cab67
cab67's JournalFirst time in trouble at school.
A random topic came up in discussion with some friends yesterday - when was the first time we got in trouble at school?
I was a pretty good kid, so I almost never got in trouble at school, but I do remember the first time my parents got a call from the principal.
I was in second grade. On the bus to school, we talked about what our mommies and daddies did. And I said, with all sincerity and candor, that my dad sold drugs.
A call to my parents added some needed context - my dad was a pharmaceutical sales rep. He mostly sold medicines for GI problems (e.g. gaviscon, which might have been a prescription medication at the time - I don’t recall for sure).
But it struck me how much things have changed since that time. Back then in 1974, it was possible for a kid to make it up to second grade without knowing that ‘selling drugs’ could be a bad thing, or that there were even such things as illegal drugs. I was a white kid growing up in a suburb; I’m sure there was addiction in our neighborhood, but we were kept pretty-well sheltered from it - though kids living with it their homes would have been aware, I suppose. We didn’t have cable channels dedicated to Dick Wolf series, and children’s programming never touched the topic. It just wasn’t something a kid would encounter, at least where I lived.
Hence, I was able to describe my dad as a drug dealer and mean nothing scandalous by it.
Just some memories, I suppose.
when professors know compassion, and when they can act on it.
I’ve posted a couple of commentaries from my perspective as a university professor in the past few days. The first one (https://democraticunderground.com/100216144241) was written following the final exam in my class and discussed situations under which I’ll allow (or not) makeup exams. The second (https://democraticunderground.com/100216155485) was written after I turned grades in and as the deluge of requests to change them began to arrive.
Both of them touched on the issue of accommodation and understanding, especially (though not exclusively) in the context of emotional or mental issues that might get in the way of a student’s success. These were mostly raised on the second of my two commentaries, in which I pointed out (honestly) that it’s pretty much impossible to change a grade for any particular health-based reason after grades have been turned in. (The first commentary actually addressed this issue, pointing out that emotional crises are perfectly legitimate reasons to reschedule an exam.)
I’d like to address this point in some detail, partly because I think some commentors were addressing a much larger point than I was actually making, but also because I want to give some level of guidance to those who, as students or parents, may actually encounter these sorts of things.
The overwhelming majority of college-level instructors are very sympathetic to mental issues. Life has happened to us no differently than has for anyone else. The first year of college can be a serious challenge to anyone. Students are usually away from home for the first time in their lives. They may be under pressure from family to excel. A lot of them have to work while taking classes. Some of them are young single parents. Some may have come from excellent schools and lots of support at home, but not all of them.
I see a lot of young adults in crisis. Their parents were paying their way through college, but they just lost their jobs. Or the student herself or himself has just lost a job. A close loved one has just died unexpectedly, or the student is playing a role as caretaker for someone suffering from a prolonged and possibly terminal illness. The students themselves may have serious physical health issues, and they sometimes arise unexpectedly in the middle of a term. Their parents may have just gotten divorced. The student him or herself might have just gotten divorced, too, or might have been the victim of a serious violent crime (sexual or otherwise) or a bad traffic accident. I encounter veterans who came home with PTSD.
I’ve even seen the products of our public school systems – the good and the bad. Many of my students come from the wealthier suburbs of Chicago, where high schools tend to be well-funded and well-staffed. But I also get students from rural counties in the western part of my state, where the graduating class may have had fewer than 25 students and some subjects just weren’t taught, either because they didn’t have the staff or local parents found them too subversive. (We’re seeing an increasing number of students from inner city schools enrolling here; this is good, but they’re often no better prepared.) I had a colleague say she assumed they all knew the basic structure of the atom (by which she meant “nucleus of protons and neutrons orbited by electrons), only to see a student collapse in despair; this particular student had never encountered the subject in school. I, myself, have encountered college students who’ve never seen a square root symbol before.
In other words, life happens. We can’t always control the circumstances of our youth, and any one of us can fall prey to economic insecurity, illness, family emergency, or some other force of devastation. And, yes – it can do a real number on a person’s mental health.
