Resisting...

I only have three more 101 essays to respond to--and I am internally kicking and throwing tantrums about it. I don't want to do that work. It isn't that it's such a grueling mental experience; it's more that it's in some way emotionally exhausting. I don't like having to find ways to encourage, console, gently guide. I'm good at it--at least most of the time. There are times when I get wildly impatient with specific students who seem to be fiercely resisting my attempts to be compassionate and kind, but I usually can find a way to convey what needs to be conveyed without just saying, "Christ, what a fucking mess. Fix it" and handing it back to the student, then booting the student out of my office. But it's increasingly draining to find ways to not just call a spade a fucking shovel.

In today's conferences, several students showed up without the homework, without the printout of the essay with my comments, without any preparation for the conference at all, which was annoying as hell. I've rescheduled with them--and have offered second appointments to a few students who seemed to want more, but I really don't want to do a whole lot of hand-holding. One of the best students--my last appointment today--said that she wants the hand-holding, not just from me but from all her professors. I know it's because they want to do well and are frightened as hell that they won't, or can't, but really: they have to stand on their own at some point, and now's the time.

On a different note, I met with the plagiarist from the online class. She started with a question that actually I couldn't answer: she asked if the second instance of plagiarism had been submitted before I sent her the email about the first one. She absolutely admitted that she had plagiarized and that it was stupid, but she was right: the second instance may have actually been virtually synchronous with the first. In any event, I gave her the benefit of the doubt--and we talked about how she can actually do some learning instead of going for the quick fix. I told her I'd be watching her work very intently from now on, and she gets it. (I also got a strange call from one of the administrators; I'd included the Dean of Students as a recipient of the email in which I said something to the student--so I had to explain that, no, I wouldn't be filing the formal paper work and no, there wasn't further action to be taken. Clearly the woman I spoke to had no interest in an involved conversation, which is completely understandable. "So I'll just ignore this," she said and signed off. Yep. Fair enough.)

I'm once again running behind on getting responses to the Nature in Lit students, and I'm getting behind on homework for the SF students. But tomorrow I really have to put most of my time and energy--around the department meeting (on how to handle an active shooter situation, about which I have very mixed feelings) and two student conferences before P&B. So, it will be an early morning--well, early for a Tuesday/Thursday.

And now I have to hustle off to get to physical therapy. Buh-byeee.