For Crying Out Loud

At least once a semester, a student cries in my office.  Sometimes they cry out of frustration and exhaustion.  Sometimes they are going through a rough patch in their personal life whether due to an ill family member or a bad break-up.  Sometimes they are trying to “work the system,” so to speak, or manipulate their instructor. But regardless of why students cry, it’s something that most of us will have to deal with at some point in our career.

The first time a student cried in my office was during my very first semester as a TA.  I was teaching my alma mater’s version of English 101: basic first-year composition, and I was the instructor of record for the course.  There was a student who had done well on his first few assignments, and then his performance took a marked nose-dive.  He was late to class; he struggled to stay awake, and the grade on his work went from high Bs to Ds.  I noticed that all of these changes seemed to coincide with the appearance of a fraternity pledge pin on his clothing.  The Greek system at that institution is legendary for, among other things, this intense initiation process for new members.  So I made a couple of comments on his returned drafts asking about the changes in his work and letting him know that he could come to office hours if he was unsure about the assignments or wanted to talk through his ideas.  After that, I let it go, figuring that he was an adult and was entitled to his choices.  Sometime around Thanksgiving, he came to office hours.  He was contrite and wanted to know if there was any way that he could salvage his grade for the course.  We had only one paper left, so there wasn’t much room improvement, and I let him know that.  I wasn’t especially sympathetic in large part because I assumed that he had been out partying instead of studying for the better part of the semester.

I was wrong.

I realized that I was wrong when seemingly out of nowhere, the student burst into tears, and I’m not talking about quiet weeping or a couple of sniffles accompanied by watery eyes.  This was full on crying complete with the honking nose and hyperventilation.  I was stunned.  All I could think to do was grab a box of tissues from a colleague’s desk (I had none of my own).  When the student finally got control of himself, he explained to me that his mother was terminally ill.  She’d been diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of cancer about a month into the semester, and he’d been having a hard time dealing with it.  Unsolicited, he produced documentation and offered to give me his father’s telephone number so I could call and verify his story.  To say that I felt horrible is beyond understatement; I felt like a grade-A, World-Class Jerk.  And yet, short of being a psychic, how could I have known what was going on with this student?  In the end, after talking to the Director of our First-Year Writing Program, we worked out a way for him to revise some of his earlier papers and resubmit them, and while his grade might not have been as high as it would have been in a perfect semester, he was able to pass the course.

My point in relating this story is to emphasize an important point that some of my fellow ProfHackers have already made both in their posts and in various comments: often a situation is more complicated than it appears, and it’s important to try and refrain from jumping to conclusions.

These days, I like to think that I am better at keeping an open mind.  I’m also more practiced at how to handle a student who gets overly emotional during a conference:

24 Hours: One of the best ways to avoid grade-inspired emotional overloads is to impose a 24-hour moratorium on conversations about graded work.  I am happy to discuss an exam or paper with my students, but only after they have had a chance to look over and process the feedback that they have received.  24 Hours hasn’t eliminated the tears, but it has greatly reduced their frequency, and it almost always results in much more productive conversations with students.

Redirection: One of the problems with these kinds of emotional exchanges with students, at least when they are inspired by academic performance, is their focus on the past.  Instead of thinking about ways to improve for future assignments, the student tends to cry over spilt milk.  In other words, they dwell on what went wrong on previous assignments that are now over and done.  Reminding students that they need to turn their attention to the work that is still ahead and discussing strategies that might help them improve can be very helpful both for us and for the student.

Tissues: These days, I always have a box of tissues on my desk (and another in the desk) just in case.  Sometimes, it’s best for the student to just let it out, whether it is frustration, stress, or grief over something going on in their personal life.

This brings me to my last suggestion.

Referrals: If students are upset about non-academic matters, it might be a good idea to suggest that they take advantage of whatever counseling services your college or university provides.  College is already a stressful time for students, and it can easy for them to get overwhelmed, especially if they have to deal with other issues, whether a break-up, a death in the family, or something else.  While I am often sympathetic to these situations, I am not trained in counseling.  Don’t be afraid to let students know that it can help to talk to a therapist.  Many of them are either unaware of the resources available to them or afraid of the persistent stigma attached to talking to a therapist.  You can’t make them go, obviously, but it’s certainly worth mentioning.

How do you deal with emotional students?  Please share strategies in the comments section.

[Photo by Flickr user bbaunach. Licensed under Creative Commons.]