Of course, I knew what it was about. After the better part of a decade teaching, I’d
had my first real classroom confrontation with a student. Naturally, she decided I was in the wrong and
lodged a complaint. My heart sank. Up until this point, I’d had the first truly
good year of my college teaching career.
Now, on the very last day of classes, this student had taken a raw, foul
dump on what had been up until then a pleasantly memorable experience.
Her name was Jayrene. (Well, not really, but let’s just say it was
one of those names you never encounter outside a trailer park or The Jerry Springer Show.) Jayrene was slightly older than the
traditional college student, and her backstory would make the most jaded
country music fan weep. Her teenage
mother had stuck Jayrene in foster care shortly after she was born and Jayrene spent
her childhood bouncing among various homes.
Shortly after her own teenage pregnancy, Jayrene aged out of the foster system. She remained mum about what she had done in
the intervening eight or ten years before enrolling in college, though it didn’t
take a leap of imagination to fill in the blanks.
Jayrene, despite her early hardships, was
full of high ambitions. She aspired to
be a social worker, tending to kids like one she had once been. I could get behind that; my own short stint
working for the local social services department had left me with considerable
sympathy for foster kids and social workers alike.
Unfortunately, while Jayrene was bright
enough and applied herself to her studies, she was also hard to get along
with. She wasn’t difficult in the way
most of my students, praised from birth and brought up in an atmosphere of affluent
entitlement, are difficult. Rather, she
was hostile in a white trash, “shut-the-fuck-up-or-I’ll-bust-you-over-the-head-with-a-Jim-Beam-bottle”
sort of way. She had an enormous chip on
her shoulder and was consistently moody and ill-mannered to the point where no
one was ever sure exactly what to say to her. (Think Aileen Wuornos minus the trail of corpses
behind her.)
I suspected Jayrene had deep-seated emotional
problems, but I was being paid to teach her and not minister to her psychic
booboos. Taking a deep breath, I phoned Daniel,
my department chair. Daniel is a decent
sort of guy and I’ve always gotten on well with him, so I knew there would be
few, if any, recriminations. Still, I
wasn’t relishing the prospect of the ensuing discussion.
“Hey, Unassuming, thanks for returning my
call. Say, I wanted to talk to you about
a student in your Thursday 7:00 section.
Name’s Jayrene something-or-other.”
“Yeah, I know her.” Unfortunately.
“Well, she came to see me about a problem
with you.”
“Yes, I know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, good.
Anyway, could you tell me about her?
And what happened last night? She
says you were rude to her in class and docked her the three participation
points she was supposed to have gotten for coming to class.”
“Not much to tell, I’m afraid. Jayrene’s bright enough, but she doesn’t play
well with others.”
“Hmmm.
Yeah, I kind of got that idea from talking with her.”
“Anyway, I was giving my usual
just-before-the-final spiel about when I’d have grades posted. Usually, it’s perfunctory and there aren’t
any questions. But, then, Jayrene asked whether
I gave + / - grades.”
“Hmmm, okay…”
“I said, yes, it’s in the syllabus. So, she asked why. I said it was because it enabled me to grade
students more accurately based on their relative performance since I curve the
final grade. At this point, Jayrene
turned red in the face, her voice took on a decidedly hostile tone, and said that
wasn’t fair, because an A-minus would pull down her average.”
“Okay.
So far, so good…Strange she would get mad over that.”
“That’s what I thought. So, when she continued to argue with me I
said that in college, as in life, not everyone is first across the finish
line. That’s when she snapped, ‘Keep
digging.’”
“Oh, she never mentioned that.”
“Well, she wouldn’t, would she? I just can’t let this slide, Daniel. I can’t imagine having acted that way toward
a professor when I was a student.”
“No, I can’t, either.” Daniel stammered a moment, searching for
words. “Um, well, it sounds kind of like
a he said/she said sort of thing…”
“Yes, except I have less of an incentive to
lie.”
Daniel seemed uncomfortable at the
implication that any of our students would ever be less than forthright. “Sure, yeah.
But you know, Unassuming, I’d feel better about this whole thing if you
gave her the participation points.”
“Even after mouthing off to me in front of
the class?”
“Well, I can’t tell you to give her the points, but…”
“Losing those points shouldn’t affect her
final grade. Taking them away was a
symbolic gesture.”
“Wellll…I’m not so sure I’m comfortable with
the symbolism here…”
“The idea was to discourage bad behavior.”
“I’m just asking you to reconsider, that’s
all.”
“I’ll think it over.”
“Great.
I know you’ll do the right thing.”
As if there was any doubt as to what the “right thing” was.
And, so, once again, we’ve empowered the
problem children. A sad start to a much
anticipated summer break…
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