Siobhan Curious's Open Salon Blog

now you've made me mad

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:11:55 -0500

What do you mean, "Why am I failing English?"

You've failed EVERY SINGLE ASSIGNMENT since the beginning of the course. You handed in your first essay 2 weeks late, and you wouldn't have handed it in at all if I hadn't asked you where the hell it was. You got 37% on your last practice essay, but you didn't ask me a SINGLE QUESTION about why, or even look at the detailed feedback sheet I filled out for you, and then you went ahead and wrote the real essay, and got a 40% on that.

What do you mean, what can you do to catch up? There are TWO WEEKS left in the semester. You've been failing English since the fourth or fifth week - why are you coming to see me about this now? Your grades have been posted up this whole time. The fact that you're failing English is NOT NEWS.

Yes, I'm sure your other courses HAVE been very difficult. If you've chosen to prioritize your other courses, then that is a perfectly legitimate choice. We all make such choices. Most of us also recognize that if we don't prioritize something, we're not likely to do very well in it.

Why am I angry with you? I'm angry with you because you've had 13 weeks to deal with this problem, and yet you march into my office when the semester is, for all intents and purposes, OVER, and you suggest that a) the fact that you're failing English is a total surprise to you, and I am somehow responsible for the fact that you are surprised, and b) I should now be doing something to help you deal with this problem. THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE NOW, and certainly nothing that I can do. The time for dealing with this problem has PASSED.

What's that? Why don't I care about your success?

I do care about your success. I care about it very much. I've been sitting here in my office, and standing in your classroom, caring about it, all semester.

You've been so busy not doing your work, you haven't noticed.

Photo by Dominic Morel

Yannick's debts

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:11:02 -0500

When Yannick walked into my office on Thursday, his first words were, "Miss, do you remember me?"

I did. He's in my Travel Literature class, but I hadn't seen him in almost 2 months. He hadn't written any of his required blog posts. He'd showed up to do his (half-assed) oral presentation, but had never submitted his bibliography. The major essays had been due the day before, and I'd heard nothing from him. I'd assumed he was gone for good, but that is often a foolish assumption.

"I've been away from school for a while," he said. "I've been having some problems."

I gestured for him to sit down, and he explained. He'd visited Academic Advising that morning. He'd told them what was going on, and why he'd missed so much school, but they'd told him that there was no official remedy for his situation, because his difficulties were not medical. His only hope was to speak with his teachers, see what he could do to complete his semester, and try to pass four of his courses, because he's on academic probation and if he fails this term, he's out for good.

"I've seen my other five teachers," he said. "Two of them say there's no way. The other three told me what I need to do if I want to pass. So that just leaves this course."

Yannick is a handsome and confident young man. He reminds me a little of another handsome and confident young man I taught a few years ago, one who spoke with the assurance that of course you were going to do whatever he asked of you. And people did, especially girls, who allowed him to cheat off their tests and, I heard, signed his name to attendance sheets in courses he skipped. (He eventually failed my course for blatant, unrepentant plagiarism.) Yannick's air is a bit less presumptuous, slightly deferential but not obsequious. It's an effective air, but I've seen it before, and am mostly invulnerable to it now.

I outlined what the possibilities were. He wasn't going to pass his blog project, but there was still time to make up some missed posts and get something more than 0%. His major paper was going to be late, but I accept papers up to a week after the deadline, albeit with a 5%-per-day late penalty. His Mock Exit Exam would be the following week, and he needed to show up and do his best with that. His in-class assignments grade was in the toilet, and that was not reparable. "It's not impossible, Yannick," I said, "but frankly, I'm not optimistic about your chances."

"But, you see, miss...do you want to know my situation?"

I gave a shrug that I hoped was nonchalant without being insulting. "You're welcome to tell me about it if you like."

And then he proceeded to tell me about his father's business. The details of it were confusing, but the upshot seemed to be that his father had dug himself into a hole by importing cars, selling them at auction, but then getting behind on his payments and sales and accumulating debt. The auction had finally seized their cars and, after some negotiation, agreed to accept a payment of $50,000 to cover the remainder, money the family didn't have. Yannick had been working 12 hours a day at the shop trying to help out, but now creditors had been calling and coming to the door, so they weren't spending much time at home. The family and the business were crumbling.

"O.K.," I said. "I understand that this is a difficult situation. But you've been missing from my course for 7 WEEKS, Yannick. There are 3 WEEKS left in the semester. There's no reason you couldn't have called your teachers a month ago and let them know that you were having problems. I have plenty of other students who have problems at home, and they've either tried to manage these problems differently than you have, or they've accepted the consequences. It's not impossible for you to get through, but I think, given the work you've done already, that it's highly, highly unlikely, especially if you have three other courses you need to try to pass at the same time. If you're on academic probation, then you KNOW what happens when you don't come to class and you don't do the work."

