Here at ProfHacker, we’ve discussed ways to handle a disruptive student, the student who talks too much to peers, who is not dressed appropriately, who has imbibed too much (and is in class), who overuses electronic equipment (for non-class related activities). It’s important that we know how to handle this disruptive behavior when it comes our way, because at some point it will come our way. It’s good to be prepared.
However, what we’ve done in these first examples is blame the student for bad social skills or boorish behavior (and yes, students make mistakes that can disrupt learning for other students). However, it’s important to recognize that students are not the only members of a classroom community with bad social skills or boorish behavior. What are we doing that might be causing the disrespectful student behavior?
In all the posts in this series, we have a few caveats:
- The first caveat: When we present scenarios, and it’s clear that how we handle these various situations 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 here, while understanding that we can’t account for every situational difference. What we are discussing here are behaviors that—no matter the discipline or the institutional culture—impede learning for students.
- The second caveat: 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.
- The third caveat: You might not have a problem with students behaving badly in your classes, but keep in my that ProfHacker’s readers span the spectrum from the most seasoned academic professionals to graduate students teaching for the first time. Please be sensitive in your comments.
- Lastly, please don’t focus solely on the examples in each scenario. These are merely examples that I chose to use. I could have chosen to use others. These behaviors and potential causes are in no way exhaustive, and they are merely examples. You could provide more of your own in comments below, if you wish.
What follows are some of the scenarios we’ve covered in the “Disruptive Behavior” series and a professor action that might elicit this undesirable behavior in students. While the professorial actions noted below might not be applicable, it is clear that we have to take responsibility for some of the actions in our classes. Problems are not always the fault of students.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Students interrupt you while you lecture…..
- You don’t give students enough time to voice an opinion or ask a question.
- You move through the material too quickly.
- You do not display respectful behavior when a student disagrees with your stated opinion.
Student talks with his/her neighbors about off-topic subjects…..
- You lecture, expecting students to sit still and take notes
- You don’t vary your voice (speaking in monotones).
- You only concern yourself with one side of the room (typically the right side), leaving the other side to entertain themselves.
Student texts on a cell phone or plays with Facebook on a computer…..
- You use the same teaching strategy/pedagogy each class session.
- You are too serious.
- You do not intervene quickly enough to stop this action.
Students don’t participate in class discussions.
- You ask poorly worded or ambiguous questions they don’t understand.
- You do not know the students’ names. (This one is applicable for large lecture classes.)
- You have created an environment where students are afraid to be wrong.
Student answers all questions you ask, leaving no way for other students to engage with you or the material.
- You haven’t set out clear guidelines for classroom interactions.
- You ask closed questions.
- You ask global questions that do not have a specific answer
Student undermines the professor’s authority…..
- You have engaged in a battle of the wills in a public way
- You are not prepared to teach that day’s (week’s, or semester’s) lessons.
- You are inconsistent in your policies and their consequences.
Student wears inappropriate clothing (too much skin or clothing labeled in a shocking way)…..
- You are sending the wrong message to the student that you WANT that type of dress in the classroom (not looking at a student’s face, for example).
- You are not dressed professionally yourself (showing too much skin, for example).
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Now it’s your turn. What student conduct have you seen that could be a result of your inadvertently poor behavior? Please leave comments below.
[Image by Flick user Lamont_Cranston and used under the Creative Commons license.]
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37 Responses to Disruptive Student Behavior (the Professor Edition)
whiteknight - January 17, 2011 at 11:08 am
Links in the article aren’t working for me.
drnels - January 17, 2011 at 11:11 am
Nice post, Billie! These are often thoughts I’ve had in response to some of our earlier posts.
One that I think of has to do with an adjunct who worked with me for a few semester who would come to my office and complain about the course material because students thought it was boring. All she/he ever heard in class or on evaluations was about how boring the class was. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he/she was boring. The monotone speaking, the rambling, the staring at the ceiling or the floor, the lack of active learning activities even though she/he thought they were doing them. I tried to go over some of this, but this person kept thinking it was the material, not him/her. I kept wanting to say that others teaching the class with the same material get called fascinating and interesting and “made me want to come to class” on their evals (since I had to read them all).
So, I hate to say it, but sometimes it’s not the material that’s boring. It’s you.
billiehara - January 17, 2011 at 11:15 am
@whiteknight Oops. ProfHacker to the rescue. (Give us a sec’ and we’ll get ‘em working.)
