyone I say its fine but then refuse to help by re-explaining later.If they ask if I’m old enough I say “No, but I’m mature for my age.”And if they’re a regent’s kid then I remind them they should be doing better what an embarassment that would be for them not me, I have my degrees. But really if you’re lecture is that boring or to the point that they don’t see value perhaps the problem really is you. Perhaps your stage presence is lacking or your talks don’t relate to the test so there isn’t a point in being there. There are techniques other than 60 or 90 minute lectures that can be used in an auditorium.
drnels - September 2, 2010 at 7:03 pm
@velvis said: “But really if you’re lecture is that boring or to the point that they don’t see value perhaps the problem really is you. Perhaps your stage presence is lacking or your talks don’t relate to the test so there isn’t a point in being there.”I think this is an excellent point when it comes to classes as a whole (as opposed to individual students being rude). We all have classes that don’t go well, and when they don’t, I’ve learned to ask myself a few questions about what I am doing to allow things to happen. Am I making it clear that this is not busywork? Am I truly creating a space where they can talk? And so on. Often, there is a point where I can change something to make it better. Sometimes, I can’t. I kind of have my own mental line where I have to accept that it’s no longer my responsibility, but I have to accept responsibility until I hit that line.And I do have one class this semester that is already getting to that line. I have my standard tactics I’ll try next week to make sure I’m doing all I can do.
facultydiva - September 2, 2010 at 7:18 pm
First scenario response: “If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand the answer.”Last scenario response: “I’ll be happy to call your father and clarify that with him.”
mkruege - September 2, 2010 at 7:25 pm
I inform my students on Day One of the semester that if they text in class, I will rescind their attendance credit for that day.I put this in writing on the syllabus as well.Furthermore, I make sure they understand that I will not tell them when I deduct those points–I simply will make a note to myself and correct my gradebook accordingly.Ergo, the only way to avoid losing attendance points is to turn off the dang phones when walking into class.Haven’t had a “flying thumbs” problem since instituting this policy.
kevingannon - September 2, 2010 at 7:33 pm
My rule regarding cellphones-I get to answer them if they ring in class, and I reserve the right to critique and/or make fun of their ringtone.The previous comments regarding “calling their bluff” but doing so professionally I think offer the best course of action. Doing so in class, in my experience, has often revealed just how many other students were tired of that behavior and now empowered to call out their classmate.I once taught a section of 490 students in a large auditorium, and even though the class was mostly lecture, I rambled around the hall the whole time–up and down the aisles, across the back, across the stage, etc. I wore a cordless mic, and used a remote clicker for the Powerpoint slides from my laptop up front. Just keeping in motion like this held student attention and cut down on at least the mostblatant forms of texting, newspapers, and the like.
bekdounes - September 2, 2010 at 7:54 pm
kevingannon makes an important point about space. I’ve never taught a class of 490, but even in a class of 35 or 50, I find moving around a good way to break the barrier between ‘student space’ and ‘professor space’. I think that it does help keep them engaged, and it also reminds them that every part of the classroom space is ‘on’ space.In the end, I think that most students are grateful when professors do work positively but firmly to keep order. Students want to feel that their coming to class is a good use of their time; finding themselves surrounded by texters, paper readers, whisperers and nappers leaves them with the opposite impression.
english_ivy - September 2, 2010 at 9:36 pm
To new teachers. Just remember that nothing those students say or do will change the fact that you are the teacher. The College or University has deputized YOU to be the instructor for that class room.Whether your students like you, respect you, or hate you, the fact that you are the instructor of record will not change.Be firm early.You can always relax later.It is much better to not know an answer than to try and fake it.Remember you have ten times the experience that these little know-nothing-but-my-own-navel undergrads.
