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[salsa6]

I need some advice!

I have a rare, nearly invisible, and completely harmless neurological condition.  It's so nearly invisible that I grew up completely unaware that I was "abnormal".  Finally, after four years in grad school, my thesis advisor noticed something unusual, and suggested I have it checked out.

Back then, I had a nearly complete workup done, including a comprehensive evaluation by a psychiatrist.  The neurologists were 99% sure about what it is that I have, but there is no treatment for my symptoms.  I've resisted the "full" workup, because it's primarily only used to get disability benefits for those with very severe symptoms. 

ANYHOW - apparently, last semester, some of my students noticed, and several of them wrote very unkind things on my evaluations.  Three students, who clearly must have been talking to each other about this, commented that they thought I had a very specific psychiatric condition.  (I don't!  I'm sure of it!)  My chair is concerned.  I don't think my chair agrees with these students about their armchair psych eval. However, my chair thinks it would be helpful if I videotaped my lectures, so that perhaps I could see what set the students off.  Obviously, I know exactly what the students saw, and it can't be fixed.

What would you do?
Tape the lectures, watch them or not, fix nothing, and hope for the best next semester?
Should I come clean to my chair about my neurological condition?  I never intended to tell anyone.
Should I tell my students about my condition in future classes?

I should say that after I saw the evals, I got an appointment with another neurologists.  I was thinking that maybe there were new treatments in the 10 years since my diagnosis.  No luck.

[johnr]

It's not clear how long you've been teaching.  Have you had years of evaluations and this is the first time it's come up, or are these among your first evaluations?  Some students can be a-holes.

[glowdart]

It is one thing if you have some condition that is actually distracting or interfering and is unavoidable, but that doesn't sound like your situation.  (Not that you could do much in that case, but my advice would be a little different.)  

AND, and much more importantly, these evals sound like the "let's get the prof in trouble" variety which students excel at from time to time.  

Personally, I would ignore it for at least another semester and see if it shows up again in the evals.  My admin has a level-headed approach to evals, however.  If it shows up again, then you might need to either tell the chair the details if you're comfortable with that or tell the chair that you have a harmless condition covered by ADA (?) and that all of the recording in the world is going to do nothing (except make you less secure in your teaching.)  Is there a place on campus that is the faculty equivalent of the special services office where students who need accommodations go?  Especially if it becomes a pattern in the evaluations, then you need to cover your ass in case someone in a tenure review process mentions this, but I want to hope that it won't be mentioned unless it becomes a pattern.  (And, I want to hope that it won't be a pattern since it has taken so long for you to notice and it took four years for your advisor to notice.)  


But, I have to wonder why is your chair even reacting to three comments on one set of evals that are clearly personal and vindictive.  How seriously are evals taken where you are?  How's your relationship with your chair?  Where are you on the TT?  All of that should factor into your final decision, I think.  

Yes, you need to appear as though you're working on your teaching, but I'm not sure a recording session is going to do anything other than waste time;  plus, it might make you more open to critique for "why didn't you fix that issue?" since you "knew" about it.  The less of a record that it could even be misconstrued as an issue, the better, methinks.  

I want to believe that three vindictive & childish evals over a lifetime of teaching is not enough to sink a tenure bid in most places unless there are other things going on.  

Under no circumstances should you feel that you need to reveal this to your students.  The students are going to encounter people with visible and severe disabilities in their lives; they needed to learn not to snicker or make rude comments about 10 years ago, frankly.

[salsa6]

Wow!  Thanks a lot - this is very helpful.

I'm in my 3rd year on the tenure track.  I taught before coming here and it NEVER came up.  It's more than three students that commented on my condition.  It was THREE that had bullet points indicating why they thought I had schizophrenia.  (I most certainly do not have THAT!)  Yes, glowdart, I think these were evals of the vindictive variety. 

Thanks, also, glowdart for suggesting that I probably shouldn't have the videotape.  I had a peer teaching evaluation done, and my chair spoke with my evaluator after reading the student evals.  My peer evaluator never noticed anything odd.

Thanks, lizzy, for mentioning that it might go up the chain of command if I told my chair.  I hadn't even thought about that.  Indeed my condition would most certainly be covered by the ADA, if I was even disabled.  But I am really not disabled.  There is a symptom that can be extremely disabling, so that's what most people think of when they hear about my disorder.  But I don't have that one, and the other ones don't really effect my life much. 

I suppose, though, that my actual condition is much less troublesome than schizophrenia.  If there is any more noise about me possibly being schizophrenic, I'll spill my guts and show the dean and the provost my PET scans.

[msparticularity]

While I totally agree that there is not any need for us to reveal confidential medical information to our students, sometimes a bit of guidance can be helpful. For example, I have a friend who has an eye that wanders (pretty radically so, actually). Early on, when she noticed I was desperately trying to maintain eye contact--and trying to figure out which eye to do it with--she smiled, pointed, said, "This is the good eye," and we moved on. I actually did feel a little weird and uncomfortable before she told me, since I couldn't figure out how to deal with the situation and I didn't want to be rude by avoiding eye contact--but just a slight clue was enough to help me figure out how to respond.

Many of our students are very immature. They don't respond well to feeling uncomfortable, and they project. If we can do something that will guide them toward appropriate behavior, I think we may be helping ourselves and them.

[spyzowin]

I have a ... nearly invisible... neurological condition.  It's so nearly invisible that I grew up completely unaware that I was "abnormal".

