And So It Begins...

You’re checking your email.  It’s the week before the semester begins, and you’ve neglected your messages as of late.  It’s summer break, after all.

Buried in the middle of your unread messages is one from a student in your summer class last month at Verdant Meadows Community College.  The subject, predictably, is “Grade?”

From: Lindy (annoyedstudent@me.com)

Sent: Friday, August 5, 2016 3:21 am

To: Unassuming Scholar

Subject: Grade???

Mr. Scholar,

I’m emailing you directly because you haven’t answered my Whiteboard messages.  Why haven’t you lowered the points possible on Whiteboard for homework and participation like you promised?  Checking my grades, my percentage is 89.2%.  You said you’d round up the points and you didn’t!

Please get back to me ASAP.

Lindy Smith

Ah, the sense of entitlement is strong in this one, you think.   You’re not sure which to curse first—the Whiteboard feature which renders student grades as percentages and cannot be disabled by the instructor, or the grade-grubbing student.  ASAP?  You kick yourself, having once more forgotten the new rules of the higher ed game.  In a time when students slip off to Cancun or the Bahamas midsemester with nary a word to their profs only to rematerialize weeks later wanting to know if they missed anything, no faculty member dare take time off or be unavailable ever.

However, you know there really isn’t a problem.  Perhaps the young princess has seen her final grade report in the intervening two weeks and has discovered everything’s okay after all.

You dash off a short reply:

From: Unassuming Scholar (scholar@vmcc.edu)

Sent: Friday, August 19, 2016 12:15 pm

To: Lindy

Subject: Re: Grade???

           Lindy,

As I said in class, count the points and ignore the percentages.  With the extra credit you submitted, you finished with an A.

Prof. Scholar

You figure this should be the end of it.  But it never is.  The response pops up within minutes.

From: Lindy (annoyedstudent@me.com)

Sent: Friday, August 19, 2016 12:24 pm

To: Unassuming Scholar

Subject: RE: Re: Grade???

           Mr. Scholar,

I’ve been waiting for your answer.  Why did you take so long?  I don’t understand your explanation.

Just so you know, I posted a review of your class at [That Website Which Shall Not Be Named].  People need to know how unfair you are.

Lindy

Now you are simply flabbergasted.  Positively gobsmacked.  You marvel at your ability to inspire ingratitude.  While you couldn’t care less about the bad review she said she wrote, since as a professional you are accountable to your colleagues and institution and not to the personal opinions of the “customers” in the classroom, you do wonder how such allegedly intelligent people cannot understand a simple arithmetic concept you’ve explained time and again to every section each semester.

On the other hand, you would be most interested if this particular student lodged a complaint with your department.  “I got an A, and I’m outraged!”  That would be one for the books.

But you wouldn’t be surprised one bit if she did.  The new academic year is upon us.  You can only wonder what new horrors it will bring. 

© 2016 The Unassuming Scholar

Trauma

I’m a fan of the journalism aggregator website, Longform.  This morning I read this piece linked to the site from the Washington Post about the recovery of a wounded survivor of October’s mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.

Before I go on, I should tell you a couple of things about myself.  The first, which you might know already if you’ve read anything else on this site, is that I’m a community college instructor.  For this reason I closely follow news of campus shootings silently praying that neither my students nor I ever fall victim to one.

The second thing, which I have only alluded to in passing in earlier posts, is that I am a trauma survivor.  I was impaled through the chest in a peacetime training accident while serving overseas with the military.  The injury left me permanently disabled.  I was hospitalized for two months, most of the first spent in the ICU.  It took me more than three years to fully adjust and find my “new normal” before I could begin to rebuild my life.

I don’t discuss this much.  While I suspect that the people who know me casually are aware I’m different I’m able to conceal much of the extent of my disability.  I wear long sleeved shirts year round to cover my withered right arm and few people, even family members, have seen the numerous wound and surgical scars that cover my body from my neck to my knees.  When I meet people for the first time they’re mildly surprised when I offer my left hand to shake but they don’t seem to notice much else.  I must say I’m pleased with my ability to pass as a normal, whole person most of the time.  I live alone without help, I’ve travelled the world by myself despite my disability, and I work at a job from which I derive great satisfaction.  Things could be much worse.