11173183 - September 3, 2010 at 8:25 am
Could some readers share how they would or have handled the scenario regarding the racial epithet? I am a relative new faculty member and would welcome some insight on this.
cardinalham - September 3, 2010 at 8:43 am
I think @Angustias’ suggestion about politely calling the students’ bluff would be effective in the racial epithet situation. One might draw attention to the student’s comment, “Jessica just suggested that she doesn’t need to complete the coursework because I’m {Asian|Af-Am|whatever}. It’s true that I’m {whatever} and it’s also true that I’m the professor. If Jessica or any of you have complaints about this course or my teaching, please do bring them to the attention of the Department Chair. In the meantime, may I remind you that you chose to enrol in this course, and I’m excited to be teaching it. Let’s get to work!”
walterblass - September 3, 2010 at 8:47 am
IKColemnan and others have suggested that THE easiest solution is to take the individual miscreant aside at a break or after class and quietly confront them with their behavior. That surely has worked for me. Sadly, with some people, this only means they will transfer their ego needs, or anger to another professor. I also endorse the advice to be firm at the beginning of the course (not rigid but clear and low key ‘firm’.) When I was the Peace Corps country director in Afghanistan, we told our volunteers not to smile before to Christmas, lest they be mistaken for easy targets. Lastly, once you make a rule, be prepared to enforce it quickly and without mercy. It’s just amazing what telling a repeated offender to get out of the classroom ( for this one time) will do for the rest of the class. At the same time, do not let your raw emotion spill over to your teaching inmmediately after you’ve thrown the bum out. Breathe deeply and go back to your calm, clear teaching. Remember that testing limits of parental boundaries is something that is hard-wired into humans; they do it at age 1 or age 21, just differently! As many bloggers have stated, a little experience goes a long way–you get wise to a baby that doesn’t want to go to sleep, or a student who habitually comes in late or specializes in razzing you.
nyhist - September 3, 2010 at 9:21 am
Talking to a disruptive student privately only works sometimes. Although I use it rarely, shaming a student in front of the class stops the behavior in its tracks. Once when I first started teaching I realized a student was reading a newspaper in the back of the large lecture hall. I stopped the lecture, said ‘you there, with the newspaper’–everyone turned around to look. He realized something had happened when there was silence and put the paper down. I told him he had a choice: he could leave & read the paper, or he could stay & listen to the lecture, but he couldn’t stay and read the paper. He stayed. I did the same thing the last year with a texter, who also stayed. No problems with either class ever again. I told a wi-fi surfer (privately this time) the same thing. He dropped the course. I was glad to see him go. All these incidents happened early in the semester. As other posters have said, establishing the rules is important from the get-go.One more story. Once I had a student who deliberately asked questions designed to show me up. I encourage students to ask questions about details of my lectures if they don’t understand something, but as the semester went on, each day this student came up with a more & more intricate inquiry. Of course, I always knew the answer, but it was truly annoying and very disruptive. So I decided in advance how to deal with the next one. So when that question came, I replied, “you know, that question isn’t important enough to spend class time on. After class, I’ll be happy to answer it for you.” End of problem. No more disruptive questions, and of course he didn’t come up after class for his answer.
parkerbr - September 3, 2010 at 12:10 pm
I know this is going to be somewhat unpopular, but I think one element of this growing problem comes from our attempts to be more informal in our approach to teaching. By introducing myself as “Dr. Jones” instead of “Bob” to my students, I try to remind them that ours is a PROFESSIONAL relationship, not an informal, friend-to-friend connection. I know that some complain that this constitutes a kind of “lording it over the students”, but hey, I worked HARD to get that degree!!
sbrenneis - September 3, 2010 at 12:39 pm
I especially appreciate the above suggestions that give examples of calling out students in front of their peers in the classroom (or lecture hall). I might add that it can be tricky and/or risky to take students aside privately, especially if you are a) relatively inexperienced and/or female and b) the student appears to be somewhat off-balance in his or her interactions with you to begin with. Speaking from experience, I would avoid dealing with students who behave inappropriately or disrespectfully in the classroom one-on-one. Even a meeting with a dean or colleague present would be preferable.
kerri_provost - September 3, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Great photo! I have not encountered this where I currently teach, but at another institution have witnessed the “I don’t have to pay the professor any mind because she’s just a [racial slur].” I’m very interested to see how others have responded to this.
