Thursday, November 10, 2011

Declaring Murder: Part II

So, remember last Thursday when I updated with lots of sappy e-mail quotes, and I said I had had a rough day? The roughness was this: a student was suspected of having violent tendencies towards me to the extent that my professor and the department wanted a security guard outside my classroom.

The storm has passed, and I am fine. It was really a "better safe than sorry" thing. This student of mine had been doing poorly all semester: absences, poor work, etc. and, well, his grade was showing it. I met with him one-on-one and sent him helpful e-mails, but, nope. He still insisted on blaming me for his bad grades. And, technically, I did give them to him.

Anyway, he dropped the class--destined to fail, and he was very mad. And he made his dislike of me very known. And, I could deal with that, but then two additional students made meetings with me to argue grades of a recent assignment. Both students failed and for good reason. They were livid, and they took it out on me. I got to sketch rehearsal completely fried and sad.

Chelle explained, "Oh, yeah. I've totally been completely mean to TAs, but really I'm just mad at myself for not doing well." I suspected as much, but it doesn't make the arguments less draining, my consistent politeness to everyone less tense.

I guess I just want to say is we should be honest with ourselves and others--even little toadstools like TAs--because we all have hearts.


Sidestreet in Heidelberg. 2011.

On a positive note? Today in class a student was casting kids to read his scene, and a guy raised his hand.

STUDENT: Okay. But you have to say the "s" word.
(Everyone laughs.)
ME: Thank you for the public service announcement.
STUDENT: Who else wants to read?
(Another GUY raises his hand.)
STUDENT: Okay. But you have to say the "n" word.
(No one laughs.)
STUDENT: Just kidding!

You and me we sweat and strain, bodies all achin' and wracked with pain.

EDIT: Chelle just read this and texted me, "For the record my TAs aren't as nice as you and they never can speak English."

No comments: