It was the semester from hell. In my 20 years as an adjunct faculty member, I had taught in the Ivy League and at community colleges, in Brattleboro and Bangkok, in undergraduate and graduate schools. Never had I seen such extraordinarily bad behavior in my students.
It began the first night of the graduate class, spring semester 2010, when the students attacked the syllabus for being too demanding (although it was premised on previous syllabi for the same course at the same institution). The evening went steadily downhill. I'll spare you the gruesome details, but the next day I got a call from an administrator asking me to deal with the complaints that some students had registered about me and the course. The charges they'd made were ludicrous and easily explained, but I was stunned.
The situation seemed to improve somewhat after I invited students to write down anonymous feedback, positive or negative, about anything they wished to share with me. A student collected the notes in an envelope. We set up class norms, agreeing that we would listen respectfully and give culturally sensitive feedback. I also suggested that anyone who found the course too onerous should drop it. Enrollment fell significantly.
The bad behavior did not. Sometimes it was passive-aggressive, but much of it was just plain aggressive. It got so bad that a few students apologized to me on behalf of their colleagues. "I've never seen such disrespect for a teacher," they said. I could have hugged them for their kindness. Instead I thanked them, went home, and had a good cry.
Read the whole thing........
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