Finally... my thesis advisor noticed ... [and] last semester, some of my students noticed, and several of them wrote very unkind things on my evaluations.

I'm thinking that it probably isn't "nearly invisible" at all.

[mended_drum]

If (and it's not entirely clear to me), what your students described actually corresponds to symptoms that fit your diagnosis (and it's possible that they had just taken a psych class and were diagnosing everyone--this sometimes happens), I think I'd just tell my chair that video-taping class wouldn't help anything.  I'd explain that I have X condition, that it's extremely minor, but untreatable, but that I'd make sure to educate students about it if any came asking questions in the future.  Let them know that you're willing to turn it into a "teaching moment."  And it may never come up again; it's possible that stress or other factors briefly exaggerated whatever symptoms you have.

But this only works if, as noted above, you have a decent set of colleagues and a certain amount of self-confidence. 

Oh, and if it needs to be said, completely ignore the post above. 

[lolar2]

Thanks, lizzy, for mentioning that it might go up the chain of command if I told my chair.  I hadn't even thought about that.  Indeed my condition would most certainly be covered by the ADA, if I was even disabled.  But I am really not disabled.  There is a symptom that can be extremely disabling, so that's what most people think of when they hear about my disorder.  But I don't have that one, and the other ones don't really effect my life much. 

The ADA also covers people who appear disabled even if they are not.

http://www.ada.gov/cguide.htm#anchor62335

"To be protected by the ADA, one must have a disability or have a relationship or association with an individual with a disability. An individual with a disability is defined by the ADA as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment."

[shrek]

I'd let my chair know immediately and ask for assurances that such a disability would not be used against me. They'll bend over backwards to ensure you are treated fairly-- no one wants a lawsuit. (yes, I'm being cynical, but hell use it)

[post_functional]

I don't know that it's cynical.  There's nothing wrong with not wanting a lawsuit.  I think it's a fine thing that rational self-interest can trump one's irrational prejudices.

[lemonbar]

I would explain the situation to my chair, too. That will put an end to your chair's insistence that you try to figure out what "set the students off." You know what set them off, you know why they are complaining. Why not just tell your chair that and move on?

As far as telling students, the situation needs monitoring. If you never get comments about this again (or very rarely) I would feel no need to explain the situation to students. However, if comments begin to appear in your evals on a regular basis, I would consider that it might be possible that your condition is becoming more obvious and might need some explanation in the early weeks of the semester.

[alleyoxenfree]

I would explain the situation to my chair, too. That will put an end to your chair's insistence that you try to figure out what "set the students off." You know what set them off, you know why they are complaining. Why not just tell your chair that and move on?

As far as telling students, the situation needs monitoring. If you never get comments about this again (or very rarely) I would feel no need to explain the situation to students. However, if comments begin to appear in your evals on a regular basis, I would consider that it might be possible that your condition is becoming more obvious and might need some explanation in the early weeks of the semester.

It's also possible that your condition is not becoming more obvious, but that some small thing noticed by one student was talked about among friends, and snowballed from there.  Students sometimes do gang up on a prof, especially if they smell vulnerability.  It can happen once in a career, especially if those students are bad in class or simply immature. 

What you do may depend on your school as well.  Is it small?  In that case, the rumor may be going around campus.  If it's large, you may hear nothing about this in the future.

I'm not sure I have the experience to comment on what others have advised, except that when I had mid-semester surgery, a lawyer advised me to tell my supervisor because it would protect me.  In essence, if you are whacked out because you're recovering, no one can complain that you're listless in the classroom without discriminating.  But if you're simply listless in the classroom, they can complain.  So I told my supervisor, my officemates, and my students that I'd had surgery, was recovering, and asked them to bear with me while I looked like hel!.  Then I taught as though nothing was different, and I never heard a peep of complaint.

Another possibility exists, which is that you might come up with a condition that explains what they are seeing, which is similarly harmless and permanent (no need for taping or working on it), but does not compromise your privacy in the same way.  After your tenure, you can come out further if you like, or you need not.

[larryc]

I'm sorry, but what exactly is the condition?

[mountainguy]

I think it's important to note that people can be freaked out by what they don't understand. As I've previously disclosed in other threads, I had childhood dysgraphia that still sometimes shows up when I'm fatigued. I usually don't discuss the condition with my students, but if one them complains that I have terrible handwriting, I let them know that I have the condition and that they should feel free to seek clarification if they can't read something that I wrote. They are almost understanding, and it can raise awareness about the condition. (I've had several students tell me they never knew there was such a thing as dysgraphia).

OP, you have no obligation to disclose the condition to anyone, but it might promote awareness if you did. As others have noted, your chair should be understanding if he/she is a decent human being. And I find that most students are understanding of disabilities once they learn what's going on (although I fully respect your decision to keep the condition private, if that's what you wish). It might be worthwhile to give it another semester or two to see what happens with those evaluations. Finally, it might not be a bad idea to register with your campus ADA office just as a CYA maneuver.

[kedves]

I can't comment from a personal level, which I realize must entail a strong feeling of risk.  But I agree that the best course would be to register with your ADA office and tell your chair, if for no other reason than to have it on record.  There is consistent research indicating that physical and other anomalies affect teaching evaluation scores and comments, from facial asymmetries to stuttering to more profound differences.  Even if your students do not comment specifically, your scores could be affected.  Students are often unaware of the ways in which their attitudes affect their scores.  And you already have an understanding gap with the chair, so if you want to choose the path of more openness, this is the time to do it.