Sour Grapes

I'm looking forward to having a week where there is no huge melodrama in my life. It would be really nice to end the week feeling satisfied, complete, and fulfilled by sunshine, work, and self-care.

It will happen eventually, I'm sure. But it didn't come this week.

And sometimes I think that that is part of my lot in life--struggling and growing simultaneously. There is a growing sentiment in certain circles that happiness and contentment is the goal in life, and if you are not at peace you are not complete. I'm reading "Bright Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America," and although the title is, as I saw reported in one internet commentary, rather hyperbolic, it is an awesome book! Barbara Ehrenreich reports that all of this happiness and positive thinking BS is really just a philosophical thing, no more likely to benefit us in any way than being pessimistic or experiencing struggle in life.

Ah, now that's refreshing. On with the story...

This week I faced a very similar situation to what became my downfall while teaching at Harper College. Ironic that I am in exactly the same position as that job--teaching massage therapy to adults. The basic problem is that I get a lot of lip about administration being "supportive" of me, my teaching, and my actions, when they are in fact being anything but supportive. A very interesting quirk of vocational education, me thinks.

I'm currently teaching a 4-week Intro to Anatomy class/module. I have a very small class, 3 students, and one or two of them just hate me (which really means they hate themselves and are using me as an easy target). And they are whiny and irresponsible to boot--projecting their anxiety about anatomy onto me, blaming me for not teaching them in the way they think I should, but with no offer of insight into what that would be. Okay, so that's normal for adult learners, I suppose. However, the problem is that this is a for-profit vocational school, who (let's face it) only care about getting students enrolled, keeping them enrolled, and getting 'em through. The angry students, being insufficiently experienced in attending school responsibly, then bitch and moan to administration...who listens to them and treats them like a customer who is about to withhold their busine$$...and then I (the teacher) get the meeting, the discipline, and the blame.

That makes no sense.

After several weeks of complaints and meetings, the class got to the point of sitting, staring, not participating, and telling me that I wasn't teaching them the way I should, during "review day" for a test. It was the climax of tension in the class. I interrupted the ridiculousness to ask what THEY needed, then, if I wasn't providing it. All I got was attitude. They wanted me to give them answers to the study guide (test questions)...no, I won't do that. I'll explain it, answer questions, etc., but I won't hand out answers. They want me to explain things to them. Explain what? Tell me? What are you confused about? Rolling eyes and saying I should know, because I'm the teacher.

Okay, fine. Review for the last 45 minutes on your own. If there is something I can help you with, I'm happy to. But I'm not handing out answers. And I'm not going in circles with you.

I email my boss about what ensued. I pursue the school tutor to enlist help with learning styles and coaching.

Next day, I hear nothing from my boss. Two out of three students bomb the test. Big surprise. I finally chat with my boss, and she tells me I absolutely shouldn't have given up on them for the rest of the class, told them to study on their own. I should have, yadda yadda yadda.... She says they are soured on me, because when they first met me, during one of their practical tests, they said I was texting and not watching them. TEXTING?! I don't text. Who the hell am I texting? I am a 32 year-old professional with 3 jobs and no fucking social life here. I DO have a blackberry with calculator used for calculating points/grades, a calendar for keeping track of what I am doing, a notepad for taking notes, and email coming in constantly that causes a light to flicker which will cause my battery to drain if I don't turn it off. And, yes, I do take brief phone calls from my boyfriend before I clock in. But I am certainly not texting while I'm supposed to be teaching!!

However, I inform her (and I haven't said anything about this previously because it is unprofessional in a way) that their previous instructor was on the school laptop planning her vacation during review time, and spent a good 30 minutes talking about her co-sleeping habits and relationship with her boyfriend during class time. This was while I was sitting in on her class to "train." Okay, so I'm a bitch for reporting that about my colleague. But I refuse to be disciplined (even verbally) for what I did, knowing what I saw.

Anyway, the meeting is full of things like: You shouldn't have done that... Next time, do this... They are our customers... And my personal favorite, "Cindy, you don't have to make friends with them."

Why. Why do these administrators always think I'm trying to make friends with the students???? That is their answer to everything. It's insane. The students are hostile to me and totally resisting, and I'm making friends because I am trying to appeal to their humanity?? Bull shit.

Oh. And wait. Spattered in there are a few sentences about how they will support me. Um. HUH??? Is this why you asked me, so fervently, about my boundaries during my interview? Because you don't really know what boundaries are? You think boundaries mean that every teacher wants to "be friends" with their students, so if they're not a complete and total bitch then they're crossing boundaries, while the administration demonstrates the double standard of saying their supportive but blaming everything on the teacher?? Nice ethics.

I'm soured on teaching in this setting. I am rethinking my decision to do this type of work again instead of the brainless (but physical, alas) work of plain-old massage.

It saddens me that it has to be like this. It saddens me that the vocational education environment is so toxic and distorted. It saddens me that I am not being validated. It saddens me that some people confuse being a sensitive & responsive human being with being weak and ineffective. It saddens me that these folks don't realize that their environment is a vicious circle that perpetuates itself.

Ah, ambivalence.