The Joys of Teaching

So I don't really think I've written much--if anything--about my Master's program or my job as a Graduate Assistant teaching Freshman Composition at UC. It's the beginning of November, and things are going pretty well. My workload this semester isn't too intense. I'm not claiming to be some kind of genius...grad school is definitely a challenge. But two of my classes are sort of "introductory" and though my third class, English Renaissance Drama, is really interesting and challenging, the reading load is fairly light.

Despite this, I'm still busy most of the time. And it's all Teaching's fault.

Ah, teaching. It wearies my soul and gets me out of bed in the morning and makes me tear my hair out. Some days I really love it. I feel comfortable, they're engaged and learning. Last week I did a lesson on Genre and Audience using examples from the Harry Potter universe and they loved it. I do like my students. They're all remarkably hardworking and committed to the class, and their work is decent. They call me Professor Brown and they seem to respect me. I really like getting to know them individually. I want to invest in them, as much as I can, the way my professors invested in me in college.

But some days they drive me crazy. It can be difficult to get college students motivated about English at 8 in the morning. Sometimes their blank stares are so frustrating. Come on guys!, I enthuse, if you talk it'll be easier for all of us. And then we'll be done and you can leave. Don't you want to leave? It's like that scene in the classic 90s movie "Mrs. Doubtfire." Robin Williams tells the lady at the hiring agency that he "does voices." He then launches into a bunch of really funny impressions, but she never cracks a smile. She asks, "Mr. Hillard, do you consider yourself humorous?" And he calmly replies, "I used to. There was a time when I found myself funny. But today, you have proven me wrong."

My students.

Me.

Just kidding. It's never quite that bad. Most of the time when my students are quiet or turn in atrocious work, it just makes me laugh. They're so adorably clueless sometimes. There's one kid who's a great student. But whenever I ask the class if I need to explain an assignment further, he just gives the slowest, saddest, most world-weary shake of his head. hahaha...Please.

A friend in my Practicum class recently described our role when we grade papers as similar to an Emergency Room doctor's: we assess the injuries and try to patch up the most critical ones first. We look at their bloody papers and make instant judgement calls, we shout at the nurses to BRING MORE GAUZE!:

 White male, 18 years old. Okay: we gotta fix this organization or he'll bleed out on the table.  And we've got a gaping hole in the logic here caused by a single gun shot wound to the body paragraphs. Let's sew up the conclusion now or else it'll infect the rest of the essay from the bottom up. Get some transitions in here, stat! We can deal with the surface abrasions caused by faulty grammar when he's out of the woods.

But I've got this one student. If we extend the Emergency Room metaphor...he is DOA. He seems completely lost in college. Even in the first weeks, he didn't seem to grasp the concepts, or even the fact that his actions have consequences. He didn't turn things in, and what he did submit was absolutely unacceptable compared to his peers' work and the expectations for the Composition Program. When I talked to him personally, he always offered really off-the-wall excuses. But he seemed to be genuinely struggling, so I made a conscious effort to talk to him, to offer extensions, to give encouragement.

At UC, like many other colleges, undergraduate students have to pass English 1001 to graduate. If they earn below a C-, we give them an "NP," or "Not Proficient," and they have to take it again until they pass. And unfortunately, there's a point at which you  just can't recover from the poor work you've done. There's no way to get that C-. This student massively failed the first major paper, despite the suggestions I gave on the first draft. When I discussed it with the head of the Comp Program, she agreed with me--he can't recover. He should drop my course and register for the class below it, English 1000, in the spring. So then I was faced with a dilemma. How do I tell this student that he's failed already? It wasn't even October yet! Do you just say, YO, DROP MY CLASS? Maybe give him one of these?

NP for effort!

That week, I had planned to schedule individual meetings with my students. I knew it would be maybe my only opportunity to talk frankly with this student, to help him see the severity of the situation.

The conference day arrived, a Wednesday. As I walked to campus, I was still pondering how I should break the news gently to this student. This poor, fragile guy. And finally it came to me: an apt metaphor for what I'm doing is like when a doctor breaks bad news to a patient. I thought about my dad. He was fantastic with his patients--everyone always says he was an amazing listener. He really listened to their concerns, to how they were feeling. He never tried to rush people out of the office. He was kind and patient and understanding. He always explained everything and answered any questions. He invested in them.

So I'm walking up the hill and repeating to myself, good bedside manner, good bedside manner. Be kind, be kind, be gentle. When, a few minutes later, the student approached my table at Starbucks, I reminded myself to channel Dr. Brown. It...it went as well as I could have hoped. He was upset to hear he was failing so badly, but seemed to understand me. I apologized for having to give him such bad news. But I tried to balance the bad news with encouragement and advice: even if you drop now, you will be more prepared for next time. You just have to take advantage of the resources on campus. You have some nice ideas in your papers, but your writing just isn't quite there yet. (Okay, that one was sort of a lie.)

Maybe I did a better job being nice than convincing the student of the hopelessness of his grade, because he didn't drop. He stayed. He even raised his hand and answered a question last Thursday! He turned in a couple more assignments, but not the draft of the 8-page research paper. With anyone else, this would turn me into Red-Alert-Oh-Boy-You're-Screwed professor, but with this guy...it doesn't exactly matter. The last day to drop has passed, so he's officially getting an NP...no matter what.

I guess my job should be some combination of the kindly, helpful family practice doctor--who has the time and heart to explain things, to listen as they stumble towards a vaguely workable research topic--and an ER doctor, who's just trying to keep the patient alive, at all costs.

I don't know. Every time I'm harsh, I feel bad; every time I let something slide, I regret it. I'm still trying to work out the right mix of nice and tough. Ultimately, though, I'm just really hoping that this guy doesn't show up on my roster next semester! I'm not as good a person as my Dad was.