Ever had a student so obviously hate you that it's distracting during lecture?
Generally, my students like me and tolerate my class. Every now and then, I encounter a student who doesn't mesh with me and my teaching style. I currently have a precious, little snowflake who doesn't like my class. He pouts. He glares. He clearly can't stand my very presence in the classroom.
What to do?
At first the evil looks gave me pause. Now I just smile sweetly and move through the lecture. Until it distracts someone else other than me, I'm not going to say anything. You can't reach every student, and there will always be ones who don't like you. All I can do is hope the snowflakes don't band together and create a classroom avalanche.
11 comments:
Ignoring students and their antics is a grossly underrated teaching skill. The goal of the hostility projector is precisely to get a reaction from you. *Any* reaction, no matter what it is, rewards and, thus, reinforces the behavior.
It is a pernicious and totally bogus idea that the apotheosis of teaching is some sort of passionate total engagement in the lives of students, like all of those nauseating glurgefest movies starring douchebags like Richard Dreyfus or Robin Williams as the teacher/professor who CHANGES THE MAGICAL YOUNG SNOWFLAKE'S LIFE!!1!1!111!!!ELEVANTY@!!11!! That shit is a fucking lie.
So I shouldn't wear my clown nose to class?
I get one of these too on occassion. Happens early in the semester so I know it has nothing to do with me. At present this is the snowflake's problem not yours. The problem becomes yours if his bad attitude spreads and bad attitude often spreads like a contagious disease. You could try talking to him in private to see if you can reach him or pursuade him to drop early in the semester so it doesn't show on your drop list.
He.
Maybe he is a future engineer who hates chemistry. If so, be sympathetic. But ...
He probably has no respect at all for women and cannot imagine that a woman actually knows your subject as well as you do. Big problem at my college, as I learned when I passed on a blog on that subject to some of my female colleagues.
Or he associates female teachers with K-12, and K-12 with teachers who did not have deep subject area knowledge, and was expecting to get a real (male) professor in college.
Or he is one of that ever-entertaining group of students, the pre-med major who hates biology and chemistry, the engineer who hates physics and math, etc. "Why do I have to take physics to be an engineer? I hate physics!" True story.
do not pull him aside, that gives him the attention he wants. completely totally ignore the butthead. i've had one each semester i taught, and they always sit directly in my line of view or up in the front scowling at me or making snide comments. you'll have to turn your body or focus on the people who are heads-up paying attention to you without scowling.
jc
Agree with CPP if you show no effect from snowflakes antics, he has failed to annoy you and thus further aggravating the little miscreant. And anyways screw them you'll only have them for one semester and then he'll wise up and take someone else. I had one of these asshats when I was teaching chem lab and I didn't give in to the little shit. They whined to the chair, laboratory director, even the damn dean too. When they acted up I would simply gaze at the little fucker and briefly acknowledge that they were about as important to me as a grain of sand. The finale came during the final when he complained that his girlfriend broke up with him and it affected his studying to which I announced loudly to the class, "You know who cares less about your problems than you. Everyone else." And then went to the vending machine to celebrate with a victory soda.
I think it depends on the type of hostility. Sometimes students have no idea the degree of hostility they are projecting, or sometimes they get MORE out of being hostile without being called on it. Calling the student on it by pulling him/her aside and being all "WTF? Do you have a problem with me?" could scare the shit out of the student. Which will get them to stop the behavior and/or drop.
I have had one of those every semester. During the last one, the kid thought he knew a lot more than I do about basic biology, because he claimed "he is smart". He eventually switched sections, as the way I ran the lab, was not how he wanted it! Oh well, good luck with your snowflake.
I teach High School, at least you don't have kids throwing hissy fits in your classroom over whether or not they were eating breakfast, or how they are a "genius" and all the work is "beneath them".
I have been teaching for many years and recently encountered the most defiant student of all. A grad student in my class told me in front of class "those who cannot do, teach". What do you do with a student like this?
By the sounds of it you all have only taught at the college level because if you have taught at the elementary, middle, or secondary level surely you would be better equipped to actually interact with students. All of you simply say "ignore the student." This troubles me greatly. Why not try a new approach-- address the problem head on! The problem is not some inanimate thing it is a living, breathing HUMAN BEING. Talk with the student after class and ask them what they think of the class. If they have some constructive feedback consider actually using it. When I was in undergrad and grad school I had a very difficult time with professors who did nothing but stand on their podium and lecture hour after hour. That is no way to teach and certainly no way to learn! Please, I beg of you consider getting some training in the art and science of teaching! Just because you are an expert in your field does NOT mean you are an effective teacher.
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