Update: they should now be working.
billiehara - January 17, 2011 at 11:28 am
@Nels, thanks. Yes, we have a tendency to blame students for their bad behavior– and they can have inappropriate behavior in the classroom– but we are not faultless.
missoularedhead - January 17, 2011 at 11:54 am
I don’t know about the inappropriate dress being linked to something we are doing. I’ve had a couple of students in the past who walked into my classroom wearing less than appropriate, and I certainly didn’t not look them in the eyes, and I’m certainly not one to dress in such a way that gives them the idea that it’s okay. I have, in both cases, pulled them aside and said something to them. In one case, it worked, in the other, it was a continual struggle. What worked was when another student said something in class…he quite directly informed the non-dresser that it was hard to take her seriously when she was dressed (and I quote) ‘like you’re working the pole’. (first time I’d heard that expression!).
billiehara - January 17, 2011 at 12:20 pm
@missoularedhead thanks for the comment! Yes, you are correct that when students dress in a manner that’s not wholly appropriate for a university classroom, it’s usually that the student doesn’t know. Did you read the initial post about “too much skin”? What we are attempting to do here is just call attention to the fact that sometimes we (professors/instructors) don’t model the most appropriate attire either. :-)
cfh325 - January 17, 2011 at 12:36 pm
I take issue with the inclusion of “You are too serious” on this list. Absent some other significant issue in teaching style (failure to engage the class, rambling, failure to vary activities, boring lectures, etc.–all things outlined above), the fact that a professor is serious should not be an acceptable reason for disruptive behavior (I’m taking “serious” to mean something other than “boring.” If they are being used synonymously here, then that needs to be clarified). Practically speaking, it may be helpful for overly-serious types to work at injecting some levity (I know I do), but there’s something distressing about the implication here that if you are by nature serious (and maybe a bit introverted), you may be at fault when students disrupt your class.
tanyaroth - January 17, 2011 at 1:51 pm
RE: the “too much skin” part. I’m bothered by the suggestion that only female instructors might be violators (when was the last time anyone accused a male instructor of showing “too much skin”?).
billiehara - January 17, 2011 at 1:56 pm
@cfh325 I meant “serious” as in one who doesn’t laugh, smile, or show any ability to be human. We’ve all had professors (or been a professor) who takes him/herself much too seriously. We can lighten up and laugh a little.
@tanyaroth, there was no mention of gender in that entry. Both genders (for students and faculty) can be dressed inappropriately, and that inappropriate dress can mean displaying too much skin.
tanyaroth - January 17, 2011 at 2:59 pm
I completely agree that both genders can dress inappropriately, but by simply referencing “showing too much skin” as an example, the comment swung towards suggesting this is a woman’s problem. What would inappropriate dress look like for a man? I stand by my question of when anyone last accused a male instructor of showing too much skin.
pchoffer - January 17, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Folks: for me, as a matter of esthetics as well as ethics, males showing too much skin teach in shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. Ugly, distracting (one looks away instead of at the instructor), and making the wrong kind of statement about the entire enterprize (usually–”I’m totally disengaged here, just serving out my time, and try and catch me in my office after class IF YOU CAN!). Best, Peter
eliajn - January 17, 2011 at 3:44 pm
@tanyaroth – fortunately not a professor whose class I had to endure, but I’ve definitely had graduate student colleagues, male, who showed too much skin…the most usual manner is by unbuttoning a shirt too far.
billiehara - January 17, 2011 at 3:49 pm
@tanyaroth and others, when I originally wrote the post for “too much skin,” it was in response to students I had at the time — MALE STUDENTS — who did not wear shorts under their jeans. When they sat down, I saw waaaaaaaay more of them than I wanted to. If I saw too much of their, um, bodies, I’m certain that others in the class saw it too.
