Now that the Demoralization Has Passed

Now that the grades are in and readers think my book proposal is pretty damn good, I feel considerably less demoralized. I handed all the grade anxieties over to the powers that be, knowing that, really, I did all that I reasonably could. The self-flagellation -- at least on this issue -- has ended for the next three months! I might even figure out what triggers it, and head it off at the pass by the next grading season.

At this point, before I'm cleared out of the office and on to other things, I have this surge of teaching creativity about what I can do better next year. This year, it actually comes with less hatred of myself as a teacher (last written post notwithstanding), and more realization of improving what is already pretty good. These are the problems that can be solved.

The first solvable problem that I noticed appeared in grading papers this past month. I realized that students can describe the hell out of things. They can describe the ugly outfit that one person was wearing. They can describe that show on t.v. last night. They can describe that image on the projector screen. They can describe a museum. They can describe an exhibit. They can describe a reading. They can describe the ideas in the reading (or at least regurgitate them). They are describing fools! What they cannot do is apply the ideas that they describe to anything else that they describe.

For instance, I have them go to a museum exhibit and read a selection from a book addressing some of the problems of presenting history in museums. They then must apply the ideas in that selection and analyze the exhibit. They must also do a little basic research on the subject of the exhibit in order to be a little more educated about that subject and thereby better able to analyze. After all, how can you tell if an exhibit does a good or poor job of including African Americans if you don't know about the history of African Americans in relation to that exhibit's subject?

Now, they can all tell me in great detail about the exhibit. They can tell me (regurgitate) the ideas in the reading. They can even tell me all about what they read in their research. What they seem unable to do is put all three of those together.

Why, after all, should they be able to put those together? Nothing in their lives has prepared them to do that. They aren't required to take the freshman composition classes, including the one that involves research and rhetoric, before or even concurrently with their history classes. Most of their grade schooling seems to have been focused on the descriptive. At least, that is what they have retained; and very little of what they read, when they read, involves a model of analysis.

Here they are, dumped in a humanities class, required to express themselves in writing and required to analyze information in writing with absolutely no tools to do so. I can do nothing about the curricular problem of allowing them to take a humanities class without having required them to take a writing class. That's part of the whole "education as processed product" mentality that takes bigger movements than myself to change. I can, however, get them through this assignment, and maybe show them the way toward writing and applying ideas and analyzing information.

To solve this problem, I first decided that I have to exert some control on some of the variables. I will choose the exhibits and I will give them a list of things that they can choose from to read about the subject. I won't give them the readings. They will have to find them in the library -- sort of a scavenger hunt -- but there will be no "I couldn't find anything to read on my topic." There will also be no wallowing around in Google for the first three hits on an overly general search string (or word). I want to control all of these variables for a later class discussion.

Next, I will restructure the assignment so that they turn in all of their description at the mid-point of the semester. Describe everything! Research and describe! Visit and describe! Read and describe! Go for it! Then, at the mid-point, we will have a long discussion about how to apply the ideas and research in order to analyze the exhibit. The variable control becomes crowd control, and allows them to share ideas and perceptions.

After the discussion, they will have to write the actual paper. My hope is that they also learn a little more about the process of research and writing. "See," I can say at that mid-point. "You have collected all of your information. Now, let's see you put it all together in a different way, into something new, something original." Ideally, this assignment should have more steps if I really want to teach them about research and writing, but I'm only one person and there are up to 140 of them. We also do have to cover some actual history.

I did that step organization with my online classes, too. After I learned that they cannot write a well-supported essay to save their lives, I structured the unit assignments so that they wrote a detailed outline in the first two and essays in the second. The detailed outline was supposed to allow them to identify a thesis, and then to amass evidence without worrying too much about an argument. Let me tell you, those who got that far and turned in that last assignment showed some great improvement. They gave me that little moment of light when you can see that something somewhere clicked into place and they learned how to do something.

The others....well, they leave me demoralized (but that has been covered).

Still, I noticed that, even at their best, they had a difficult time granting a concession to the opposing side of an argument. My colleagues in other departments have told me that they have the same problem. We all agreed that the students seem to either be unable to imagine another side of an argument or they cannot imagine that another side has any credence. We blame modern public discourse.

Anyway, the next time I think that I will give them two opposing theses on the first outline assignment. That way, I can force them to amass the evidence to support the thesis that they choose; but, since they already know that there is an opposing side, and what it is, they know what they have to address. On the subsequent assignments, they are on their own.

This is what I mean by "hand holding." Again, there is only one of me and 140 of them, so there is only so much time that I can humanly put into this hand-holding, and only so much time that I can put into it and not become demoralized through exhaustion and neglect of my own research and writing.

