Unfortunately, no one told my students this. I just graded an exam that had so many tears fall on it that the pages were bumpy from all the dried liquid.
I've made students cry before, but never so much that they soaked the exam, blurring the ink.
Jeez... I wonder how the final will go?
18 comments:
I've only indirectly encountered crying from my students twice during my TAing experience.
Once someone was covering for me, and a girl showed up late and was scared she was going to get points off or something... we never quite understood why.
The other time was more legitimate, her backpack had gotten stolen, which had her laptop in it, with her lab report on it. However... I discovered this in a crying voicemail... on my cell phone. No, I do not give out this number...
Same girl actually.
Your day sounds like mine - no really, it does. I have a whole post today about crushing people's dreams.... Ahhhh... students.
What a coincidence. We had an undergrad assistant crying in the lab today, apparently over-stressed with classes and her work in the lab, etc. I REALLY wanted to scream, "There's no crying in science!!!!!" ala Tom Hanks in "In a League of Their Own," but I held my tongue and the crying quickly stopped.
@Anonymous: I'm definitely stealing that line next time it happens.
Anon, I tend to not acknowledge crying, although it's much harder when they are right in front of me.
DocE, I'm going to have to go check that out. I'm pretty sure my class is crushing at least 15 premeds' dreams. So fun. (not)
Will-- I'm not sure how I'd react if a student called my cell. I don't give it out at ALL, so that would probably really freak me out.
Bullshit. There is LOTS of crying in science. It happens in my lab on a monthly basis. We all gather in the far post-doc office, shut the door to block out the PIs, alternate who sits outside to stand watch to make sure none of the PIs approach the office, and then let whomever needs to cry about how much we hate whichever PI for whatever he has done to screw us over whichever way, and everyone else passes over tissues and offers up support and funny stories.
LOL @ EB.
Sorry, I guess I should have said that if you want to get shit done, and therefore get some hot science done and published, then there's no crying in science.
Otherwise, you can have your monthly cryfest if that's what it takes to get your work done. (I'm sure the PIs would agree if that's what you need to keep generating good data.)
Oh, I should clarify: crying in the safety of the lab, bathroom stall, or car is perfectly permissible. It's the crying during my exams which is NOT.
Anon - I absolutely disagree. Not only do we get mass quantities of smoking hot science done, but we are getting it published in top journals for what we do. We bust our asses day in and day out, and that's WHY we need our monthly cryfest. We have multiple people in long-distance marriages. We have parents with young children who leave before the children are awake and get home after the children are asleep and rarely see them. We have people who have not taken a single day off in over 9 months. And none of this is by our choice, but rather, what is expected of us. We sacrifice everything to generate all this data, and because of it, we're all miserable. But our data? Our data kicks ass. With crying on the side.
Perhaps the student came in to class emotionally distraught from something else but still had to take the test.
I'm with EB on this one. Heck, we all cry occasionally. It is cleansing and helps stimulate the brain cells. Or maybe that is just a side effect of the brain freeze (and subsequent thaw) from the mass quantities of ice cream we scarf down after.
Seriously, none of my students have cried (in front of me, at least). One almost fainted though.
Seems like stupid thing to complain about. Bottle up your emotions? Hide in a bathroom stall? You think that's, what, healthy? You've had too much of the kool-aid.
you are my f'ing hero :)
I'm all for crying in science when you need to. But a tear stained exam? That is ridiculous!
YoungFemaleScientist has a new post up, entitled "big girls don't cry." Go check it out; it will be interesting to see everyone's comments! http://youngfemalescientist.blogspot.com/2009/05/big-girls-dont-cry.html#comments
The first student who cried to me was upset about her grade on the midterm. She didn't think it was fair that she had not earned a good grade just because what she wrote was wrong. I explained to her what the right answer was. She burst into tears explained to me that what she wrote was not what she meant to write, and then told me what she had meant to write. I told her that I could only grade her on what she did write, not what she meant to write, but that in any case what she was telling me she meant to write was also wrong. And she still wasn't getting an A. I suggested that she come to office hours so we could make sure she knew the right answers and that she go to the writing center so that she could work on expressing herself better. She became hysterical and demanded a better grade; I told her that she could appeal the grade to the professor; she left. The other TA later told me that she went to him to try to get him to overrule my grade and that she didn't cry. Rather, she showed up in a very tight shirt, complimented him on his beautiful eyes and told him that the students in his section said he was a much better TA than I was. He didn't change the grade either. She never went to the professor.
The second student who cried to me had just gotten back from his mother's funeral and had come to my office hours to bring me the documentation of her death that the professor I worked for required. I felt horrible for him but didn't know what to say.
(There was a student later who was on the verge of tears but never actually cried. She told me she had to go home because her little sister's birth mother had abducted her and she had to be with her family. She wanted to know if I could give her a makeup midterm two days early because she didn't think she'd be back in time for the scheduled test. I didn't ask for documentation. I told her I'd give her a makeup when she got back. Even if it was a lie, it was at least a more creative lie than I usually got -- but I did tend to believe her.)
The third student who cried to me had come to my office hours in the semester after I'd taught him. He was telling me about people who were coming to hurt him -- had they come to me and asked questions about him? -- and asking me to confirm or deny troubling memories (like his attacking another student with a knife in the middle of a class I was teaching or threatening my life, which had never happened; trust me, I'd remember). We talked for awhile and I tried to be reassuring. I knew he was an intelligent person and I believed he was a good person. I suggested some places he could go for help, and I hope that he did.
The fourth student had landed in the hospital after an overdose of speed the night before the final. He called me from the emergency room shortly after the final ended, and he kept forgetting my name and the name of the class. He wanted to come take the final as soon as he was released from the hospital. I told him that I was giving him an incomplete and we would talk about a makeup final on a day when he was more coherent. He was very upset about my unfairness.
The fifth student was the last student to finish a final I was proctoring. The second-to-last student turned it in after 2 hours, and this student had stayed for the full 3. She told me that she was sure she'd do better on the final if I made it an open-book, open-note, take-home exam just for her and gave her a week to do it. (That probably wasn't true.) I told her I didn't care and maybe she should have come to class and/or done the homework.
Anglo-saxon imbeciles.
If somebody cries in front of you, you offer them some comfort, be it a hug, a hand on the shoulder, or an invitation to sit down for some coffee and a talk.
And you *obviously* talk to them and try to understand what's going on. If they've already exposed themselves so much by crying in front of you, they'll probably be quite thankful if you will listen to their problems and offer some suggestions, if only for a few minutes.
"Not acknowledge the crying"? "Inappropriate"? What the hell kind of human being are you? Crying among adults is rarely just a tantrum, but more usually a sign of serious personal problems --- not only will you *not* try to help at all, but begrudge the person for being distressed?
I don't know what's sadder: the fellow who suggested that "the student came in to class emotionally distraught from something else" as if that were a remotely non-obvious hypothesis to consider, or the fact that none of the others seemed to consider it.
unfortunately, it is true. I think never we can mix our things with love cause we couldn't understand, but I also say depends in what love means for you.
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