I do understand that women are most often “accused” of showing too much, but I intentionally left the post here gender neutral because both men AND women can display more of themselves than necessary.
billiehara - January 17, 2011 at 3:52 pm
@pchoffer I agree with you. For men, it’s often seen as “cool” or as “part of the gang” sort of ethos. In a professional environment– and I see the classroom in that way– we don’t wear shorts. But as @tanyaroth has argued here, the standards are not the same for men and women. Gah! :-)
But the point of this post is disruptive student behaviors and what we– as professors– to do cause that behavior.
kshankman - January 17, 2011 at 4:06 pm
new one: Students don’t do the reading.
possible professor-related reasons:
–giving too much or irrelevant reading (we all know those professors who photocopy every article that catches their eye even tangentially related to the topic of the course, and then passes out about 100 pages a class session)
–not regularly checking for reading
–not showing the connection between the reading and the class topic
–never referring to the reading during class time
dboyles - January 17, 2011 at 4:42 pm
My response to this article is very mixed. Yes, on one hand faculty may be accomplices to the very behaviors students employ, if faculty have failed to assert an authority rightfully theirs for structuring the classroom. On the other hand, however, the article has a very “blame the faculty” message on more than one of its suggestions. This latter is akin to administration issuing ‘warnings’ to faculty when in fact it is the situational context administration has created or failed to create by one means or another that is at fault.
So, caveats and additions (which must be regarded at best as questions) to some of the suggestions:
* Students interrupt you while you lecture. . .can also mean:
Students haven’t done the assigned readings outside of class? Students want to hold up their own progress to forestall an impending exam? (Don’t tell me there isn’t a willful ignorance lurking in each learner in addition to what we teachers WANT only to see!) Students want to shift their responsibility for their own learning onto me and I am only too willing to allow it?
* Student texts on a cell phone or plays with Facebook on a computer…..because I do not have an electronic devices policy in my syllabus? Because I have been pressured by the administration and have caved in by using electronic devices in the first place?
* Students don’t participate in class discussions…because I haven’t found an adequate strategy to structure and reward responses which includes grade accountability for those responses on the part of the student?
* Student undermines the professor’s authority……because I haven’t made it clear the course is about neither the student nor about me, but about the third party world of knowledge learning, exploration, and its provisional creation/destruction which triangulates us both?
* Student answers all questions you ask, leaving no way for other students to engage with you or the material…because I haven’t realized that even the Socratic method has its limitations and may not be the better way to structure learning (1) for this particular subject content, (2) for this particular group of students, (3) at this particular institution?
saramoslener - January 17, 2011 at 5:09 pm
I’ve recently had some behavioral issues with a student and when I mentioned it to my chair he said that because I was young, short, and female that students will take advantage of me and act out to test my authority. I’ve also been told that students like to pick om professors who seem anxious or nervous and as a second year teacher I do get nervous, though I think I do a good job of channeling nervous energy into enthusiasm. I’m also aware of the limits of my personality–I’m “nice.” So if I have to address bad student behavior I feel like throwing up afterwards. So is the solution for me to 1)become a man 2) grow several inches 3) become a total badass?
drnels - January 17, 2011 at 5:29 pm
It’s true that “showing skin” is something that some people might assume is gender specific, but the professors I’ve known who have shown too much skin have been male, from shirts unbuttoned past the chest and almost to the navel to shorts that are too short to pants that are too low. Frankly, I’ve mostly seen pants that are too low.
And, @saramoslener, it is frustrating. I know several short, young women who struggle doing the same things I do easily in my classroom. It is probably one of the most frustrating things because it’s not something that can change easily. I know from supervising adjuncts how often age, gender, race, and size factor into things since I have read so many evaluations over the years of faculty who teach the same texts but have students respond in very divergent (and seemingly identity-related) ways.
henr1055 - January 17, 2011 at 5:38 pm
When the cellphones come out and the faces go down – pertinent material is put on the board (small classes) and may be removed fairly quickly. Imagine a medical student in their 3rd year rotations with an attending and the cell phone comes out. Imagine a student pilot being brief on the upcoming flight with their instructor and the cell phone comes out. Here is where learning is critical and mistakes cost lives, the education of others or careers. If a biology student is fooling around with toys in class while at the same time wanting to be a science teacher do we want to inflict this kind of teacher on the next generation of students? On the other hand if a student is learning to make brush strokes in a painting class for Impressionism and they take their cell phone out well its not going to hurt anything except their own grade. I think this is where the line has to be drawn. Finally Darwin always works his magic and eliminates these types from the good knowledge based or competitive jobs.
