I don’t believe that the relationship between students and teachers is inherently negative, however the power dynamic between students and teachers cannot be denied. This power dynamic can lend itself to a somewhat adversarial relationship; students yielding to the demands of the teacher out of necessity can create natural feelings of contempt. In terms of […]
Imaginary Adversaries
I haven’t had many (or any?) adversarial interactions with students here or in other contexts (at least as far as I can tell) so it’s a little hard to define from the perspective of being the instructor. I guess a connotation of adversary is more or less competitor, so if I took that as a […]
Don’t Poke the Bear
The idea of being adversarial is a difficult one for me to parse. In thinking of Somnolent Samantha, I’m reminded of an earlier article I believe we read here where the instructor began thinking they knew what the students needed, then decided their students were all imbeciles, then decided some of them maybe are worthwhile, […]
Conflicting Productively in the Classroom
“Adversarial” is a loaded term that bears frequently negative connotations of combative and even hateful contact. However, adversaries can also be simply any individuals, groups, or ideas that meet in active conflict with each other—and conflict can be productive. Thinking of the adversarial in terms of conflict and specifically addressing that conflict in the classroom, […]
Please let me be your advocate…
I read this and was immediately rejecting of the idea of being an adversary, because I don’t want to be an adversary to my students… I also wouldn’t want to call myself their partner either. To me, I’d prefer to be their advocate. Somebody who has there back and will support them, but is more […]
Who Should Determine Course Curriculum?
When I ponder what it means for students and teachers to be adversarial, my mind immediately jumps to the topic of curriculum. Students and teachers can debate all day long over what topics, subjects, texts, etc, should and can be included in a course curriculum, but it is ultimately up to the professor to decide […]
Smogulous Smoke & Gluppity Glup: Toxic Behavior as a Classroom Pollutant
Thinking about toxicity within some sort of taxonomy seems to evoke a sort of parasite, or bacteria, or general pathogen that introduces a disease which then blooms outward from its singular point of entry or origin. More literally, this would be one instance of toxic behavior in a classroom that is sufficiently damaging so as […]
Self-doubt and cop-outs
It would take deep, intentional exploration to consider anything as “truly toxic” within my classroom. All in all, it is seemingly full of kindness, good intentions, respect. There have been individual incidents: a student asking another student how they would “rate” them, a student exclaiming that the class is stupid, a small group briefly talking […]
Reflections on Student Disengagement
When I think of toxic behavior, I think of behavior that is at best unhealthy and at worst abusive. In a classroom setting, this could look like comments that undermine the safety and dignity of people or of the classroom itself as a respectful learning environment. Fortunately, I have not had instances like this occur […]
What About the Toxic Teacher?
Today’s prompt is a little funny because as I read the first question, I was already thinking of dividing into two parts: toxic student behavior and toxic teacher behavior. Then I read the second question that prioritizes toxic student behavior with no mention of toxic teacher behavior and I had to laugh as I think […]
Environmental Toxins
So far, I can only think of this in theoretical terms, outside of one instance that I will highlight, as I haven’t gotten to fully see the types of toxic behaviors that current undergraduate college students bring to the classroom. I am very curious for my full session next quarter, and I imagine that some […]
Passive-Aggressive Stuff: Expectations & “What’s the Point?”s
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, […]
New Language for a New Pedagogy
I really appreciated the look at gender and queerness in relation to plagiarism, and the way that Moore Howard at the end gives the reader separate language in the form of fraud, insufficient citation, and excessive repetition. I had almost thought we weren’t going to receive those tools when she said “I hate cheating” thinking […]
The taste of a poison paradise
I think my ecosystem is fairly healthy at this point in the term. The only toxic problems are a couple of partnerships that have more or less needed marriage counseling. In the past, I have seen toxic classrooms that stem from a total lack of respect between students and their teacher. My first year teaching […]
from distracting to destructive: toxic classroom behaviors
There’s an important distinction to make between what toxic behaviors might arise in an English 101 classroom and what toxic behaviors have, in fact, come up in my class. In theory, one might find really alarming behaviors that would take taxonomic precedence: issues of immediate physical or emotional danger, such as violent behavior or language […]
By what metric?