We instructors know how much of an impact this can have. Severe depression can be just as paralyzing as a big dose of Anectine. It can keep a student from attending class, or it can prevent a student from doing anything productive in a classroom. And it’s not as though students are used to talking about their own mental health; there’s still a stigma attached to depression, and it can take a bloody long time for a student to recognize that the problem goes way beyond just being a little bit less than happy.
We also know that rates of mental illness can wax and wane depending on overall conditions. Normally, I would get two or three students (or their advisors) out of 200 every fall reach out to me, often late in the semester, to ask for accommodation because of a mental health issue. In the fall of 2020, it was more like 10 or 15. And we all expected this – we were facing a pandemic, racial unrest, and a presidential election that could have been won by a functionally illiterate bigot. This past fall wasn’t quite as bad, but I still had more accommodation requests than would normally be the case.
-----
So how can we, as instructors, help such students?
We’re not trained mental health professionals or therapists. Other than showing some compassion, we can’t directly treat the problem. But we’re all told before classes begin where students can get help. There are counseling centers on campus, and others in the broader community. All of them are staffed by real professionals who know what they’re doing. If they can’t provide the help a student needs, they’ll find someone who can.
We can also make reasonable accommodations in the class itself. If a crisis erupts right before an exam, we can schedule a makeup, or we can excuse the student. We can accept homework late. We can spend time in office hours, and sometimes beyond, helping a student understand the material.
My own accommodation is to promise a struggling student that he or she will not fail the class. I can’t promise a good grade – it might be a D or D- - but I can at least promise a passing grade, provided the student actually puts in some level of effort.
We can also work with administrators in deciding whether you should be allowed to drop or withdraw from your classes late in a semester. We’re often reluctant to do that, but neither are we completely averse to it.
But here’s the thing – unless it’s a small class and I’ve gotten to know the students very well as individuals, there isn’t much I can do unless I’m told about it. I may not notice a sudden increase or decrease in a student’s weight, for example. I’m not qualified to read someone’s mannerisms to uncover hidden depression. I may notice that a student has stopped turning in assignments or has missed an exam without contacting me; this could follow from a sudden depressive episode, or it could follow from hanging back in one’s room with an X-Box, a dime bag of euphoriants, and no parental supervision for the very first time. I’m not able to make that distinction based only on the absence of a student from class.
That’s why I included “I had mental health issues throughout the semester” among the list of reasons I won’t change a grade after classes are finished. By then, it’s too late. The administration might decide to wipe some grades from a student’s record, and I generally go along with such decisions, but there’s no practical, objective way to retroactively add points or figure out how far a grade should be changed. It’s not a lack of compassion; it’s reality.
-----
IF YOU’RE A STUDENT FACING MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS:
You owe it to yourself to find help. That’s why counseling centers exist. There are people who have devoted their careers to helping people just like you. It’s their job, and in most cases, they’re passionate about it. There’s no dishonor whatsoever in seeking treatment for a real mental health emergency, just as there’s no dishonor whatsoever in going to the ER if you’ve been impaled by a fencepost.
You can (and probably should) also reach out to whatever student disability services office your university might have. These deal with physical access issues as well as mental health, but they’re the people who can help arrange special exam setups.
If you want to reach out your instructor personally about the problem, that’s fine. We’re obliged, both by institutional policy and (in most cases) our personal senses of morality, to keep it confidential unless you’re a danger to yourself or others; and if that’s the case, we would be required to contact people who would also keep it confidential. (Thankfully, I’ve never faced that situation.)
Or you can have your academic advisor, or someone from the student disability or counseling centers, contact me. That’s just as good to me, and might be easier for you.
Sending me a letter from a therapist might help, but not as much as you think. I’m not a clinical psychologist, but my wife is. She’s taught me just how easy it is to fake the stationery of a fictional “therapist” or shop around for someone claiming to be a therapist who’ll sign off on whatever you claim. You’re far, FAR better off working through an office on campus that I’ll recognize.
Getting documentation is never a bad idea, whether it be from a doctor, a therapist (though see above), or someone on campus trained to work with students in your situation. It sounds ghoulish at first (“Don’t you trust me?”), but I’ve been burned in the past by students whose claims of debilitating mental health issues proved fallacious. I want to help those who really need it.