mbelvadi - January 18, 2011 at 7:07 am
Saramoslener, this is going to sound like a strange idea, but you might want to watch a lot of episodes of the Dog Whisperer (National Geographic Channel). I’ve found that Cesar Milan’s concept of “calm assertive” behavior, which he models throughout the show, works not just with dogs, but with people too. And I think it’s a style of behavior that either is taught (modeled?) for boys much more than girls or just comes to them more naturally (pick your choice of nature/nurture). So you don’t have to become a man, but learn the tricks the men have learned, on how to project calm authority. And find some big dogs to practice on! :-)
interface - January 18, 2011 at 7:10 am
Ban personal electronics in the classroom. Seriously. I was afraid to do it at first, but it’s miraculous and so easy, and everyone actually looks at me and each other. At most I lose one or two students who won’t take any class where they actually have to pay attention.
mbelvadi - January 18, 2011 at 7:20 am
It seems to me that you missed one of the biggest teacher-centered explanations that crosses many of the disruptive behaviors but most especially the cell/Facebook ones – that the lecture doesn’t contain any information the students don’t already have, whether it be just rehashing the textbook readings, or reading directly off the PowerPoint.
I also have to take minor issue with the “you lecture” one. Some of my best classes were large lecture halls where sitting taking notes was pretty much all we could do, aside from a short q&a point maybe near the end of the class. A really dynamic speaker can hold a class enthralled day after day. Maybe I’ve just been lucky enough to have more than one of those. Rather than scolding profs for lecturing, maybe we ought to be giving advice as to how they can become more interesting lecturers, because honestly, what else can they do with a room full of over 100 students all sitting in firmly anchored desk-seats that are deliberately designed to minimize interaction (aka cheating during tests) with their neighboring students?
cleverclogs - January 18, 2011 at 8:46 am
@saramoslener
“So is the solution for me to 1)become a man 2) grow several inches 3) become a total badass?”
I laughed out loud when I read this, and my advice would be to become for your students, not just your colleagues, the person who was decided to sum things up this way.
I don’t know you (obviously), but I’m short, female and young so, while I don’t want to assume too much, I think I know where you’re coming from. I’m betting you have over-developed the “nice” part of your persona for the classroom and now it covers up your inner irreverent streak. The above statement shows me that you’ve got smarts and confidence. I’d recommend nurturing that side of yourself and letting that person run the classroom.
Also, as a quick fix, I’d recommend wearing clothes that make you feel powerful, even if that’s jeans. I know it seems silly but it works.
jtran8424 - January 18, 2011 at 9:41 am
I taught Student Success and once was given to teach the class on a branch campus (couldn’t find anyone else to do it) to a class of Advanced Placement High School Jr.’s and Sr.’s, and apparently they had been bred to believe a great deal about their highly advanced intelligence and that this class of Student Success was not very important, that they did not do their readings or homework, therefore were not prepared for class activities, would, rather, speak over me during lectures and once a female Jr. sat at the desk in front, her back to me, and I, appalled, after asking her nicely to go take her seat that we could get back to our discussion ignored me, and continued on with her entertaining gossip of other students on campus, and so I picked up my purse and went to the lounge to get a Pepsi to calm down, and then went to the program coordinator/secretary and told her the situation, and she went into the class and asked a couple of students, I believe, that she felt she could trust and asked what happened and they told her, and she asked the girl to come with her and told me to just come and get her if it happened again. And after she left, I addressed the class, and asked them where on earth they got the idea that this was an appropriate way to behave in a college classroom, because maybe this was a first or second course for them in their advanced placement program, but when they transferred into college level content programs, they would not be tolerated. And, for whatever reason they thought they were “all that”, they weren’t, not yet, and wouldn’t make it with that kind of attitude. Sure, their coordinator would make difficult situations blow over for them now, but she wasn’t going to be there throughout college to dust off their rude, imperious behavior, so they better learn some humility because if there’s one thing a college professor is NOT going to tolerate is a lack of respect, and if they did not appreciate that after all those years of education and all that money it cost them, while others were working, making money, having families, and taking vacations to Europe, while they were still in college and paying triple tuition for their Ph.D.’s, still single because you couldn’t ask a woman to live on $6,000 a year, after all that, and some skank of a student is going to disrespect you and what you are trying to teach, it is a fairly simple situation dealing with real college students, the door, you just show them the door, and there are no coordinators to save you, you mess with the prof and you are out of the door, you do it again and you are out of the course, you just wasted your money on a course you needed, do it in a couple more courses, and you’ll be looking for another college. Just soooo lucky you are still a public school student, being protected like the kid you really are, so take advantage now, because in a year or two, YOU will be responsible for your own behavior, no one to clean up after your mess, and you will be eating your own ….