I haven’t encountered much that I would term toxic to my class ecosystem. Let alone truly toxic. Theoretically, I would say that any violence in the classroom is toxic, destructive, unacceptable. If we’re making hierarchies, I would begin with physical violence. Any instance of fighting, assault, abuse, would seem immediately poisonous to my ecosystem, not […]
Shut Up and Listen to Each Other
My students speak over each other quite a bit in class. They have this idea that the only voice in class they should listen to is mine. During my warm-up question/discussion section, they will listen quietly while I speak, but I continually have to remind students to be quiet, and listen to their fellow student […]
My New “Best Friend”
During the first week of class, I was immediately aware of some behavioral issues that honestly made me dread teaching every day. Students would talk over me, question my presence in the classroom, and roll their eyes when I assigned free-writes or homework. The initial behavioral problems got better after conferences, and I was able […]
Toxic Behavior in the Classroom
During the first week of classes, I immediately noticed two students who managed to throw slight hiccups into the otherwise successful beginning we had as an English 101 group. When I proposed free writes or any sort of in-class discussion, they would roll their eyes and turn to the student next to them to try […]
work balance and feelings of earned work time
The most recent “toxic” behavior I’ve dealt with in my class has been students not paying attention to each other’s projects and trying to work on their classwork in class. When another pair of students is at the front of the room or I am at the front of the room and the pairs think […]
“Heterogeneously Linked, By Golly!”
To begin to address this important question regarding toxic student behavior, I had to generate a list then enumerate them from most to least damaging, holistically. Here is a glimpse of what is happening in my classroom that feels toxic, “enlarged for detail”— meaning there are really nice things that also happen, and my classroom […]
“Toxic” or rather, Annoying Behaviors in my Classroom
There are only two types of toxic behaviors that have disrupted my class’s ecosystem so far this quarter. For one, my students have a bad habit of doing their homework or other class work while I am talking. I begin each class with a general agenda powerpoint slide and run-down for the day’s activities. These […]
Literacy over Learned Rules
Dear Student C, Thank you so much for your vulnerability and for exhibiting such thoughtfulness throughout this essay. I am so impressed by your introduction of this new emotion, “gansable,” and think that you do an excellent job of fully realizing the birth, effects, and the eventual overcoming of this term. I think the […]
Project 2: Student A
Dear A— Thank you very much for your essay! It was a pleasure to read. We’ve talked throughout the quarter about the specific strengths found in your writing, such as your knack for writing a good introductory hook and your ability to transition between big ideas. Both of these strengths are very much present here. […]
Student A: Champion of the World!
Feedback Dear Student A, The following includes my feedback on your “Writing Emotions” assignment and also some more general thoughts about how we develop our writing practice and habits. As is always the case, please let me know if you would like me to clarify any of my thoughts. Your descriptions of feeling apprehenzled created […]
The Big C
This is based on Student C’s short essay: Hello C-Train, I really enjoyed reading your response to Rose’s article. You seem to be finding a way to maintain your unique voice when you’re writing. I especially enjoyed the way you reflected on the difficulties you have had adjusting to a second language. The line “I […]
Student B, Emotions
Hi, Student B, Thank you so much for sharing your writing with me. I really like the way you took a specific idea, gratention, and focused on it throughout your assignment. I thought you did a nice job introducing Mike Rose’s article, in a lot of ways this helped center me in the ideas that […]
A Response to Student B
Hi Student B, First and foremost, I really enjoyed reading your essay, and the term gratention is one that I think many individuals can relate to on a personal level. In grade school, there’s always a heavy emphasis on “pulling the reader in,” as if the first two sentences will determine whether or not the […]
A Possible Response
Student Writing Response: Student C, Project 1 Student C — Great work — thanks for the thoughtful response! I can tell that you put time and effort into understanding Rose’s work, and, as well, into thinking critically about how it relates to yourself as a writer. It is no small task to synthesize multiple pieces […]
Apprehenzled Instructor
Feedback: Dear Student A, Your second paragraph is pure gold. I love how you set yourself up in contrast to those writers who love their craft and appear to be effortless in their production. At the end of that paragraph you give a succinct definition of “apprehenzled” and the emotional state that it entails. With […]