The Lower Frequencies

…can’t stand that I did now that it’s after the fact, but felt so righteous in my indignation at their behavior.

I had been talking about Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” for the fourth time today and the class, which tends to be talky anyway, just got on my last nerve. Several students didn’t have their texts, some of them who I’m unsure if they’ve actually bought the book yet, three weeks into class.  Some were having side conversations, which is irritating but something I don’t really snap at.  Then there was the student who had her head down and eyes closed but when I called her on it told me she was “still paying attention.”  The last straw came when another student tossed a mint toward the “still-paying-attention” student.  I lost it, a bit, and berated them all for their lack of attentiveness and all-around rudeness/disrespect.  Tossed the “still-paying-attention” student out to the hall telling her she was wasting my time.

Stopped the class for a while and sat at my desk to calm down.  Then went on with the lesson.

Sometimes I think, “what do I expect from 17 and 18 year olds?”, but then I think, hey, I was never rude to my teachers like some of these students.  I guess I should emphasize that it was only four or five who were getting on my nerves, and the rest of the class was fine, but still, when it’s a class of only 18 (and a college class at that), I’m a bit less understanding.

The other problem is that I let these things build up  and then blow up.  They’ve been talky all year long, but it never got to the point that I thought they were disrespectful until this past week.  We’ll see how they behave the rest of the week.  I’ve been told that when I lose my temper (which is rare), I’m quite intimidating.

This entry was posted on January 31, 2011 at 10:48 pm and is filed under teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.