Which brings me to the 16 year old girl profiled in the Washington Post.  Eight weeks are a very short time to recover from the severe injuries she experienced and it is not reasonable to expect her to be her best self.  Nevertheless, the article paints a portrait of a very unappealing individual.  She is verbally abusive to everyone around her including her chronically ill mother.  She is demanding yet ungrateful.  Aside from a brief remark that she did nothing to help during the attack she seems devoid of sympathy for or even awareness of the other victims.  Her family members must explain every routine movement about the house lest they startle her unnecessarily.  It’s all about her.

I suspect she was a godawful brat well before the shooting, self-centered, narcissistic, and rude.  I strongly suspect her family insisted on treating her as exceptional throughout her young life.  To a degree it’s a characteristic of her generation.  It’s also true that illness makes most of us short tempered. 

But there are limits.  This girl has a lot going for her if she would just stop a moment and realize it.  She has the full support of her mom and brothers and the concern of her community.  I wish I had had a fraction of the support she enjoys.  My marriage collapsed during my own recovery while my mother and sisters used a power of attorney granted to manage my affairs to help themselves to my assets.  

Once home I was left unattended for long periods of time, during which I had to shift for myself.  I spent the many hours alone reliving the accident in my mind, memories which continue to surface years later.  Naturally I had my irritable moments, but for the most part I was my normal, polite self, with “please” this and “thank you” that in the face of the indifference of those entrusted with my care.  Most importantly I resolved to carry on even though it meant starting over with nothing.

My takeaway from the article was the lack of resiliency in our current crop of youth.  Over the past year or so articles in academic journals and “trade” periodicals such as The Chronicle of Higher Education have commented on counselors and administrators who warn faculty not to discuss things which might “trigger” bad memories or negative emotions in students.  I’ve received similar warnings from the institutions where I teach, as if I’m supposed to know the full personal history of each individual in my classes.  The subject I teach requires discussing controversial topics from time to time, so it’s not a matter of if but when a student will bring a complaint regardless of how carefully or circumspectly I present the material.  I am not sure which is worse, the potentially violent student or the prospect of having students like Umpqua Girl in my classroom.

The girl’s physical injuries will heal.  She can learn to cope with the emotional pain, which will dull though not disappear with the passage of time.  She has every opportunity to lead a normal life.  But from what I read, I think she will wring the shooting for all it’s worth for as long as she can.   She will mope, she will malinger, she will gradually leach the very life from those around her.  Rather than fulfill her responsibility to the dead to live a productive life to the best of her ability, the young woman profiled in the Post article shows every sign of spending her many remaining days draining the energy of those around her while producing nothing of value in return.

I am truly sorry for all those harmed in the Umpqua Community College shooting.  No one deserves such suffering.  But survivors have a choice.  They can move forward, pain be damned, or they can mire themselves along with their family and friends in the misery of a moment irrevocably past. 

It’s too bad that this young person has chosen the latter.

© 2015 The Unassuming Scholar

A New Generation in the Workplace

Yeah, I know this has been around a while.  I just needed to cheer myself up during the first week of classes.

Enjoy.

Reality TV (Or, Millennial Hospital)

While channel surfing, I stumbled upon the latest reality TV abomination: MTV’s Scrubbing In.  The show follows a gaggle of bimbo (and himbo) traveling nurses working at an Orange County hospital.  

I couldn’t bear to watch.  I much prefer a little playlet I posted a while back about the future of medicine, which seems to have arrived sooner than anticipated.  Here it is again, for your reading pleasure:

I have this recurring scenario which runs through my head whenever I think of the day when I must entrust my health to today’s youth.  It goes something like this: I’m undergoing a major procedure, let’s say open heart surgery.  My life depends upon a successful outcome.  And the next-oldest person in the OR is twenty years my junior…

Scene: The Operating Room. 

Time: The not-so-distant future. 

The PATIENT is already prepped and on the table.  Enter DR. CHELSEA, DR. TIFFANY, DR. TODD, NURSE BRITNEY, and NURSE JOSH.

DR. CHELSEA

 Dr. Todd, is the patient anaesthetized and ready?

DR. TODD

Yeah, we good.

DR. TIFFANY

Wait…Chelsea, have you, like, ever done this procedure before?  Do you even know what to do?

