Metamorphasis

The random person who stumbles across my blog might think that I am a voracious and gregarious person – someone who loves to be the center of attention and will always speak her mind. But this is not the case. In fact, I hate speaking in front of people and I often choose the passive-aggressive route in lieu of direct confrontation. This is even more ironic when you learn that I am a college-level English instructor. But my passive-aggressive tendencies are starting to fade.

In my first few years of teaching, I was petrified of calling out a student. I don’t mean calling on a student, but addressing the problem behavior that inevitably arises in classrooms (especially those filled with college students who haven’t learned that they’re no longer in high school and led by a female in her mid-twenties). For example, in my third year of teaching, I had a student who received a grade that she felt was lower than she deserved. She must have been even more passive-aggressive than me because, instead of talking to me about the grade, she became increasingly hostile and adversarial in and outside of my class. She would make snide comments in our incredibly small class (we only had 10 students) and then began to outright defy me at every turn. She even went so far as to have her boyfriend patrol the building we were in. When I finally decided I could take no more, our confrontation was even more hostile. So hostile, in fact, that two of my students (who, by the way, loved me) refused to close the classroom door and stood guard to make sure I would be okay. You would think this would teach me a lesson, and it did… but not the right one.

What I learned was to fear giving low grades – to fear sharing with students in a more direct way that they were not passing my class. Instead of learning to nip problem behavior in the bud, I learned to keep it to myself. Now, in my defense, students in college are expected to take more responsibility for their work and in knowing where they stand; however, my students (as I’ve mentioned) don’t quite realize they’ve entered the brand new world of adulthood and they expect me to hold their hand much more than I’m willing to do.

But this semester, I’ve noticed a clear change in myself. I have not only begun giving more regular “status reports” to my students (and many of these were not what the students expected), but I have also lost much of the pity and fear I had previously harbored when giving such negative information. In fact, I currently sit in my classroom awaiting a student for his final conference. This student is doing well, but the previous one was not. I had to sit with him only two feet from me, look in his eyes and tell him he did not pass my class. Not only that, but I had to tell him that the growth he thought he made in the class and the effort he professed to exert was not near enough for college. In the past, I would have averted my eyes, apologized for the low score on his portfolio, or kowtowed to requests to turn in last minute work for that barely passing grade. But not this semester. Today, I looked him right in the eye and told him he could not pass my class. And you know what? The world didn’t end. He didn’t cry or even try to hit me. And as he walked out my door I realized that, without even trying, I have morphed into this confidently assertive teacher I never thought I’d be. Go figure.