Loving the Liars
A close friend of mine just confronted a student about a plagiarism case, and he met her with tears, and a more affecting story than usual. While she did not regret her actions on the matter, she felt bad about that moment of triumph she felt, that twinge of glee at catching a dishonest student, which made the tears she witnessed later all the harder to contend with.
This is a place I've been a lot, and I've come to a point where I think that I just have to understand that I can't have it both ways: that I can't be passionate about my teaching, and yet emotionally impervious to those moments when my passion and my values are trod upon.
I remember one semester in particular; it was the first time I was teaching Intro to Drama. It was a totally stressful semester, but I had so much invested in it--I thought this would be the course that I would be teaching for time immemorial, and I wanted to get it right. But I was mentoring in Freshman Writing that semester, and working a second job, and it strikes me that I had just had a long semester.
I had this bunch of guys in the back of the class who were driving me crazy--lots of energy, but often not focused on the class. They could be my best allies or my worst enemies in the classroom. By the end of the semester though, I felt like I had gotten two of them in particular really psyched about the class.
One of their last papers was a review of a live play, and one of these guys had shelled out the cash to see Romeo and Juliet at the Shakespeare Theatre at the Lansburgh in DC. I got the paper, and it was gorgeous. So gorgeous it could have been written for the Post, so gorgeous that it had been written for the Post. By Trey Graham, one of that venerable paper's prominent reviewers.
This kid would've gotten a B in the class even had he failed this paper, and instead he got an XF. When I figured it out I was so angry--furious--that all afternoon long I was literally seeing red around the edges of my vision, my face was flushed, I couldn't sleep that night.
When I confronted him, long after I had gotten my emotional response in check, he wept like a child. He didn't even have the pathos-inducing story that my friend's student had, and still, I thought, "Man, is seeing him cry making up for the anger I felt? That would make me a horrible person." But I just couldn't figure out why it had made me just so mad--it had completely ruined my day. It ruined his, too, but HE did something to deserve it.
You know, we are often reminded by our students how much power we have over them, but we really do give so much back to them--we lay our hearts in their little fingers every time we assign a paper, and have them broken dozens of tiny ways, and mended in another dozen.
For God's sake, we didn't go into this for the money. We went into it because we love it--we love the material, and at our best we love them--maybe not individually, but collectively. And sometimes, just like all the people we love do, they betray us, in little ways and big ways.
My point is, the moment I stop feeling just a little betrayed by my students is a scary one for me. Maybe that's not a bad thing for many people, but for me, and I suspect for others, too, it's a moment I dread, because then it might become just a job, and I never wanted just a job.
In the hypercritical field we're in, it's really very hard to talk about something so unrigorous as love--for the books we read; for the time we spend in front of the classroom; for the stupid little crushes we get on students with bright ideas, and with potential; for the silly idealism of it all. It's important for me to remember, right now especially, as papers pile up, as cribbed papers slide across my desk, as identical wrong answers appear on consecutive quizzes. And I want to tell my students, yes, dammit, it makes me mad. It makes me mad be unrequited love always makes us mad.
Comments
It's not always unrequited. Do remember that. It would be nice if there was a way to convey the truth of what you've said here to the students themselves, who seem to always see the teaher's/professor's wrath over their dishonesty, laziness, disrespect, etc. as nasty and a sign of how LITTLE the teacher cares about them.
Posted by: Ann Claycomb | December 1, 2005 10:36 AM
These posts, original and follow ups, seem a little short on professionalism. I guess we need to add a workshop for our new faculty on the relevance of "wrath", "betrayal", making faculty "mad" and what students "deserve".
Essentially, the workshop would say this is all irrelevant. We are educators, not parents. We have classes, not families. We are paid to educate, not sit and decide what students "deserve". Maybe you never "just wanted a job", but the students who are in your classes and the university that hired you did not have that in their contract. You do not get to add you morality and emotional responses to the job.
Now, that said, there is a path to excellence for both students and faculty. In neither case does it involve treating plagiarism as acceptable. Plagiarism degrades the quality of the education that the student is getting as well as the education that all off the other students are getting. Integrity, especially our own integrity, is a factor that adds quality to any aspect of education.
So, the bottom line is a response to plagiarism or other form of cheating that leaves the emotions of the faculty member at the door an replaces it with an assessment and action that first does the most good that you can possibly do for the offending student while not compromising your contract with all of you other students. Do all this and leave your moralistic judgments and personal emotions out of it.
Posted by: Michael Lee | December 5, 2005 1:27 PM
The nasty little professionalism potshot aside, you raise some relevant points, Michael.
Many of us in the profession, and many cultural images of educators outside it place a premium not only on excellent teaching, but on passionate teaching. Indeed, many (fallaciously, to a certain degree) conflate passionate teaching with excellent teaching. My passion for the work improves my ability to do my job. Perhaps for you it doesn't.
That said, you aren't even recognizing the degree to which your own values are at stake in this post. The anger with which you make your points is no less an emotional response than mine is.
But I am not advocating that I show my anger to my students, merely that I allow myself to feel that anger. If that's too touchy feely for you, fine. I hear emotions bottle well.
Posted by: RMC | December 5, 2005 2:51 PM
Were the tears fake too?
Posted by: Academic Coach | December 6, 2005 9:46 AM
Great post. As one who has been teaching community college for a dozen years (with quite high student and peer evaluations), I know I wouldn't be half the teacher I am without the emotion I bring to my work. Michael, your theory of sound pedagogy is, to my mind, soulless and deadening.
Posted by: Hugo | December 6, 2005 10:30 AM
Sometimes acting soulless and deadened is a big help when you have to do the hard work of documenting plagiarism cases. I know what a soft, gooey middle I have (I am such a sucker for a sob story!), so I make my plagiarism conferences into a bureaucratic affair: "Here is this form that you have to tick off and sign. Your tears do nothing because you have, though your own actions, entered the pitiless realm of the College Catalog's policies and procedures. In fact, you backed me into a corner with what you did because I don't have a lot of choices here. Yeah, I'm sorry too, but this is how it is. I do hope you have learned your lesson. Yes, you can appeal, but not through me. Here, instead, are your options if you disagree."
As horrible as it may sound, I don't feel bad about the kind of chilly professionalism that I sometimes bring to plagiarism meetings, (I'm still kind about the matter, and never angry) and I think the students sometimes appreciate that because it makes the violation so much less personal. They realize what they did is not ambiguous or grey or sometimes okay, and they also realize that I'm not out to get them when I catch them, document their cases, call them into meetings and confront them with my evidence.
Meanwhile, I twist inside because I'm churning with 2 parts righteous indignation, 1 part in-your-face-victory-dance-because-yeah-I-caught-you!!, 2 parts knowing the depth of the desperation and hopelessness that made you do this, and 4 parts sadness because now you've screwed yourself for a good little while, and a teeny tiny bit of yes!-one-less-paper-to-grade! Shake and pour into a meeting, and we get too many emotions and not enough clarity. Better to leave that stuff at home.
Posted by: Excant | December 10, 2005 11:13 AM