My Pal Trigger

An article in the New York Times Magazine this week addressed a frequently recurring issue in the educational discourse of late.

Namely, anxiety and its “triggers.”  It appears our youth are crippled by it.  Competition with peers, pressure to perform and succeed, and the specter of the future have converged to make them miserable.  Their parents and teachers are at a loss to help. 

Then again, maybe they’re doing too much already.  The article went on to say high school students with anxiety fear the prospect of college, which, unlike their schools, doesn’t have “safe spaces.”

Fear not, precious young ones.  At my institution, “Safe Space” decals have proliferated on office doors all over campus.  Guidance emails from the dean on this topic land in our inboxes with maddening regularity at the start of each semester.  The mental health services folks give the same tedious talks on warning signs a student may be in trouble at every in-service training.

Naturally students have taken full advantage of this climate of concern.  The number of them claiming learning disabilities and mental health issues requiring accommodation has soared in my classes and in those of my fellow proffies. 

We swap horror stories in the faculty lounge.  There’s the kid whacked out on prescription pain meds, and the one who suffered violent seizures in class and became hostile when anyone tried to help.  Both were covered by accommodations issued by the college.  I have a young man in one of my classes this term who will get up from his seat from time to time and wander the classroom muttering under his breath before slipping out the door not to be seen again until next class.  Same situation.  At least he’s harmless.  I hope.

Certain afflictions seem to come in clusters, as if there’s a vogue for them in a given school year.  Last year, it was autism spectrum disorders. 

In one section, I had a student given to random, disruptive outbursts and odd, even inappropriate questions in class.  He had difficulty with metaphors and allusions, forcing me to speak in an unnaturally literal, just-the-facts style which the other students found excruciating and made lectures dull and lifeless.  We had several class cancellations due to winter weather conditions; after each one I had to distribute addenda to the syllabus to reflect the changed schedule because he took the original schedule at face value and couldn’t adjust to the changes without a written revision.

When I went to my dean hoping for some kind of relief, she cut me off flat and insisted I comply with the young man’s accommodation order.  The result was that my class of roughly 30 students became a tutorial for just one.  It goes without saying that I took a hit on my course eval.  Because, you know, it was my fault this kid chose to take my class.

After listening to me tell this story, a colleague sympathetically exclaimed, “We have rights, too!”

Yes, but not in the eyes of the careerists in the college administration.  It’s true we’re the adults in these situations.  But it’s not just the kids acting this way.  What do you say to a thirty-year-old who lashes out at you or at classmates and then defends herself with the excuse that she’s “stressed,” practically daring you to challenge her?   

I’m not saying these afflictions aren’t real.  But there has to be a line where faculty and staff have to say, “Enough.”  Anxiety is a fact of daily life.  I’m anxious, too, and so are my colleagues.  But there are ways of handling such situations which don’t involve acting out or whining to the higher ups.

Not long ago, I was working in my office while evening classes were going on.  An EMT course was using the hallway with the student teams assessing accident cases on practice dummies.  The team nearest my open office door were working the problem of a victim who had suffered a serious injury very closely resembling the one which hospitalized me for nearly two months and left me physically disabled for life. 

I was disturbed by the reminder of it.  I was triggered, if you will.  It got to the point where I could no longer concentrate on my work.

So, here’s what I did.  And, more importantly, what I didn’t do.  I did not run into the hallway demanding the students stop what they were doing.  I did not confront the instructor.  I most certainly did not make a beeline to the dean’s office seething that my rights had been violated.

Instead, I calmly got up and quietly shut the office door and went back to work.  Problem solved.

I don’t consider myself a particularly strong or resilient person.  And yet, I was able to handle my emotions in this situation.  I see and hear things that disturb me all the time, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at me.  How is it that I can manage this and you can’t?

Students with disabilities and issues ought to be accommodated within reason.  However, if the accommodations hinder the instructor’s efforts to instruct or the student poses a threat to others then it’s time for the instructor to draw the line.

Sadly, no administrator would ever allow this.  Enrollment and retention concerns have led to a customer service mentality. 

There is also a rising tendency I’ve noticed which takes advantage of the customer is always right principle, both in and out of the classroom.  Some people, rather than seeking satisfaction politely and rationally, instead take the bull in a china shop approach of angry, accusatory confrontation. Catch your opponent off guard.  Make him question himself whether or not he’s in the right in the heat of the moment.   

It’s bad enough when some jerk pulls this crap to grift a meal or a discount from a hapless manager.  It’s worse when professional standards are lowered as a result of such behavior.  When used to get unreasonable concessions from college administrators at the expense of other students, it casts a shadow of skepticism on those who legitimately need help.

I’ve encountered situations like this a couple of times in my career, and I expect to face more before it’s over.  Worse, colleagues, and damned good ones, have walked away from college teaching because they’re sick of the bullshit coming at them from both ends.  For my part, I’ve come to question our administrators’ commitment to quality. 

Naturally, they would hotly deny this and cast aspersions on my character into the bargain.  Like my friends who have left teaching I’m just a name on the schedule to them, my many years of service notwithstanding.  Here today, gone tomorrow.  If any of us quit, we’ll be promptly replaced and forgotten. Only administrators (and the dwindling number of tenured faculty) are forever.

Only administrators, and the hordes of students with no shortage of angles to work.

© 2017 The Unassuming Scholar