I do NOT need all of the details. If you survived a sexual assault, that’s none of my business. Neither is it my business to know whether you’ve actually tried to commit suicide. If you can reasonably claim that you’re dealing with mental health issues that are interfering with your ability to function as a student, that’s pretty much all I need to know.
And you know what? Many of us know these things from direct personal experience. It took my father a long time to stop asking me “You’re depressed? About what?!” I don’t remember most of my first year in graduate school, and that’s probably for the best. In a lot of cases, we’ve walked in your shoes. We get it.
-----
IF YOU’RE A PARENT OR FRIEND:
You’ll be better placed to notice the changes that could signal a mental crisis. You know your friend or child better than us. Take action if you think it’s needed.
And if you think being depressed isn’t a thing, or that it’s an embarrassment, get the fuck over that. Depression can kill.
-----
ALSO IF YOU’RE A PARENT:
Find out what resources are available before your child even steps into a classroom for the first time. Being proactive can save a LOT of trouble.
But don’t be offended if no one on campus can tell you exactly what’s happening unless your child has given us written permission to do so. Your child is now over 18 and, legally, an adult. We might be bound by HIPPA, FERPA, or both. We’re not trying to be pricks; we’re trying to protect the confidentiality of a student as required by law.
Also – recognize when it’s time to throw in the academic towel. Withdrawing late in a semester is sometimes the best thing that can be done for a student. Maybe it would be best to focus on your kid’s mental health for a little while and think about college later.
Yes, I know late withdrawal might mean losing the tuition you’ve spent, I know it can jeopardize financial aid eligibility. But from my standpoint as an instructor, how much good are you doing by not wasting tuition money, but having your child graduate with a low GPA? And possibly ending up in worse mental condition? Penny wise, pound foolish and all that.
You want your child to graduate on time, you say. You know when it's time? When they've finished up their classwork and are set to move on to bigger things. Pushing for one at the expense of the other is counterproductive.
I deal with this on both sides of graduation. I occasionally get applicants for my graduate program with GPA's below our minimum cutoff. "I had a rough couple of years," we're told. "I wasn't able to take part in research opportunities because of my lack of progress, and I didn't get to know my professors (the people who write letters of recommendation) because of that." Maybe so - but how do I justify admitting that student, but not one with a GPA of 3.95? And for what it's worth, the one student with a low GPA I admitted turned out to be a disaster. Your student is far better off in the long run setting up a record that opens more doors.
Withdrawing is NOT an admission that a student isn’t good enough, or intelligent enough, or hard-working enough for college. It’s a recognition that we have to think carefully about our priorities.
-----
Anyway, some thoughts.
Dear college student who's not happy with your grade in my class:
Reasons I would be willing to alter your grade:
1. An error has been found. A score was entered incorrectly, something that you completed wasn’t entered at all, you found some mistakes in the way your final exam was graded – something like that. And the points returned to you are enough to make a difference in your course standing.
That’s pretty much it.
Reasons I’m not willing to alter your grade:
1. It doesn’t reflect your own subjective assessment of the effort you put into the class.
2. You’re applying for a highly competitive job or for some form of post-graduate education (grad school, med school, etc.), or you plan to join the military as an officer.
3. Your parent(s) and or guardian(s) will be so very disappointed if your grade isn’t improved.
4. You suffered from physical or mental issues throughout the semester, or had some actual scheduling problems that kept you from attending class regularly, but are only bringing it up now, long after I (or anyone else) can do anything about it.
5. You just realized you didn’t turn in a homework assignment. It's now mid-December, but it was due in October. (And no, I won’t give you an incomplete so you can "continue the dialogue" over whether your TA or I might be willing to change our minds. I’ve had someone ask that.)
6. You found an error in the grading of your first midterm, which you took two months ago.
7. You had an exceptionally busy semester.
8. You might lose your scholarship if your grade isn’t changed.
9. Can’t I be merciful in the spirit of the holidays?
10. You think I’m being unfair in assessing your grade based on what you actually turned in, and not on what you would have turned in if you’d done better.
11. You're "just not a science person." (Do you know what my advisor would have done to me if I’d done poorly in a medieval lit class and tried “I’m just not a humanities person” as an excuse?)
There are other excuses I can add to this list, but these are the ones I've encountered in the past couple of years.