I dismissed them when I was done, and they “told” on me, and I wasn’t invited back, and that was fine with me, too bad for them, I think, empowered them to perpetuate that disrespectful behavior.
Well, my son was in the International Baccalaureate program at another high school, and they were informal, but they knew just how lucky they were, because if they graduated from the program and passed the exam and the essay, their first year of college would be done, and there was no namby pamby about it, they may have been flexible, but when it was time for lecture, you talked and you were invited out of the class, rude to anyone, even another student, out of class, rude during community service, you redid those hours, yes, they were flexible, but then you had to be extra good, something these advanced placement students didn’t have to learn because it wasn’t expected of them. What was wrong was that these AP teachers had not taken the counseling class that gifted teachers had to take that they would know better than to feed their egos to such a point that ethics, morality, and respect didn’t apply to them, they were bigger than that. And so the college had to find yet another professor to teach Student Success at this branch campus. I understand they sent a chair from the main campus who would simply make behavior part of their grade and let them behave how they would and were shocked when they got their grades, but the behavior issue for the classes he did teach them no longer had behavior problems. At first the coordinator appealed to the dean of the campus, and the dean talked to the chair, and the chair told him that their AP program was full of belligerant and demeaning students with neither respect nor humility, and was there anything else he wanted to say…
drj50 - January 18, 2011 at 9:50 am
I used to read the student course evaluations in my program and “not showing the connection between the reading and the class topic” appeared often. This isn’t hard and doesn’t have to take a lot of class time. But students (not unreasonably) conclude that what we talk about is what we think is important, so if we don’t mention the reading . . . And, whose job is it to connect the reading with the lectures anyway? The student (who knows much less about the subject) or the instructor (who knows much more about the subject and presumably thought that this reading contributed in some special way)? We don’t have to spoon feed at this point. Some thought-provoking questions (in class or in a study guide) can point students toward the kind of integration of reading and class activities that we want them to make.
@saramoslener: all of the comments offered to you here have been good ones. As a male who has not always commanded the attention of everyone in a room, I have thought a lot and observed often in recent years those who do. Confidence, energy, clear expectations, calmly following through when those expectations are not met — these are keys to personal effectiveness in any role or relationship, whether as a teacher, businessperson, parent, spouse or friend.
fizmath - January 18, 2011 at 9:57 am
Is there any concrete evidence that a student is disruptive because of what the teacher does? Has anyone interviewed the disruptive [ones]? Do they act differently in other classrooms?
misstrudy - January 18, 2011 at 9:59 am
I had a couple of young friends/colleagues who, as a teaching assistants, used to teach their classes in flip flops, old t-shirts and sitting on his chair as if he were at the beach. Both were dedicated surfers as well as grad students. They were twenties and not much younger than many of the students. Both were always complaining to me that the students didn’t take them seriously, would not follow instructions, do assignments, would talk in class and so on. I suggested they dress and act somewhat more formally, so that they didn’t look like another student and seemed to have more respect for the class in general. One of them actually turned to dressing in khakis and nice shirts, “office casual” style, walking the classroom as he lectured instead of slumping on his chair, and told me he had sensed an almost immediate difference. No more class control problems. The other kept to his old ways, and eventually became so unhappy with “crappy students’ attitudes” that he quit teaching. Maybe it didn’t help that he’d go out drinking with them on occasion and drink as hard as they did! Either way, I think that to a certain extent, class control is something we learn with time and experience. Nevertheless, I have had students arrive stoned or raging on steroids and the only solution has been to get them out of the classroom with security, period.
n2n_0131 - January 18, 2011 at 10:13 am
@saramoslener – I am a relatively tall female but have often observed that I perceive intellignet, self-confident women as taller than me even when they’re not! (I think of myself as intelligent, nice, but not always self-confident.) drj50 is right – confidence adds to one’s stature!
billiehara - January 18, 2011 at 10:22 am
Thanks for all your smart comments, everyone. Interesting discussion!
Let me bring this back to point of the post, though. We (professors/instructors) complain about student behavior ALL. THE. TIME. A lot of that time (even most of the time), the complaints are warranted. However, we also have “disruptive professor behaviors,” and even if the above examples were not the most “spot on” (again, we can’t account for every institutional and situational difference), maybe there is something in your (or my) behavior that causes students to pull back, not do the work we expect, and find other (disruptive) ways to entertain themselves.