"Well, the academic probation, that was all me. I just didn't take things seriously. But this, Miss, I'm not bullshitting you. I can bring you proof if you want."

"It wouldn't matter. Unless you've had a medical crisis, there's nothing the documentation can be used for. You just need to do what you can with what you have left, and hope for the best. But there are absolutely no guarantees, and I have to be honest with you, Yannick - I don't think you're going to pass."

"The thing is, Miss, you have to understand. If I fail out this semester, they're going to kick me out for a year. I don't want to spend a year doing nothing."

I stared at him for a moment. Then I said, "Of course I understand that this is difficult, but we have to be realistic here. I'm not going to GIVE you the grades. You have to earn them by demonstrating what you've learned, and you haven't been in class to learn anything. So we'll see how it goes."

Then we went over the guidelines for the remaining assignments, and he shook my hand, thanked me, and left.

When he was gone, I put my head in my hands. For a moment I was angry, although that calmed pretty quickly. Then I was just sad. Really, really sad.

This 18-year-old man was once a little boy. He watched his father deal either underhandedly or extremely unwisely with his business. Yannick watched his father make bad choices, and then try to weasel out of the consequences by accumulating debt and, eventually, staying away from his home and refusing to answer the phone. And now Yannick, not just for one semester but for two, has made his own choices, and has ignored the consequences until it was no longer possible to ignore them, and has reached the point of trying to make those consequences go away by pleading with others to fix the problem.

How could I be angry about this? Where would this boy have learned any other way of dealing with the world?

And then I thought about his father, and what kind of a father or mother he might have had. And then I thought about all the bad lessons I might have taught my children, if I'd decided to have any.

The trouble with trying to be compassionate is that it doesn't mean you can be easy on people. On the contrary, I think - although I'm not sure - that the most compassionate thing I can do for Yannick will be to make him face the consequences of his choices, and recognize that they WERE choices. I have no desire to punish him. I certainly don't think I should assume I know what's best for him, or what will make his life better or easier.

But if there is one thing teaching has brought me to believe with all my heart, it's that we all - students, teachers, parents, children, politicians, criminals, cats and dogs - need to learn the principal of cause and effect. If you spend more than you earn, you will go into debt. If you don't go to class, you will fail your courses. And if your family business is going to hell in a handbasket and you can't go to school because you're working 12 hours a day at the shop, then maybe a year away from school is exactly what you need. Not that that's any of my business.

I don't know. Am I crazy here? It isn't my job to un-teach the lessons he's learned his whole life - it's my job to teach him how to read and write about literature, and evaluate whether he's learned THOSE lessons. He'll pass or fail on the basis of that and nothing else. But earlier in my career, I might have been tempted to make allowances and exceptions. Now, I don't think that any more allowances or exceptions will do him any favours.

Image by Ashley Voortman

choose gratitude

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:11:57 -0500

Today might seem like a bad day. But it isn't.

1. I'm getting a cold. However, it shows no signs of being the swine flu. What's more, I have a warm bed to curl up in later tonight. I'll be going to work today, but if I feel really sick tomorrow, I can stay home. Having a cold is not so bad when you have these things.

2. I'm very busy right now - the semester is ending, I'm behind on my marking, there don't seem to be enough hours in the day. I'm busy because a) I have a job and b) in three weeks time, my classes will be over and won't begin again for six weeks. It would be ridiculous to complain about these things.

3. One of my classes is irritating. One of the students, Ahmad, is particularly unpleasant and difficult. This is causing me some anxiety. However, Ahmad's unpleasantness highlights two things: a) my other two classes are not difficult; in fact, they're delightful, and b) Ahmad reminds me of difficult students I've had in the past, when I had no idea how to cope with them and their difficulties. I can't do anything about the fact that Ahmad is a difficult person, but I can manage his behavior much better now than I could have a few years ago. This is, in part, because of the difficult students I've met in the past. My dealings with Ahmad may make me better equipped to handle future difficulties. As much as I wanted those past students to disappear, I'm grateful to them now, and I will be grateful to Ahmad one day, too.

So the truth is, today's a pretty good day.

(I've just now realized that Adriana may have planted the seed for this one. More gratitude!)

arrows into blossoms

Mon, 2 Nov 2009 09:11:32 -0500

I've just finished reading Pema Chodron's Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears. If you're not familiar with Chodron, she is perhaps the world's most famous Tibetan Buddhist American nun, and her works are meant to help Westerners understand the basic precepts of Tibetan Buddhism and apply them usefully in their own lives. I found Taking the Leap, like all her books, inspiring, reassuring, and helpful.

