NEWSBYSIOBHAN CURIOUS

Dear Auntie Siobhan:

I'd like some advice about how to deal with a persistent parent.

I am teaching a summer college course.  Halfway through the summer term, a student - let's call her Nasreen - fell ill and could not write the midterm in-class essay.  Her mother contacted me four times that day, expressing concern about how this could be worked out.  Long story short: that situation was sorted, and Nasreen made up her midterm the following week.

Following this episode, her mother contacted me again and insisted on coming to see me to thank me for being so kind to her daughter.  I explained that it was not necessary, and that she needn't go to the trouble.  She showed up at my office bearing gifts (coffee and croissants), which I tried, in vain, to refuse.  In any case, I explained to her quite clearly that, because her daughter is over 18, I could not speak to her about Nasreen's grades or class work, and that she had placed me in a very uncomfortable position by bringing me a "thank you" gift, however small.  She apologised and promised not to bother me again.

Nasreen is a weak student who has not been pulling her weight all semester.  Thus far, she is failing the course.  She has missed all kinds of class work, quizzes and generally, has done poorly on whatever she has handed in.  She has not asked for extra help, nor has she suggested that any extenuating circumstances have been affecting her performance.

Last night, Nasreen contacted me via our online class message system to ask "what she needed on the final essay" in order to pass the course because she needs it to graduate.  I gave her the breakdown of what marks were left in the course, and instructed her to consult the online summary of her grades, which tallies and averages her marks so far.  I also mentioned that based on her performance thus far in the course, her chances were not great (but not impossible).  I told her to come and see me during my office hours to discuss things further.

This brings us to today, when her mother contacted me again.  The mother left me a message, pleading for me to call her back because "she has something to tell me."

I have no intention of phoning this woman back, or ever speaking to her again.  I feel like I'm being manipulated, and I also feel that this woman will try to use her "thank you gift" against me in some way.  I do not want to get caught up in any of this, but I also think that I need to protect myself.

Please send me your thoughts, advice, suggestions.

Irritated by Helicopters

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Dear Auntie Siobhan,

I’m writing about classroom dynamics. Specifically I’m trying to determine how best to deal with some dynamics that keep recurring in my classes.

First a bit of context: I’m an out queer woman and I teach in a small town college at the undergraduate level. My classes often deal with sexuality issues, gender politics, and social justice, and my classes often draw queer students as well as students from other minority locations, as well as more seemingly normative students.

There are a number of interconnected and dynamic problems which sometimes arise however: there is often tension, and sometimes verbal aggression, between my queer and more politicized students and those students who are seemingly “more normative”; sometimes this takes the form of conscious or unconscious forms of homophobic or racist commentary from students who are unaccustomed to classrooms in which their privilege is not naturalized and taken for granted, sometimes this comes out in a presumption of homophobia or other forms of oppressive behavior on the part of apparently privileged students, sometimes it seems queer and of colour students get defensive and uncomfortable whenever the topics of racism and homophobia come up, not wanting to become personally implicated in those conversations. Conversely, I sometimes find students who regularly occupy more marginal positions feel the need to take up more space in my classroom, which makes sense, and yet…

Do you have tips, suggestions, ideas about how to pedagogically engage the real differences that shape students experience of, and behavior in, the classroom, without shutting down students that are in the process of figuring out how those differences work, in their lives and in the world?

Thanks,
Yrsin S. Truggles

Dear Auntie Siobhan,

I am a senior high school teacher who took a 5-year break from the classroom only to return in 2007.  Boy have things changed!?

I have been dismayed many times by the students lack of "engagement" towards actually WORKING and LEARNING.  I consider myself an "in tune" teacher, who incorporates current issues into my lessons regularly.  It seems that even the most interesting subjects/assignments don’t "get" them.  I often hear, "Miss, why would I bother to ‘work’ when I don’t have to and can still pass?"

I have tried many ways to get them to understand that a good work ethic will bring them satisfaction and serve them well in life, yet they still only do the bare minimum and rarely take any responsibility for what they produce.  This is quite disheartening for me, and I’m at my wits end to find a solution….PLEASE help me!