DR. CHELSEA

(Scoffs)

Huh, yeah!  I totally looked it up on Wikipedia!

  

DR. TIFFANY

Oh, wow! That’s such a great idea!  I’m so doing that next time!

DR. CHELSEA

(Smugly)

Yeah, well, that’s why I was first in my medical school class!

(Turns to NURSE BRITNEY)

Scalpel, please. 

(NURSE BRITNEY seems distracted as she hands DR. CHELSEA the scalpel.)

What’s wrong, Britney?

  

NURSE BRITNEY

(Tearfully, her voice quavering…)

It’s Dr. Jared.  He…he…unfriended me on Facebook!  I…I…just don’t know what to d-d-do…

(NURSE BRITNEY’s voice trails off into a sob.  She buries her face in her hands.  DR. CHELSEA, overcome with shock, suddenly drops the scalpel.  It lands with a clatter on the instrument tray.)

DR. CHELSEA and DR. TIFFANY

(In unison…)

Oh…my…god!!!  What a jerk!

  

DR. TODD

(Scoffing)

Huh, Jared!  What a pantload!  You could do way better.

  

NURSE BRITNEY

(Sniffles, smiles behind her facemask)

Thanks, guys!

NURSE JOSH

(Abruptly, in an alarmed tone)

Aw, dude!  Check it out!  The patient’s vitals are slipping!

  

DR.  CHELSEA

(She is clearly annoyed by the interruption)

Josh, WTF!  Can’t you see Britney’s upset?  Stop being such an asshole, okay?

  

NURSE JOSH

I’m just sayin’…

DR. TIFFANY

 Yeah, well, save it for later.  The patient’s not going anywhere.  And Britney’s hurting now!

(There is a loud, steady tone as the PATIENT suddenly flatlines.  DR. CHELSEA turns around, clearly agitated.)

DR. CHELSEA

What now? Can’t this guy leave us the hell alone for two seconds?

NURSE JOSH

Aw, weak!  He’s dead!

DR. TODD

What a dick!  He could’ve at least waited a coupla minutes before bailin’ on us.

  

DR. TIFFANY

Hey, wait, this means we’re done for the day!  Let’s go out tonight!

  

DR.  CHELSEA

Omigod, that’s great!  I just bought a low-cut dress that totally shows off my new tattoo!

(DRS. CHELSEA and TIFFANY grasp each other by both hands.  They jump up and down in unison)

Omigod!  Omigod!  Omigod!  A-i-i-i-e-e-e-e-e!

NURSE BRITNEY

And let’s go to the beach tomorrow!  I just got a new thong and a bikini wax!  I am so ready to forget Jared and meet some new guys!

(DRS. CHELSEA and TIFFANY begin jumping and squealing again.  NURSE BRITNEY joins in)

DR. TODD

(Jerks his thumb toward the now deceased PATIENT)

Uh, what about this choad over here?

DR. CHELSEA

(Sighs disgustedly, snapping off her surgical gloves)

Oh, him.  I don’t know…just call it, already.

(Exit DRS. CHELSEA and TIFFANY and NURSE BRITNEY, shaking their heads in annoyance at having been inconvenienced)

DR. TODD

(Motions toward NURSE JOSH)

Dude, like, cover him up or something!

(NURSE JOSH carelessly throws the sheet over the PATIENT’S head)

So, like, what’re you doin’ tonight?

NURSE JOSH

I’m goin’ to a rager over at my cousin’s place.  He’s got this DJ playin’ there, name’s DJ Spazzz.

DR. TODD

Yeh-yeh-yeh!  I heard of him! 

NURSE JOSH

Yeh-yeh-yeh!  This dude’s, like, off the chain, yo!  You comin’?

DR. TODD

Ai’ight!

NURSE JOSH

S-w-e-e-e-t!  We outta here!

(DR. TODD and NURSE JOSH pull out their phones and begin texting intently as they amble towards the door.  Exeunt.  Fade to black…)

Fade to black, indeed…

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar

Generation Gap

My HMO recently assigned me a new doctor.  Well, he actually wasn’t a doctor; he was a physician’s assistant.  This fact wasn’t a problem in itself.  But being a careful consumer of healthcare services in the information age, I researched his professional background online.  What I learned gave me pause.