And you know what? "How far am I from the cutoff for the next highest grade?" will always be answered with “not close enough to justify a grade change.” It doesn’t matter how far off they are are – students will invariably try to nickel and dime points from every exam and assignment in the hope of crossing that threshold. It wastes a lot of time and never results an improved grade.
Seriously – a grade is a goal to be achieved. It isn’t a commodity to be negotiated. And begging makes you look really pathetic.
sincerely,
your humble instructor.
Thoughts from a professor that are going to make me look like a grumpy old man.
Man? yes. Grumpy? at the moment, sure. Old? I'm still a few years away from 60, so that's a matter of opinion.
Just a few thoughts from a college professor to students and, just as importantly, their parents, that have arisen since the final exam for my course this morning.
Want to take the exam at on a day or at a time other than scheduled? Maybe. But if you're told "no," there's usually a very good reason for that.
Here are some things we can accommodate: illness (with a medical note; this includes psychiatric/mental as well as physical problems); family emergencies (funerals or sudden very severe medical incidents or accidents); court date or jury duty; family event planned long in advance (e.g. wedding), provided we're notified well before the exam; job interview; conflicting institution-related event (e.g. related to sports, ROTC, or a required field trip for another class); computer problems (if the exam is online); work schedule conflict (though if it happens frequently, it might be good to take a different class or get a different job).
Here are some things we either can't or won't: oversleeping; routine as opposed to milestone family event (e.g. I'll accommodate you for your grandmother's 100th birthday party, but not your cousin's 8th); missed a bunch of class, but haven't made an effort to speak to me or borrow someone's notes until minutes before or some time after the exam; not feeling ready and wanting extra time; travel preference (e.g. wanting to take a test early because it's scheduled late in finals week or right before Thanksgiving/Spring break and you want to get out of town).
Bottom line - we accommodate need, not convenience.
I'm generally very forgiving on many things. I'm actually going to work with a student who missed this morning's final because he overslept; the exam was scheduled for 7:30, and this student was pretty diligent throughout the semester. Some of my colleagues wouldn't.
A former partner had to announce to her Friday 4:30 PM class session that they were having a quiz each week, that they could only make it up in an emergency situation, and that "but mom and/or dad already bought the plane ticket" would not qualify as an emergency for missing the quiz on the Friday before Thanksgiving break, which lasts all of the following week.
---
I get a lot of rescheduling requests. I'm forced to reject many of them. I don't like being a jerk, but I have my reasons:
1. As a matter of fact, yes - it's an imposition.
At my institution, students may be allowed extra time on exams, and possibly a private distraction-free room, if they qualify through the student disability services office. Whether I think all of these students actually need these accommodations or not, many really do, and I'm happy to help. But in recent years, 5 percent or more of my students will have some sort of accommodation, and because our budget is in the toilet, it usually falls on instructors to schedule the separate times and spaces. And this is a serious burden if you're teaching a big lecture class; my fall large-enrollment class caps at 200, so I'm responsible for scheduling separate exam times for about ten students. Doesn't sound like much, but that means aligning the class and work schedules for each student with mine, which doesn't have a whole lot of wiggle-room. I'll only ask one of my teaching assistants to do this if there's no other option; my TA's have enough to do as it is.
Bear in mind, 200 is a big class, but there are classes far larger than that on my campus. But we manage.
Then, we have acceptable excuses. A loved one has died, or is dying. You have a fever. You're experiencing a major depressive episode. You're a bridesmaid or groomsman in a wedding. It's your brother's bar mitzvah, or it's your niece's baptism. Your prick of a boss changed your work schedule and won't budge.
We understand that life happens. It's happened to us. So we're generous to those who have real needs. As long as you can document anything that came up short-notice or let me know long enough in advance if it's already scheduled, I'll work with you.
But if your family wants to go skiing and the tickets are a lot cheaper if you leave before the exam, you're out of luck, at least if I'm the professor. The answer is the same if you have another exam later the same day or feel distracted because of an argument you had with someone. My hair always goes a shade grayer once I've finished the spaghetti scheduling involved with the accommodations for an exam, and that's for the legitimate ones.
