(Exit if you shrink easily. Building on the edge of Pottyliciousness).
That teacher who, for whatever reason, cannot imagine life beyond the end of their too often turned-up nose. You know who I mean. That teacher who ruined your whole junior year over some bullshit hardline meant to teach you a lesson about the real world and how it functions, likening their deadline to your light bill or rent. They bark down at you, "In the real world, your lights go out or you get evicted." Right. Right. (But this is a class and why do you need to threaten me?)
And you, a young Padawan, hold your intimidation close because you know the wrongness of it in your heart, but have yet to developed the skill to counter this Jedi because you are a Padawan, and have never paid a light bill or rent and believe the Jedi before you must be right.
Everyone negotiates deadlines (except that last one, God bless us all) and when real life whirls right into your teacher's deadline -- like when your mother and grandmother both end up in the Summit Hospital on July 7th and you the only one can check them in because your uncle Naphtali had to fly to Detroit July 6th to contest his departed daddy's estate and your sister, Tamaya, won't drive at night because she ten months pregnant -- and you can't call ahead of time because you can't figure out how to keep your mama from worrying about all of y'all while keeping your grandma from walking out Summit Hospital's revolving door into the dead July 7th night because she not sure what all the fuss is about. She wants to go home--
You need to ask for an extension on that term paper. So, you shoot a quick note:
"Prof.____ can I turn my paper in on Monday? I am having family challenges. I am sorry."
And the teacher shoots back. "No, I communicated clearly and repeatedly. You should have planned ahead. I am sorry."
You close the response and want to scream --BIIIIITTTTCCCHHHH! And inwardly you cry, "I can't win. What's the point?"
Your next action depends, of course, on who you are and how you've been socialized. If you're indefatigable, you'll kiss your Mama nightnight, keep checking on your grandma and ask the desk nurse at the hospital where you can use a computer. Try your damnedest to push out the best bullshit answer to the prompt as you can muster. Turn it in and take a C even though you know the shit like an A.
If you're like manymanymany a student, you will crumble beside your mother's hospital bed under the weight of too much responsibility, too much navigation, too much demand, too much rigidity, too much upon too much. And then what if you, I have spent my life with too much demand, too much responsibility, too much to navigate, too much to negotiate? What if I have no help? What if I am unable to speak all this outside of "family challenges"? What if the only space between overloaded me and a life secure enough to keep my family off the street is that teacher who says, "No, you should have planned ahead"?
Teachers can ignore, encourage or destroy student hope. Teachers too often destroy student hope. And for no reason other than to assert power. I recall an African-American history teacher I once had who popped a quiz on the one day I missed that semester. I had a medical emergency and walked up to her after class and asked if I could make up the quiz.
Her words spat at me from underneath a most ostentatious West African head wrap, "You'll need a doctor's note." I maintained my medical privacy and took a B in a class for which I honestly deserved an A because my teacher didn't care what had happened to me, didn't even ask; but demanded a doctor's note. My academic vulnerability lessened. Don't trust a teacher. All the shit they talk about freedom and revolution and racism and sexism and agency means nothing because they don't even see me! Am I not living the shit?
I received two poor grades after high school. Both came from white men. I saw them both in perspective when they happened and understood academic racism acutely, from that point forward.
The first, the most representative, was a class I never ever even attended. I registered for my philosophy requirement at an historically black college and after noticing a conflict with my work schedule, decided I needed to work instead of attending that class. Before long, (and I had completely forgotten) the deadline to drop the class approached and I ran to campus to pick up a drop slip (the last possible day, mind you) and when I searched for the instructor, he had left for the day. I left a note on his door. Then I returned the following business day, found him, and asked him to sign my drop slip. He signed a "WF", saying, "I don't know why you students do this to yourselves."
"It's up to you what you wish to give me," I said. He wouldn't change it. A WF registers as an F. For twenty years I tried to have that grade replaced. I even took the course the following semester and was told it would not be replaced because I hadn't received permission from the registrar ahead of time. That WF ruined my college GPA. And to this day, that HBCU has refused to change the grade: first, the instructor left the school. Second, the registrar passed. Now, had I not willed myself to imagine my future beyond that WF, imperfectly matriculating from one institution to another, I would have succumbed to the power that instructor exacted upon my education.
Some might argue that deadlines and rigidity function to inform and acclimate students to future expectation. I agree, but with one caveat: in a world so burdened by inequality, students, especially students managing the discomforts of inequality, should be understood as imperfect and growing and encouraged to learn at all costs. Repeatedly encouraged because so much discourages them.
My students used to pressure me to update their grades. "What's my grade? Who has the high score?"
I ask them to stop and say, "I don't care what you earn here. I'll agree to give you all As if you just learn what I ask you to learn. That's the purpose here. You want an A, I'll give you an A. Long as you can make this damn argument, I don't care."
I don't ever want to be that bitch-teacher-alternator-of-futures. When I witness teachers destroying destroying students, bullying, judging, condemning, in essence, discouraging in the name of honest preparation, I want to scream. Our students need chances and proof that somebody cares about their inner lives and their success--which may not look like the capitalistic, competition-driven paradigm which insists on "weeding out". All too often that weeding has been aimed at folks with skin, language, hair and value systems like mine.