It turns out that my primary care manager, to describe his role in insurance speak, was born in 1987.  I would be placing my health in the inexperienced hands and technology addled mind of a Millennial, and that would not do.  I called my HMO, told the customer service drone on the other end I wanted a new doc, and to my pleasant surprise I got my way.  My new “PCM” is an actual MD, and she was born in 1961.  Her professional record is substantial and, as far as I was able to find, unblemished.

Problem solved, at least for the time being.  I know that this conundrum will recur as the years progress.  Eventually, the professionals of my generation or earlier will have retired and my only choices for doctors, lawyers, and accountants will come from today’s young’uns.  I am dreading the prospect.

I never thought I would feel this way.  After all, I’ve worked with young people throughout my professional life as well as in my community service activities.  More importantly, I’m a little disappointed in my own kneejerk judgments in light of my own youthful frustrations with what I saw as my elders’ misperceptions of my Generation X peers.

If you look at media depictions of Gen X from the Eighties and Nineties, you would have trembled for the future.  Personally, I was a little mystified by them.  Even relatively sympathetic pop culture depictions of Xers, such as the movies Reality Bites, Clerks, or just about any of the early work of Richard Linklatter failed to reflect my subjective experiences as a teen and twentysomething.  Nor did the literary emanations of Chuck Palahnuik or even Douglas Coupland, who did the most to popularize the moniker “Generation X,” fully resonate with me even though I enjoyed them on their own merits. 

I suppose it was because by my late twenties, I was a married homeowner with a couple of kids and a middle management job I’d held since graduating college several years earlier.  I was neither a slacker nor a techie.  I wasn’t financially dependent on my parents as I tried to make my breakthrough as a—fill in the blank—poet, musician, film producer, artist, or dancer.  I suspect the majority of people my age didn’t have these experiences either, any more than the typical Baby Boomer was a hippie other than perhaps in the sartorial sense.

But as I contend with increasingly callow groups of kids each semester, my resentment waxes while my hopes for the future wane.  Official expectations don’t help matters.  The executive dean at my small campus suffers from a case of youth worship bordering at times on ephebophilia.  (The semi-fictional Dean Kimpossible who occasionally haunts my posts is an all-too-slight exaggeration of an all-too-real person.)  My job security as a non-tenured prof consequently demands that I cater to the shallow intelligence and short attention spans of my young charges.  Standing on principle can lead to unemployment in academia just as easily as it can anywhere else in this economy.  I may be craven, but I’m employed.

What I find so hard to grasp is not so much their dependence on technology, but the way in which they use it.  I was inspired by the role of social media—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et al.—in organizing and publicizing protest during the Arab Spring.  By contrast, Millennials at home use it to ceaselessly document the minutiae of their daily lives.  The outcome is that, to a larger degree than any generation before them, the present youth cohort exists within a self-referential bubble nearly impossible to burst.  Collective narcissism, if you will.  Already driven to distraction by their toys, our Millennials have had their self-esteem propped up by parents and the educational system to the point where failure really isn’t an option; accordingly, it has all but been eliminated as a possibility.

So, why did I refuse the boy-PA as my primary care doc?  Was it necessarily his youth that made me ask for someone else?  Well, let’s just say it was a matter of premonition and a desire to avert the inevitable just a little bit longer.  Many of my students are self-declared nursing majors or they plan to go into some other healthcare field.  A few of them have told me they’re pre-med.  I guess someone has to do it.  And while I know that the rigors of training will pull the bullshit card on a few of them, I also know that many will get through nonetheless.  (There’s also the possibility that the medical and nursing schools will eventually have their own versions of Dean Kimpossible, in which case we’re all screwed.  I try to push those thoughts aside for the sake of my own fragile peace of mind.)     

I have this recurring scenario which runs through my head whenever I think of the day when I must entrust my health to today’s youth.  It goes something like this: I’m undergoing a major procedure, let’s say open heart surgery.  My life depends upon a successful outcome.  And the next-oldest person in the OR is twenty years my junior…

Scene: The Operating Room. 

Time: The not-so-distant future. 

The PATIENT is already prepped and on the table.  Enter DR. CHELSEA, DR. TIFFANY, DR. TODD, NURSE BRITNEY, and NURSE JOSH.