obelix - September 3, 2010 at 2:37 pm
In 10+ years of teaching I have only rarely encountered the kind of in-your-face rude behavior such as derogatory or challenging comments towards me (or others). I suspect that part of the reason is that I teach almost exclusively in smaller classes (
obelix - September 3, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Well, clearly I went on too long, because of most of my post disappeared. If I have time later I’ll recreate it. Apologies…
bibliochick - September 3, 2010 at 3:42 pm
@13. cardinalhamI’d just like to call to your attention something that no one else seemed to notice in cardinalham’s response:The words “Asian American” & “African American” are not racial epithets!!As a result of this “misunderstanding,” no one at all answered 11173183′s question. I am Black (my preference over African American). If someone called me the n-word, which is a racial epithet, in class, I would ask them to leave and never come back. If that didn’t work, I’d call campus police to have them removed.
obsidium - September 3, 2010 at 10:17 pm
I’ve been a professor 22 years in both inner-city urban universities and small private colleges, and I’ve probably experienced it all. All the advice of taking the student aside later is probably the BEST solution, but lately I’ve found that our incoming students are so willing to push the envelope with disrespect(college IS the new high school)that I have found that a well-timed quasi-humorous “zing” rebuttal that shames or humiliates the student it far more effective than the social work approach. Here are a few examples, after which the studen shrunk in his/her chair, the entire class fell silent, and there was never any more disrespect from the offender (or anyone else from that matter):example 1: Male student is sitting in front row and boldly giving me the once-over as I walked and lectured. He stared so blatantly at my legs (I was wearing a knee-length skirt) for so long with a dumb snickering look on his face that I finally stopped in mid-sentence and approached him. “What are you looking at?!” I asked. “Your legs!” he said. “What about my legs is more interesting than my lecture? I challenged.” “Your calves,” he said. [The rest of the class was mortified. You could hear a pin drop.] “What about my calves?” I asked. “They’re really big,” he said. “The bigger my calves, the easier to kick or your balls in if you ever say anything like that to me or any female on the face of the earth again. Got it?” I said.He got it. He turned bright red while the collective shock of my statement (even I was shocked by it!) sank in. His classmates gave him so much grief about his come-uppance later, that he eventually came to my office and apologized. Example 2: In going over the syllabus, I emphasized that academics comes first in my class, and that no concessions or favoritism would be given to students because of they play university sports. A notoriously a**hole football player interrupted and said “That’s not what I hear about you and your hockey players!” (the innuendo was clear, as I’m the female faculty advisor of the university’s hockey club). “Well then maybe you’d better stop fumbling a football and learn to play hockey,” I deadpanned. The class exploded in laughter. I had to use the humiliation technique a few more times on him in the future, but he eventually realized the class was laughing AT him, not with him…Example 3: A female student chronically had her self-phone beep in class in spite of my repeated warnings and clearly outline policy in the syllabus. “I don’t know what that alarm sound is, but for the last time, turn your cell phone OFF” I commanded. “It’s important!” she whined. “It’s my alarm to tell me to take my birth control pill each day” she said, smiling sarcastically with the perfect disingenuousness of a Mean Girl. “For God’s sake take that pill right now and every day that you come in, the entire class will wait until you arrive and watch you take your birth control pill before class while you power down your phone. The idea of YOU procreating is more terrifying than your interrupting or even failing the class, so take that pill RIGHT NOW.” The entire class stopped and stared. When she admitted she didn’t actually have her birth control pills with her (of course the excuse for her cell phone going off was well-practiced nonsense meant to embarrass the professor instead of her) I told her to leave the class and go find her pills and take one so that I would not be personally responsible for any progeny. She left with the class quietly laughing at her, and later dropped the class. I really hope she took that pill.
lkcoleman - September 4, 2010 at 10:48 am
Three points. First, several commenters have pointed out that different techniques work in the contexts they’ve encountered. Certainly, everything depends on the atmosphere in a particular class, on the student, and on what the professor is comfortable with. Humor works wonderfully if you’re comfortable with it, as obsidium, among others, has pointed out. If that’s not your style, it can be dangerous. Some students are looking for an opportunity to turn the class into a competition between the professor and themselves for dominance. And there are contexts in which “zapping” a student can create a hostile atmosphere for the rest of the semester.Second–and this is specifically for any administrators reading this–it is absolutely essential that administrators be willing to back the professor up. Administrators who assume their jobs are mostly about keeping life peaceful for those higher up on the ladder or who fancy themselves skilled arbitrators brokering a peace between the professor and student under the automatic assumption that there are always two equal sides to every question are worse than useless. I’m glad bibliochick responded to the one example no one had commented on directly. I heard of a very effective response used in a similar, although not identical situation: the professor looked at the offending student very quietly for a moment, then, in a very calm and quiet voice, said, “You knew when you said that that it was wrong. It is not appropriate for you to remain in this class. Pack up your books and leave the classroom now. You will drop this course immediately. If you have any questions, you may see Professor X [the director of the program in which the professor was teaching]. Leave now.” Note that this requires that Professor X’s response to a student showing up in his office saying, “Professor Y threw me out of his class,” must be to say, “I will talk to Professor Y and find out what happened and get back to you.”