Generation X

(who wonders why she returned to teaching in the first place!?)

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Dear Auntie Siobhan:

I am an adjunct professor at a small college.  Our college has a policy stating that all cell phones and other communication devices must be turned off in the classroom.  It is up to individual teachers to enforce this policy, but many do not.

I have a strict no-cell-phone policy, but exercising it is a constant exercise in frustration; it seems I spend half my class time telling students to put their phones away, as they continue to text, check messages, and show each other photos regardless of what I do.

Last semester a student's phone rang in the middle of a test, and he answered it.  Yes, answered it, and began a conversation, while the test was going on, in the classroom.  I took his paper away from him and gave him a zero.  He was outraged.  There were no more such incidents during tests, but during regular class periods, phone use continued unabated.

I have read and heard arguments that say that, instead of banning phones in classrooms, we should put them to use to engage students and further their learning.  I am a philosophy teacher, and I see no practical application for this approach in my classroom, nor do I have any inclination to pursue it.  My students read texts, discuss them, and consider philosophical problems; I do everything I can to make our activities stimulating, and I make use of technological aids when appropriate, but can't see how introducing more bells and whistles will bring anything more this process.  I can't consider their phones anything but a distraction.

Is there anything I can do to get them to put their damn phones away?  Or do I just need to relax?

Phonophobic

New York, New York, USA

Auntie Siobhan is taking time away from her regular blog, Classroom as Microcosm, to answer teachers' questions.  Today: how can I be a good teacher if I can't uphold my principles?

Dear Auntie Siobhan,

I teach at a college where I have had disciplinary problems with many of the students.  In particular, I had a student who failed to come to class for two weeks (he went on vacation) then showed up to hand a paper in two weeks late.  I did not accept the paper as per my late policy.  This student then came to my office and would not take “no” for an answer.  He would not leave my office when I told him I would not accept the paper, and then, after I’d left for the day, he slipped the paper to another teacher to place on my desk.

Because of the zero I gave him, this student failed my course, at which point he became more irrational than ever.  He wrote me several emails telling me I had promised to let him rewrite the paper, that I would pass him, etc.  I told the student I was sorry that there seemed to be a misunderstanding, but he was not going to “rewrite” the paper after term had ended.  By this point, too, I had submitted the final grades to the college.

The student wrote back and basically called me a liar.  I could not have submitted the grades, he claimed, and he demanded that I grade a revised paper by him.

I was deeply disturbed by this exchange and felt I needed back up.  On the advice of a colleague, I copied my reply to this student to the chair of my department, outlining the truth of my statement and that the matter was now closed.

I heard no more from this particular student, but the chair basically told me that I was too hard on the students—my late policies, which teach the students preparedness for university (which I understood was my job) caused too much conflict.  The message I seemed to receive from the chair was to give in to these irrational and irresponsible students rather than hold to my convictions.

After this episode I am left feeling deflated and as though I am at odds not just with the students but with the faculty and administration as well.  I do not feel supported, nor do I feel I can live up to my own principles as an educator in this system.

I know that I face certain challenges as a teacher which could be the root of this dilemma:  I am not a young or inexperienced teacher, but I look young.  I am also a woman.  Nevertheless, this episode has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Do you have any advice as to how to deal with situations like this?  How can one educate students when one is not encouraged or supported to adhere to one’s principles?

Sincerely,

D for Deflated

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

This week, Auntie Siobhan (Siobhan Curious from Classroom as Microcosm) is here at Change.org to resolve your teaching dilemmas for you.  Is something troubling you as you prepare for the coming school year?  Write to Auntie Siobhan at siobhancurious@gmail.com.

Today: Why do we all have to suffer because one student won't come to class?

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Dear Auntie Siobhan,

I have been teaching English composition and literature at the college level for a few years now, and usually classroom management is pretty easy for me. Every once in a while there's a student who tests the limits, of course, but I can take most things in stride.

This past semester, however, I encountered a student whose mission, it seems, was to drive me nuts.

