Dispirited but Not Despairing . . .

If I may be permitted to complain a bit: 1) a good student in one of my classes plagiarized an essay, and lied all wide-eyed, innocent, and fake-casual when given the opportunity to admit to it (in conference, I asked, "Were there any sources you consulted that you might not have cited?" Oh, no, of course not.) and 2) another whole class is slowly imploding. I ask them open-ended questions, like "What stood out to you from last night's reading?" and nobody responds. That could be okay--some classes just aren't too talkative in discussion. But then I assign them written work, and they literally sit there and don't work on it. I've tried just about everything I can think of: I give them freedom in what they write about. Or I provide them very specific tasks. I cold-call them. I invite them to check their grades, some of which are hovering at about 45%. I have encouraging conferences with them. But it all ends up back at the same place.

As an indicator of how it's going, here's an example: I've taught maybe 60+ courses, and it's pretty common that classes will respond lamely when I first say, "Good morning." But I have always been able to get them to respond when I cheerfully say, "Hey, you guys can do better than that . . ." or "Wake up, everybody! Good morning." Then they laugh and reply with more energy, and things get off on a better foot. But with this class, they literally refuse to return a friendly greeting even upon a second try. Argh.

The nice thing about it all, though, is that I'm learning to respond somewhat differently to their torpor than I might have in the past. I've been teaching now for 11 years and am in my fourth year as a professor. I had a "successful" intermediate review last year, which means that my department is satisfied with what I'm doing. Maybe for the first time, I don't feel like my students' performance in this situation is going to reflect on me except in ways that are relevant and justified. And I think in some larger psychological sense, my marriage to Sam gives me a level of personal security that means I don't feel quite as unmoored and vulnerable in the world.

So, tomorrow is another day. My students are handing in a big assignment, and it's almost midterm, so I'm going to ask them to write on two questions: 1) What would they like from me to improve their learning experience in the course? And 2) What can they each do themselves?

And if that doesn't work, well, the semester seems to be speeding by . . .