aeonelpis - September 4, 2010 at 3:58 pm
I use one technique that no one has introduced yet: ask the student to defend his/her question. For the first two and final examples, for instance, asking a student “why does it matter how old your teachers are?” or “do you think your father does not value education?” puts the ball back in the student’s court. Engaging what could be volatile moments into a more structured conversation not only ends the behavior, but turns the time back to an educational opportunity. Talking about age-ism, nepotism, and the other issues that underlie these disrespectful comments can turn this into a positive conversation for the entire class. I would follow up with the class: “What do you think? How does age intersect with knowledge and skill? As a society, should we discriminate on the basis of age?” Giving them voice carries a lot of risks, but it can pay off with more than simply ending the behavior.A student who calls a faculty member a derogatory term based on group membership (the n-word, a “fag,” etc.) is actively engaging in hate speech. I would contact the campus Affirmative Action Office for help navigating dealing with this. The student should be corrected beyond the classroom for this type of behavior.
jonasgamso - September 6, 2010 at 1:30 am
Students like to test teachers, and i think they do it by trial and error, so based on how one teacher reacts the student will decide whether or not to disrespect the next teacher. My advice to teachers is just to be tough, maintain control of the convo and of the classroom, and never ever be scared to son one of these ungrateful little pricks. Me personally, if a student disrespects me I’ll embarrass them in a hardcore way, right there on the spot in front of the rest of the class. After a student tests me they won’t test the next teacher, I’ll tell u that.
gpol3456 - September 6, 2010 at 11:07 am
“S/he who asks the questions rules the discourse.”I don’t know who said that–maybe me–but that is the key.”Are you old enough to teach this class?”Me: “I don’t know; are you old enough to be a student in this class?” Move on un-phased. Or laugh at my joke. A student asks, “Are you gay”Me: “Why do you ask? Do you want to set me up on a date?” You are teaching a fairly simple concept and a student yells out, “I don’t get this! You are a bad teacher!”Me, laughing, “Um, maybe it’s not that teacher that is bad?” Raise an eyebrow.In each example the student is trying to rule the discourse with their questions. I don’t address the question. Instead I counter strike with my own questions, albeit, silly questions. Then I move on.Sometimes not saying anything is the best. They make the rude remark. You look at them like WTF? Then you do sharp command that continues the lesson.
madprofmom - September 6, 2010 at 9:14 pm
I suspect that the response of students in my dept. to virtually all of these techniques would be scathing course evaluations (I’m pretenure, and those matter quite a lot where I am)….
42zing - September 7, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Two indispensbale toys accompany me to every class session:a portable wifi signal blocker good up to 20 metersa portable cell phone signal blocker – good up to 12 metersSecreted in my briefcase, they block signals effectively. Now the moaners, complainers, and ill-mannered stay away and play with their toys elsewhere. Cheers.
qt314 - September 7, 2010 at 3:00 pm
11173183 wrote:Could some readers share how they would or have handled the scenario regarding the racial epithet? I am a relative new faculty member and would welcome some insight on this.This is hate speech. I’ve had similar problems regarding gender. I think that the thing to do is stop dead in your tracks, directly face the student, and simply ask, “What did you say?” Make sure the student repeats the statement loudly enough so that everyone can hear it. Then reply “I thought that’s what I heard.” Then I’d continue to lecture. Let the student’s comment speak for itself. Document it after class, in your office. If it happens a second time, contact your Dean/Dean of Students, whoever it is at your campus.