(A note to parents - it's a very, very good idea to ask your kid when his or her exams are early in a term. This way, exam schedules can be kept in mind when events are being scheduled. It annoys me when a student tells me that a big milestone party has been scheduled at the last minute and it conflicts with an exam.)
2. Taking an exam at a different time increases the chances that the exam will be misplaced before the score is entered. I say this not only from my own direct experience, but from the experiences of several colleagues.
We're human. We work hard to prevent mistakes, and they're fortunately rare, but they do happen. There are circumstances that make mistakes more likely. With exams, not taking it with everyone else is one such circumstance. And making tests electronic or on-line doesn't necessarily help.
(A note to both students and parents, and I've said this before on DU: keep everything handed back to you. It's your receipt. I once had a student contact me after the final exam to complain about her grade. She thought she was getting a B, but ended up with a C. I looked over her grades, and explained that, sure enough, one midterm and her final were in the 80's, but her other midterm was a 28. That's what killed her grade. "But I didn't get a 28," she replied, "I got an 82!" She showed me her exam, and sure enough, she was right. The shit-for-brains who entered the exam scores - almost certainly me - managed to type the numbers in backwards. It was easily corrected, especially because I was able to see the actual midterm in question.)
---
Most professors and instructors whine about these things around final exam time. I'm no different, I suppose. But if my looking like a digital curmudgeon inspires someone to think twice about asking for an accommodation for the sake of convenience, maybe I don't mind.
They call me paranoid.
When I take research photos, I save them onto my hard drive. I copy them over to two external drives. I put copies on Dropbox. I burn copies onto a DVD. And I save the flash card.
When I started grad school, there were no such things as digital cameras - and when they first appeared on the market, they couldn't take research-grade pictures. So most of what I have from the first 10 or so years of my career are 35 mm slides. But these have all been scanned in, and these digital copies are backed up the same way my digital photos are. And I've been gradually making my way back to museum collections to replace the scanned slides with digital photos. (And I have the original slides kept in safe storage.)
Some of my colleagues have accused me of paranoia. The cloud is by far the safest storage medium, they say. Why don't I just delete them from the flash card - isn't it wasteful to keep buying flash cards? Don't you know how damage-prone those external drives are? Laptops have to be replaced from time to time, you know. And who the hell still uses DVD's? I mean, computers don't even come with CD/DVD drives anymore.
These photos are at the heart of my research program, I explain. As are the notes I take, which are still written out on engineering paper using drafting pens. (I have digital copies of my notebook pages in case something happens to the hardcopies.) The photos represent close to 30 years of work and tens of thousands of research grant dollars (plus quite a few dollars of my own). Replacing them would require visits to dozens of museum collections on six continents and, most likely, many months of time I could otherwise devote to other things. And some of the specimens I've photographed have since been damaged, lost, gone missing, or subjected to destructive sampling. So, yeah - I overdo it with backing them up.
But there's another reason I'm this way -
I kept on doing my work yesterday. Some of my friends dependent on cloud-based storage had to find other things to do when the Amazon outage struck.
Call me paranoid, but I'd like to think I've got decent reasons.
I remember, in 1996...
..when Bill Clinton heaped praise upon his opponent, Bob Dole, after being re-elected in the presidential election.
It wasn't the sort of fake "I thank my opponent for his grace in defeat" toilet water, either - Clinton noted Dole's extraordinary life of service to his country, both in the military and in the Senate. Clinton had defeated a decent man who was actually qualified to hold the office of President, even if he disagreed with Dole's policy opinions.
Clinton knew that a Dole victory, though not necessarily a good thing, would not have been a calamity. It would not have marked a decline in US prestige or credibility abroad. There would have been room for compromise - Dole, so far as I know, didn't have much use for Newt Gingrich. Had a Democrat defeated Dole in 2000, the incoming president wouldn't have to all but hit control-alt-delete on the federal government, and the mess left to clean up would have been manageable.
Dole, too, showed real decency and class at that moment.
Ah, those were the days - when our parties nominated statespeople who actually deserved to be in office, and Republicans didn't treat Democrats as though they were traitors from birth.
Profile Information
Member since: Wed Jul 24, 2013, 01:10 PMNumber of posts: 2,992