It’s just a suggestion, but maybe WE are to blame some of the time. Or, maybe just the thought that we could be doing something irritating to students is an impossibility?
:-)
karenrlow - January 18, 2011 at 10:56 am
“Students don’t participate in class discussions.”
The instructor asks questions, but doesn’t wait for answers.
Silence can be a scary thing, and if you’ve taught students that you are scared of it and will answer your own questions to avoid it, your questions will end up being rhetorical for the rest of the semester.
jeffkaron - January 18, 2011 at 12:40 pm
I really like the focus here on behavior of everyone, both students and teacher. Though I’m back in the college classroom, I have spent time in high school classrooms, including with students who are tagged as emotionally handicapped. One must learn to handle conflict daily.
I favor modeling behavior from the first day, including getting students to demonstrate how to act. To insure that everyone gets a chance to participate, I ask a student to draw names randomly from a basket. At some point, for example during brief presentations, I will ask students to decide who goes next–why should I decide?
At all times, students (and teacher) have a chance to demonstrate excellence. When there are disruptions, point, literally or metaphorically, to the rules that you have developed (and no doubt have in your syllabus). High school teachers often learn to step aside in the face of aggression and point to posted rules or other aids. Likewise, if possible, avoid the confrontation–the student can get mad at the rules, not at you.
I’ve run a few workshops for teachers in which I’ve shown them how to turn that challenging, aggressive student into an ally. It doesn’t always work, but you have an opportunity to redirect that energy–at least that student has some energy! If you take a disruptive student aside, the first thought on his or her part will be that you are going to hit back hard. Instead, surprise the student by remarking that you need help with keeping the class on track; identify the student as someone who obviously is potentially strong. You may be surprised by the powerful work and leadership that you get from this student.
At all times, I try to act strategically while encouraging students to do just the same.
Best,
Jeff Karon
jtran8424 - January 18, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Dear Jeff,
Before I taught college, I taught K-3 EH, of which you are apparently acquainted, and I had so many strategies to keep them engaged and on task with so many reinforcements going on at the same time, and unless a child had not had their medications or had a bad morning at home, the days went by, carefully planned, to be pretty smooth and comforting for the students, but as I said I had so many reinforcers going on at the same time that it was half of my job. And I loved my job, and I loved my students, and I loved their families, and I enjoyed the collaboration with other professionals, I didn’t love all the special ed paperework, in fact, the only time I had a problem was after making a mistake on paperwork and then the principal wrote me up, after which I had a nervous breakdown because the guidance counselor, whose job it was to help with the many, many different forms, and this had been a new form for me, and review the forms to ensure that they were all correct. Well, she reported to the Principal that I was the only one who needed help with the forms, and had he but looked at the meeting table and saw the two bottles of White Out and the two tape types of White Out, I think he might have given her information a little bit of thought, because all forms signed required a witness, and because I was the first one at school, even before the guidance counselor, so for those typically very early meetings with parents, I was the witness, and there was a reason that there was two bottles of white out and two tapes of white out, and sure the teachers didn’t come to her for help, because all their mistakes would be corrected at the meeting, but she didn’t tell the principal that, and she had not mentioned that she corrected errors of all of the special ed teachers all the time, all she said was that I was the only one that came to her to make sure that my paperwork was correct for the meeting, so naturally he thought I was careless, or didn’t know my stuff. And when the principal yelled at me, and said that this was going into my permanent file, I was, in fact, very upset, and I saw a lot of teachers come out of his office crying, and maybe I should have let myself, because I was on the edge, and in all my professional years, and I was 41, then, I had never lost it to cry as a professional, but then I was never criticized other than that I was a little too shy, I was a perfectionist, OCD, a BA Summa Cum Laude, Sigma Tau Delta, and an MA GPA 3.97, so I was not used to criticism, but this was an all out hollaring meeting. Well, I cleaned up my desk, and went home and had a nervous breakdown, and the principal did not seem to make any connection to his verbal beating, because 6 weeks later, when the doctor said I could try going back, I was so nervous I would make another mistake and would get another verbal beating, and the first thing he did was remind me that I needed to get all my paperwork in order, and I almost went home to give some thought to quitting, yes, between my gossipping assistant and my unfriendly