I prefer to build.
 |
Who hasn't run into an impossible bitch (non-gendered bitch as in ridiculous, extra, punitive, petty, inconsequentially consequential) of a teacher? |
That teacher who, for whatever reason, cannot imagine life beyond the end of their too often turned-up nose. You know who I mean. That teacher who ruined your whole junior year over some bullshit hardline meant to teach you a lesson about the real world and how it functions, likening their deadline to your light bill or rent. They bark down at you, "In the real world, your lights go out or you get evicted." Right. Right. (But this is a class and why do you need to threaten me?)
And you, a young Padawan, hold your intimidation close because you know the wrongness of it in your heart, but have yet to developed the skill to counter this Jedi because you are a Padawan, and have never paid a light bill or rent and believe the Jedi before you must be right.
Everyone negotiates deadlines (except that last one, God bless us all) and when real life whirls right into your teacher's deadline -- like when your mother and grandmother both end up in the Summit Hospital on July 7th and you the only one can check them in because your uncle Naphtali had to fly to Detroit July 6th to contest his departed daddy's estate and your sister, Tamaya, won't drive at night because she ten months pregnant -- and you can't call ahead of time because you can't figure out how to keep your mama from worrying about all of y'all while keeping your grandma from walking out Summit Hospital's revolving door into the dead July 7th night because she not sure what all the fuss is about. She wants to go home--
You need to ask for an extension on that term paper. So, you shoot a quick note:
"Prof.____ can I turn my paper in on Monday? I am having family challenges. I am sorry."
And the teacher shoots back. "No, I communicated clearly and repeatedly. You should have planned ahead. I am sorry."
You close the response and want to scream --BIIIIITTTTCCCHHHH! And inwardly you cry, "I can't win. What's the point?"
Your next action depends, of course, on who you are and how you've been socialized. If you're indefatigable, you'll kiss your Mama nightnight, keep checking on your grandma and ask the desk nurse at the hospital where you can use a computer. Try your damnedest to push out the best bullshit answer to the prompt as you can muster. Turn it in and take a C even though you know the shit like an A.
If you're like manymanymany a student, you will crumble beside your mother's hospital bed under the weight of too much responsibility, too much navigation, too much demand, too much rigidity, too much upon too much. And then what if you, I have spent my life with too much demand, too much responsibility, too much to navigate, too much to negotiate? What if I have no help? What if I am unable to speak all this outside of "family challenges"? What if the only space between overloaded me and a life secure enough to keep my family off the street is that teacher who says, "No, you should have planned ahead"?
Teachers can ignore, encourage or destroy student hope. Teachers too often destroy student hope. And for no reason other than to assert power. I recall an African-American history teacher I once had who popped a quiz on the one day I missed that semester. I had a medical emergency and walked up to her after class and asked if I could make up the quiz.
Her words spat at me from underneath a most ostentatious West African head wrap, "You'll need a doctor's note." I maintained my medical privacy and took a B in a class for which I honestly deserved an A because my teacher didn't care what had happened to me, didn't even ask; but demanded a doctor's note. My academic vulnerability lessened. Don't trust a teacher. All the shit they talk about freedom and revolution and racism and sexism and agency means nothing because they don't even see me! Am I not living the shit?
I received two poor grades after high school. Both came from white men. I saw them both in perspective when they happened and understood academic racism acutely, from that point forward.
The first, the most representative, was a class I never ever even attended. I registered for my philosophy requirement at an historically black college and after noticing a conflict with my work schedule, decided I needed to work instead of attending that class. Before long, (and I had completely forgotten) the deadline to drop the class approached and I ran to campus to pick up a drop slip (the last possible day, mind you) and when I searched for the instructor, he had left for the day. I left a note on his door. Then I returned the following business day, found him, and asked him to sign my drop slip. He signed a "WF", saying, "I don't know why you students do this to yourselves."
"It's up to you what you wish to give me," I said. He wouldn't change it. A WF registers as an F. For twenty years I tried to have that grade replaced. I even took the course the following semester and was told it would not be replaced because I hadn't received permission from the registrar ahead of time. That WF ruined my college GPA. And to this day, that HBCU has refused to change the grade: first, the instructor left the school. Second, the registrar passed. Now, had I not willed myself to imagine my future beyond that WF, imperfectly matriculating from one institution to another, I would have succumbed to the power that instructor exacted upon my education.
Some might argue that deadlines and rigidity function to inform and acclimate students to future expectation. I agree, but with one caveat: in a world so burdened by inequality, students, especially students managing the discomforts of inequality, should be understood as imperfect and growing and encouraged to learn at all costs. Repeatedly encouraged because so much discourages them.
My students used to pressure me to update their grades. "What's my grade? Who has the high score?"
I ask them to stop and say, "I don't care what you earn here. I'll agree to give you all As if you just learn what I ask you to learn. That's the purpose here. You want an A, I'll give you an A. Long as you can make this damn argument, I don't care."
I don't ever want to be that bitch-teacher-alternator-of-futures. When I witness teachers destroying destroying students, bullying, judging, condemning, in essence, discouraging in the name of honest preparation, I want to scream. Our students need chances and proof that somebody cares about their inner lives and their success--which may not look like the capitalistic, competition-driven paradigm which insists on "weeding out". All too often that weeding has been aimed at folks with skin, language, hair and value systems like mine.
I prefer to build.
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