Along the same lines in handholding, I have decided that I need to just take the class time and address their lack of comfort on computers. Next year, we will have a computer lab day. Early in the semester, like week 1 or 2 (whenever I can get the space), I'm going to take them into the lab and make them physically go to the places and do the things that they have to do in order to survive in the class. No more "I didn't know that you had announcements online," or "I can't find the study guides" or "I don't know how to attach a document," or "I don't know where to submit the assignment," or all of the five million little excuses that I've heard despite having shown them all of these things. This time, we will do it together. Kinetic learning, I think they call it.

Also, quizzes on relevant portions of the syllabus as the semester progresses. I mean, really! We have to put together this multi-volume document. Use it! Maybe the quizzes will train them for other teachers by forcing them to think "oh, yeah, this thing they gave us on the first day of class? It actually has useful information in it so I don't have to e-mail the teacher ten times each week!"

This past year, I've also taken to heart some of the blog discussions from last year about late papers. I had tried to be draconian: "No late papers!!!" That was more headache than it was worth, and I usually crumbled under a good sob story, which wasn't fair to anyone else, and sometimes people with legitimate sob stories actually pay attention to the policy and get cut out of the pushover teacher benefit. So, I made everyone turn everything in online. They had a due date and a cut off date, after which time they could not submit anything. Because of the late penalty of a letter grade per day, turning in a paper after the cut off date would be an exercise in futility. With this policy, I could keep track of the late papers, keep track of just how late they were, and not hear (as many) sob stories.* The ones that I did tend to hear included the requisite emergency features of death, birth, pain, crime, or natural disaster (which we had), and I had a provision in the syllabus for those.

Turnitin.com also became a real boon. I took a cue from the gender studies teacher, and followed her policy. I make them upload their own papers, and count a letter grade off if they don't. That way, they can see what is or is not original in their own papers, and they can learn and improve from the program rather than have me punish them after the fact. If they don't learn and improve, well, there should no surprises when I tell them they have a 0 because their similarity report returned an 80% (which, of course, happened).

Finally, one of the things that I tried this year was to not take everything so damn personally. That's a real problem for me, obviously, and I was not wholly successful at it. I become less successful as I become more fatigued, which a prior post or two illustrated. Still, I think I did much better by not taking their weaknesses as failures on my part or intentional insults directed at me.

For example, I used to take lack of attendance as a comment on my teaching or a sign of disrespect to me as a professional. I learned to tell myself that poor attendance was neither, but, instead, just a sign that they are overburdened or that they don't have the self-discipline to do what they have to do to attend class.

In fact, I only took two instances of poor attendance personally. One was a student who rarely showed, and when this student did s/he was clearly contemptuous and texting. I tried to control it, but as long as s/he stayed in the back of the class, and didn't disturb others or call attention to her/himself, I let it slide. S/he wasn't a drain on the morale or the education of the rest of the class S/he just didn't want to be there even when s/he was there, so s/he mentally checked out. I was able to keep that from getting me too worked up because that was clearly her/his choice.

Another was a student who did not show up to class except to get the syllabus and take the two tests. That pissed me off because the student wanted to take an online class without having to do the work of an online class. That showed disrespect to me and to every other student in both online and classroom classes. (Then, this student insisted that s/he attended every class, but cam in late. I may be a bit flakey and have a hard time connecting names to faces, but I ain't that stupid!) I suppose there is nothing to do about that type of situation. Someone always wants to game the system.

Anyway, that was a significant amount of psychological energy saved in not taking so much so personally. I was able to be a more helpful grader, was able to approach the tedious tasks of teaching with greater creativity, and I was able to hold off feelings of complete failure and inadequacy until the last month or so (I think). Still, I'm going to have to work harder at that, and at not sitting around paranoid that some administrator is going to hold me responsible for those who simply have not decided that they are ready to commit to the work of college.

Now that I think about it, most of my feelings of inadequacy come from the online classes. They wear me out, and I feel the least confidence or interest in the platform. I know that I can rock a regular classroom, but my strengths as a teacher are there, not online. Again, I could be a better online teacher, but I would have to have fewer students. Far fewer students. Maybe I should just accept my limitations online and be done with the frustration?

Anyway, I think I had a pretty good year teaching overall and despite the bitching. Plus, I put on an overwhelming number of butt-kicking, highly attended programs -- 10 in all, I think, with attendance above 40 for the majority, and only one with attendance below 20. That's pretty good for a commuter campus.

Next year, less flagellation, fewer but just as good programs, and more writing. LOTS more writing.

Meanwhile, onward to a summer of research, writing, good health, and my Gentleman Caller!



*I just don't have the emotional energy for most of the sob stories. I'm willing to hear an honest-to-god problem and sympathize, but the comedy of Murphy's law errors that make up the bulk of the excuses wear me out.