As I do in all my courses, I reviewed the attendance policy on the first day of class - my college has a universal attendance policy which prohibits teachers from failing a student on the basis of non-attendance, but we try to stress to students that missing more than a couple of classes puts them in serious jeopardy. Of course, the problem is that this policy has no teeth, so it becomes the teachers' individual responsibility to ensure attendance. In my courses, I use reading quizzes and other small assignments, and make it clear to students that I will explain major assignments in class as well, so their attendance is recommended.

On the other hand, I also present students with a fairly comprehensive schedule, so they know when essays and other major assessments are planned, and this where the student - let's call her Tina - found her loophole.

Tina attended the first few classes of the semester and the stopped coming to class. I assumed that she had dropped the course, or was planning to - until she showed up on the day of our first scheduled in-class essay. It had been so long that I didn't recognize her at all! I reminded the entire class that their essays would be returned the following week, with my feedback, and that each student needed to schedule a meeting with me to review that feedback before rewriting the essay for marking.

Tina came to the next class, but approached me at the beginning of class to say that she had another appointment and would have to leave early. She collected her essay and disappeared. She did not make an appointment to see me, but she did rewrite her essay - not surprisingly, she did not really understand my feedback, and given that she had not attended any of the preparatory classes, her essay failed.

When she did not return to class, I again assumed that she had dropped the course, which was fine with me. But then, when the research paper assignment was given, I started receiving e-mails from her, asking for guidance for the assignment.

At first, thinking that she had turned a new leaf, I responded warmly, and gave her some guidance, but suggested that she'd get a lot more out of the workshops we were doing in class. She assured me that she'd be there - but she wasn't. The e-mails kept coming, despite my increasingly curt replies. I eventually told her that I would not respond to any further requests for help on the assignment because I felt I was essentially teaching my course twice - once in class, and once on line, for an audience of one.

This pattern continued, with her ingratiating e-mails and my curt replies, for the rest of the semester. The last straw was the oral presentation, which was done in pairs. Tina assured me, and her partner, that she would attend classes that she did not, that she would share research that she did not, and that she would prepare the PowerPoint presentation that she did not. Her poor partner was left on presentation day with nothing to present and no partner to present with.

I did, in fact, take her partner aside a week or two before the presentation to see how things were going, and although she seemed a little worried about Tina's work, she believed Tina would come through in the end; personally, I think she was more worried about presenting alone than she was about her partner pooping out on her.

So I'm left with two questions - how could I have nipped Tina's pattern in the bud, and what should I have done for her presentation partner?

I look forward to hearing from you and your readers!

Sincerely,

Jane Austen

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Siobhan Curious' blog, Classroom as Microcosm, details her day-to-day struggles with classroom teaching, adolescent psychology, and personal fulfillment in her role as educator.

This week she's visiting Change.org as Auntie Siobhan, teachers' advice columnist.  If you have a question for Auntie Siobhan, please send it to siobhancurious@gmail.com, and watch for her answer in the days to come.

Today: What do I do when even the "good" students cheat?

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Dear Auntie Siobhan:

I'm teaching a college summer English course, and my midterm assignment is a literary analysis of Steinbeck's Cannery Row.  I received these essays a couple of weeks ago, and as soon as I started marking, I discovered two students using the SAME sentence cribbed from an internet site. The SAME sentence. One of these plagiarizers was a kid who begged for mercy when I caught him plagiarizing his first paper; the other wrote a paper that smelled like rat, but because I couldn't tie it to anything, I warned her that she was close and that I'd be watching her carefully.  And then they went ahead and did it again.

Then I caught a THIRD plagiarizer using the same "sample" essay as the previous two. This one was submitted to me in Comic Sans font. All mockery aside, this one hurt more than the last two because it's a student who came to class daily, participated in discussions and joked around with me a lot and it's hard not to take it personally when you thought a cheating kid was as interested in the book as you were.

Then I caught a fourth plagiarizer (using the SAME essay as the others) -- this one my favourite student in the class!  And he's a smart student too (even his plagiarism was of a higher quality than the others, demanded much more of my time, and irritated me that much more), which makes it that much more of a bummer.

Is there something I could have done to prevent all this?  I talk to them about plagiarism and remind them of the penalties.  Why do they keep doing it anyway?

Yours,
Enraged
Montreal, Quebec, Canada