I’ve been fortunate to have not encountered any truly toxic behavior in my classroom thus far, but I’m always alert to its potential of disrupting the classroom in a significant way. There’s certainly a taxonomy present if I’m thinking in these terms—what I would consider toxic would be outright abuse (which can take several forms, of course) from one student to another, or towards me. I’ve gotten a few passive-aggressive remarks and side comments from one student in particular, but this mostly stems from their persistent dislike of the grading contract. I think, as well, I have a tendency to seem lenient and relaxed in terms of assignment due dates, which then allows students to assume that I will not dock points if they don’t submit their work on time. Despite never outwardly stating a leniency towards late assignments, perhaps my lack of immediate authority on the topic can be considered “toxic” for the classroom environment. And by lack of immediate authority I mean that I will sometimes change a due date from midnight to class time the next day; an assumption seems to be created then that I will do so for every assignment, and when I don’t there’s a failure of expectation from a few students who readily assume they can turn in something late. And so, passive comments such as, Well I assumed you would extent the due date like you did for the last one, can be fairly detrimental to the classroom’s structure.

Most of my students began 101 with a real hesitance or (for a select few) aggravation towards the grading contract and unique style of the curriculum. Again, expectations are not being fulfilled on some level. Nearly all of these students have adapted quite nicely after the first two projects, and are even enjoying/feeling fulfilled from the work they’re doing. But for the one or two who maintain the negative mindset simply for the sake of guarding egos, this can quickly turn into a lethargy that spreads throughout the class during group activities. At the core of this mentality is a question of, What’s the point? To have to actively try to convince them (in a way that goes beyond initial explanations of the usefulness and purpose of the assignment at hand) is to delay the actual work itself, and therefore the time and effort of others. It’s something I hope to better manage come next quarter, but I know that personally if there is one out of 24 students who very passionately detaches from a classroom activity, I go out of my way to convince them otherwise. Which is itself maybe also “toxic.”