At one point, almost obliquely, she describes a famous Buddhist image that I hadn't heard of before. Before mentioning the image specifically, she brings up a part of the story of the Buddha that many people are familiar with. Most of us know that when the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree (where he eventually attained enlightenment), Mara, "the evil one," came along and tempted him with beautiful women, delicious food, insults, and all other sorts of distracting objects. In discussing this part of the Buddha's story, Chodron says

In traditional versions of the story, it's said that no matter what appeared, whether it was demons or soldiers with weapons or alluring women, he had no reaction to it at all. I've always thought, however, that perhaps the Buddha did experience emotions during that long night, but recognized them as simply dynamic energy moving through. The feelings and sensations came up and passed away, came up and passed away. They didn't set off a chain reaction.

This state of being - the ability to experience emotion without being "hooked" by it, without being dragged into a whole self-feeding narrative of, say, anger, self-righteousness, and more anger - is the subject of Taking the Leap and some of Chodron's other works. It's also a state of mind that I am profoundly interested in, and one that I'd be willing to spend the rest of my life working toward.

For example, I've been seething because the students in my most difficult class absolutely refused to cooperate with an activity I asked them to do last week, an activity that is essential in preparing them to do their next assignment. They talked when I asked them to work alone and quietly. They insisted that they "had to leave class now" and that they should be allowed to finish the assignment at home, even though I had clearly explained that this activity was practice for an essay they would have to write entirely in class. They refused to press themselves beyond the simple declaration that "I don't understand this story."

I couldn't seem to calm my irritated feelings about this, my sense that their stubborn resistance was a personal attack. There is, of course, room to explore whether the assignment I gave them was too difficult, whether they haven't had adequate preparation, whether I am expecting something they can't deliver. But the deeper problem is that I was angry with them, and couldn't seem to shake it.

It is possible to see any difficult situation in our lives as an attack from Mara. We are under threat, and we can react angrily or with panic or self-loathing. But there is another possible approach. We can see the attack as food for our growth, as an opportunity for us to develop loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. Difficulties are fertile soil for training our minds, and can therefore be greeted with eagerness and gratitide.

A situation like mine, for example, is an opportunity to develop compassion. The day after this frustrating lesson, my Philosophy of Education teacher returned an assignment to me, and I didn't do as well on it as I always expect to do on my coursework. In reading through his comments, it became clear to me that I simply hadn't understood the criteria he was evaluating me on, and didn't understand the process of philosophical inquiry he wanted me to go through - in fact, I realized that I didn't have a clear idea of what a "philosophical approach" entailed, and so had no way of engaging in it. At first, I was furious and defensive.

And then I remembered my class from the previous day. This is exactly what they were feeling, I realized. They were feeling it for a number of different reasons, and the fact that they don't understand is due to a number of factors that they could have controlled - by showing up to class more often, for example - but the feeling is the same. I get it. And understanding where they're coming from, and why, can relieve some of my feelings of helplessness and irritation.

After Chodron retells the above snippet of the story of the Buddha, she mentions the image I've taken all this time to get to. She says

This process is often depicted in paintings as weapons transforming into flowers – warriors shooting thousands of flaming arrows at the Buddha as he sits under the bodhi tree but the arrows becoming blossoms.

Immediately after reading these lines, I put the book down and ran to Google Images to find a depiction of this moment. At first, I was less than satisfied with the images I found; none of them captured the beautiful scene in my imagination, the blazing arrows morphing into a shower of soft flowers and cascading around the Buddha like snow. If I could even hold a pencil steady I would try to draw or paint it myself, but that isn't possible. Finally, though, I found this image, by the artist Austin Kleon:

He describes the process of creating this image, a tattoo for a friend, here. If I someday decide to get a tattoo, I may ask permission to use this. In the meantime, I may have to post it on the cover of my course binder, to remind myself that every challenge can be transformed into flowers if I can only see it, not as a battle to be fought, but as an opportunity for growth and for deeper understanding of the human mind and the human condition.

This doesn't mean I can make my students do what I want. But maybe it means I can suffer less as I try to help them.

trusting our intentions

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:10:31 -0400

I haven't had much time recently for blogging, or thinking about blogging, but I came across a quote this evening that sums up where my head is at these days, in the classroom and in the world.

Remember that you don't have to like or admire someone to feel compassion for that person. All you have to do is to wish for that person to be happy. The more you can develop this attitude toward people you KNOW have misbehaved, the more you'll be able to trust your intentions in any situation. -Thanissaro Bhikku

Image by Eastop