DR. CHELSEA

Dr. Todd, is the patient anaesthetized and ready?

DR. TODD

Yeah, we good.

DR. TIFFANY

 Wait…Chelsea, have you, like, ever done this procedure before?  Do you even know what to do?

DR. CHELSEA

(Scoffs)

Huh, yeah!  I totally looked it up on Wikipedia!

 DR. TIFFANY

Oh, wow! That’s such a great idea!  I’m so doing that next time!

DR. CHELSEA

(Smugly)

Yeah, well, that’s why I was first in my medical school class!

 (Turns to NURSE BRITNEY)

Scalpel, please. 

(NURSE BRITNEY seems distracted as she hands DR. CHELSEA the scalpel.)

 What’s wrong, Britney?

 NURSE BRITNEY

(Tearfully, her voice quavering…)

It’s Dr. Jared.  He…he…unfriended me on Facebook!  I…I…just don’t know what to d-d-do…

(NURSE BRITNEY’s voice trails off into a sob.  She buries her face in her hands.  DR. CHELSEA, overcome with shock, suddenly drops the scalpel.  It lands with a clatter on the instrument tray.)

DR. CHELSEA and DR. TIFFANY

(In unison…)

Oh…my…god!!!  What a jerk!

DR. TODD

(Scoffing)

Huh, Jared!  What a pantload!  You could do way better.

NURSE BRITNEY

 (Sniffles, smiles behind her facemask)

Thanks, guys!

NURSE JOSH

(Abruptly, in an alarmed tone)

Aw, dude!  Check it out!  The patient’s vitals are slipping!

 DR.  CHELSEA

(She is clearly annoyed by the interruption)

Josh, WTF!  Can’t you see Britney’s upset?  Stop being such an asshole, okay?

 NURSE JOSH

I’m just sayin’…

 DR. TIFFANY

Yeah, well, save it for later.  The patient’s not going anywhere.  And Britney’s hurting now!

(There is a loud, steady tone as the PATIENT suddenly flatlines.  DR. CHELSEA turns around, clearly agitated.)

 DR. CHELSEA

What now? Can’t this guy leave us the hell alone for two seconds?

 NURSE JOSH

Aw, weak!  He’s dead!

DR. TODD

What a dick!  He could’ve at least waited a coupla minutes before bailin’ on us.  Epic fail!!!

DR. TIFFANY

Hey, wait, this means we’re done for the day!  Let’s go out tonight!

 DR.  CHELSEA

Omigod, that’s great!  I just bought a low-cut dress that totally shows off my new tattoo!

(DRS. CHELSEA and TIFFANY grasp each other by both hands.  They jump up and down in unison)

Omigod!  Omigod!  Omigod!  A-i-i-i-e-e-e-e-e!

NURSE BRITNEY

And let’s go to the beach tomorrow!  I just got a new thong and a bikini wax!  I am so ready to forget Jared and meet some new guys!

(DRS. CHELSEA and TIFFANY begin jumping and squealing again.  NURSE BRITNEY joins in)

DR. TODD

(Jerks his thumb toward the now deceased PATIENT)

Uh, what about this choad over here?

 DR. CHELSEA

(Sighs disgustedly, snapping off her surgical gloves)

Oh, him.  I don’t know…just call it, already.

(Exit DRS. CHELSEA and TIFFANY and NURSE BRITNEY, shaking their heads in annoyance at having been inconvenienced)

 DR. TODD

(Motions toward NURSE JOSH)

Dude, like, cover him up or something!

(NURSE JOSH carelessly throws the sheet over the PATIENT’S head)

So, like, what’re you doin’ tonight?

 NURSE JOSH

I’m goin’ to a rager over at my cousin’s place.  He’s got this DJ playin’ there, name’s DJ Spazzz.

 DR. TODD

Yeh-yeh-yeh!  I heard of him! 

 NURSE JOSH

Yeh-yeh-yeh!  This dude’s, like, off the chain, yo!  You comin’?

 DR. TODD

Ai’ight!

 NURSE JOSH

S-w-e-e-e-t!  We outta here!

(DR. TODD and NURSE JOSH pull out their phones and begin texting intently as they amble towards the door.  Exeunt.  Fade to black…)

Fade to black, indeed…

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar