Dear Jack: I agree. But I'm not sure it's my role to figure out his
psychological issues. Unless a student seeks me out I don't feel it's
my place. I do call them in if they seem to be struggling to have a
talk about what the issue might be. But if they deliver comments such
as the course didn't effectively teach the concepts of change mgmt-
concepts he had no idea about since he is neither a practitioner nor a
student who took the time to listen and learn. He thought the course was
dumb, the readings were dumb, the exams were dumb and basically all
beneath him. He took quite a high-handed stance, blamed me for being
ineffective and therefore he couldn't learn, Arrogance yes- but all
subsumed by a sense of inferiority and frustration at not being able to
shine. He dominated his group, thought they were all losers, didn't let
them participate and they allowed him to take over- thereby reinforcing
his thought that they were incompetent.
So, some of this is often too complex for me to deal with. It's hard
enough dealing with all the stresses students bring to you without it
draining you and causing you to become off balance. So, I just make
myself available and don't apologize for the course or the pedagogy. I
was taught as a student that it was my job to get what I could out of a
course- sometimes despite the professor. Life is like that- there are
poor speakers and presenters. If we tune out to send ourselves a message
of how bad they are- how much better we would be- then we miss the value
they bring. We just have to work harder to get past our own blocks.
Not easy being up there every week trying to motivate students who are
often distracted, disinterested or not happy. Sometimes I feel like a
performer- which I am. I find teaching rewarding but I know at the end
of my teaching day, I'm pretty drained. Lots of effort to be up there
for 6 hours being interesting to many who aren't.
Deborah Nixon
University of Toronto
704 Windermere Ave
Toronto Ont M6S 3M1
Ph: 416-763-6985
Fax: 416-763-3361
-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Jack Ring
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 8:40 AM
To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Toad therapy
On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:30:59 -0500,. deborah nixon
<
deborahnixon@sympatico.ca> wrote Re: Treating toadies
>
> [...] I think he felt that ---
[JRing replies] But did you verify? Or at the time he became angry did
you seize the opportunity to help him examine his motivation? I readily
agree that a lot of suck-up behavior exists and is all too often
rewarded by those who already learned how to get ahead by letting others
do the work. I readily agree that those practicing suck-up behavior
need to be shown longer term consequences and ways of Knowing and Doing
rather than just Being. The question I raised was not about the
prevalence nor propriety of such behavior but about the professor's
behavior ---- Why don't professors (not All professors) who roll their
eyes and otherwise diminish the student find more effective ways of
dealing with the behavior? I gather from the following paragraph that
you are not an eye roller thus you may be more ready to deal with my
question than are those professors who are too fearful to deal with such
students.
>
[deborah continues] > I usually don't do much in the way of responding
to these students- I
> accord them as much attention as anyone else. And I often ask them if
> we could get views from other students in the class- so that they
> can't dominate. The feedback I've seen on my assessments and those
> anonymous rate your profs websites is always good- and they never fail
> to say that I'm fair. Tough but fair. I take that as one of the
> important things I aspire too. If students think you're fair, then
> they all know they have an equal chance of getting a good grade. And
> that they also usually acknowledge that poor performance is usually do
> to a lack of effort on their part. I'm always available so they know
> they can come for help- and if they choose not to and do poorly- they
> know where to look for responsibility.
>
[deborah says] > Jack asks what is the fear that causes suck- up
behaviour? Obviously a
> fear of failure-
[JRing replies] Not so obviously it might be fear of being
insignificant, irrelevant or even unlovable. Those who try to get by on
Being are usually very concerned about their perception of Being.
Regardless, eye rolling is not good therapy for any of these possible
fears. .