principal I decided to just try to make it to summer and if there were days I couldn’t make it I would call in sick, and I was horrified that my disability had never kicked in and it had absorbed all my sick days, but whatever, if I felt I couldn’t make it through the day, I just stayed home, he, the principal, hadn’t eased up, my assistant was still gossipping, as my faculty friends kept informing me, and I was simply being victimized, but I made it to the end of the year. He retired at the end of the year, and so I stayed on, but his replacement was worse, a vindictive Jewish woman who believed that all Chritians were out to get her, and I, a Multi-cultural Liason for the District, who was necessarily supportive of all cultures, was the enemy, supporting the activities the District wanted us to celebrate at our schools, and that included Arab holidays as much as it included Jewish holidays, and I was the enemy. I couldn’t win, and my boyfriend across the state, the college professor who, after 13 years, still “wanted to be sure” so I gave it the year, and the next year, my assistant began “alerting” that principal I smelled of alcohol when she got to school, well, sure, I had a lot of teeth problems I couldn’t afford to fix with a kid now in IB, who needed a new computer and a scientific calculator, who was going on weekend state math competitions, and I had to afford the stuff for my kid I would never and did never have such support for, even if my little sister, the baby, got to go on the field trip for the French Club to Paris, OMG, but in any case, my son would never be deprived of a state math competition, so I had to keep working one more year for that school in his school district for his IB and his Mu Alpha Theta, and I used lots of Listerine that would cut the pain in my teeth, and I actually got sent home, and the second time the principal made me go home with her, and she thought I was going to let her know which apartment was mine, how crazy was that??? And then I had to take a taxi to school the next morning because my car was still at school, and she wouldn’t either time let the policeman assigned to our school do a breathalyzer test on me, how vindictive is that, when I was awarded the National Professionally Recognized Special Educator award, and a letter of commendation from the Superintendent, and all I wanted was to get out alive and told my boyfriend if he didn’t want to marry me after 15 years I was going home to Boston, and so we got engaged and I quit, BUT I signed the papers before I got another job, and all the jobs I applied for, and the principals were very positive about me, after they spoke with her, they told me my references were so horrible, but they wouldn’t tell me what she said so I could sue for slander. And so after subbing for 3 years, I finally got a job at the college. It was THE HORROR STORY of my life, it just went on and on and on.
Administrators have too much power, and then they use it poorly, as tools to wield against others, and there is hardly anything you can do about it. Administrators do not set appropriate examples, abusing their school’s budget for their own personal benefit, then they build a fraternity of faculty and administrators and live in their own world without ethics or morality. If we want better public colleges and universities, even public schools, the administrators need to be monitored, and their faculty need to be evaluated by the faculty and not let to run amock with no oversight. How are principals in public schools evaluated, by PTA’s? How absurd !!! Who is directly affected by their decisions the most, besides the children, but even then, they should have a voice, the teachers, of course!!! And if they are making personal decisions where a professional decision needs to be made…and should principals be allowed to slander teachers without direct evidence, to take the gossip of another and use that to make slanderous references about a teacher whose livlihood depends on that reference???
Well, my husband is a Senior Professor at a public college, and he has had chairs who, after an absurdly negative evaluation, nothing that reflecting his 28 years of teaching at the institution and being lead professor in his department, being the most popular professor in his department, getting the best evaluations from students in his department who get the best grades from any professor in his department, what more do they want, and if his mom who is quite elderly, didn’t live here, he’d teach somewhere else for the lack of gratitude, has had some very emotional evaluations, and you begin to wonder, if it were not for the student gratitude and appreciation, it were not worth the effort, because the administration, after 28 years, and other professors who get poor to mediocre evaluations and low rates of sign up for the same classes, young, vital, not Ph.D. but energetic, just not popular, and he’s always over booked, again, its another situation where the administration is being stupid, just plain stupid, because he’s willing to work for less, because he been there for 28 years, colleges are psypchologically manipulative, and so that is our public educational system.
I guess in the end they get the respect they deserve…
saramoslener - January 18, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses. I just realized my username is my actual name–so much for anonymity. But I’ll be changing it to badass shortly.
@JeffKaron: with my difficult student I ended taking the strategy of addressing his strengths and his potential as a leader. He didn’t respond at all and I had no idea how this would impact his behavior. But since we’ve been back from break he’s been in my office at least twice, asking questions about assignments, and asking for feedback on his written work. I’m pretty amazed. I was worried that playing the “nice” card would somehow either make him feel like he was let off the hook or further diminish my authority. Just the opposite. I’m so relieved it work and glad to know that someone else recommends this strategy.
ihadanidea - January 19, 2011 at 1:42 pm
@kshankman Agreed. Another possible reason: you’ve provided photocopies that are smudged, cut off, or otherwise unreadable. I convert curricular materials into accessible formats for students with disabilities, and the bad photocopies make me want to scream and run away… and I get paid to deal with them! This happens more often than any of us would like to admit.
laurajb - January 19, 2011 at 2:16 pm
I teach mathematics. Students value what we assess. It doesn’t matter how much it counts, it just has to count.
I have students do a “problem of the day” at the beginning of class which is used for their participation score (5% of their grade). If they’re late, they don’t get the points. So, students are on time, immediately engage in a review or discovery situation, their minds are on topic, they get to know the other students in class (which often leads to more respectful behavior) and I get a chance to walk around and get to know them as well. (This can be done in any content area and in large group settings the answers can be submitted with clickers after the students have worked in pairs.) In our current culture, respect is not automatic. It comes from relationship.
My syllabus is detailed but we don’t go over it in class. I expect them to read it. I give a syllabus quiz which gives the message that my expectations are important and I will enforce them and, most importantly, I do. Most of the time I do it one on one, not in front of the class.
I teach them as a class how to say “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure buy maybe…” This gives them more confidence in dealing with my questions. It is difficult to wait for an answer when they are slow but I remind myself that they are not experts and are also nervous. I use a stack of index cards with their names on it so that the questioning is random.
When a student is belligerent, they are often absolutely afraid of failing. Sometimes they’ve been taught that the only way to get their way is to be assertive to the point of rudeness. Paying close attention and “reflecting back” to them what they’ve said can help defuse the situation. “It sounds like you…”
The matter of revealing dress is tricky. You can get yourself in a sexual harassment situation by talking to students one-on-one, especially a man talking to a female student. I talk to the class about the importance of dressing so that the classroom is a place where everyone can learn. As important as dress is the use of strong perfumes, aftershaves, and hair products. The one that I struggle with is the student who has strong body odor. I refer that to the advisor but it often turns out that it is a matter of limited access to a washing machine (living in their car) or a health issue. An American college student who stinks (who isn’t Goth) usually is well aware of it and very embarrassed about it.
When students start giving me the “when will I ever use this” refrain, I reply honestly. In many cases, it is “in a direct way, probably never.” But, it is my responsibility to make the case for development of critical thinking and, according to the study I saw in my newspaper today, we’ve got some work to do in that area.
Finally, I’m a 54 yr old woman and seasonally I wear longish shorts and Chacos to class. I have no trouble with discipline or respect. In fact, I often think it makes me more approachable. Most people are scared of anyone who can do math.
I expect students to behave appropriately and I treat them with respect. That includes being prepared for class and creating a class that isn’t just a rehash of the book. There has to be value added. I think the attitude of some administrators that a class can be scheduled in a room without enough seats because the students can just as well read the notes on line is appalling.
kerri_provost - January 20, 2011 at 8:52 am
I appreciate what you’re trying to do with this post. It’s not always the student who is the source of the problem. But, I really disagree with the assessment about appropriate clothing. I have colleagues who dress, in my mind, too casually, but they are never showing too much skin. So, they are not directly modeling that bad behavior. But, there always seems to be that one student whose pants are too low, or who is dressed more for the clubs than for the classroom. They are teenagers! Well, most of my students are anyway. Teenagers are not notorious for making great fashion choices, particularly in the modesty category. Add to this a culture in which females are taught that their whole reason for being is to capture the interest of an attractive/wealthy male. Add to this those who are seeking attention in general. So, this is where I have to disagree. They are not just coming into my class with too much skin showing; this is how their whole lives are (except for, maybe, when they go to visit Grandmother). I can be a good clothing role model for a student three days a week at 50 minutes each day, but how does that compete with all of the bad clothing role models they are exposed to for far more time. Think Snooki. I can’t compete with that.
I have my students do formal presentations. These might not be as formal in the sense that I would like, but I do require that they dress up. I explain what this means. I tell them they should not be wearing see-through or ultra low-cut clothing. Hats worn for non-religious purposes should be removed. Most of them get it, but there always seems to be one out of 60 who does not. No, that one is not my fault.