September 21, 2017

Summer turns its back. Autumn knocks at the door looking exactly like summer. The volunteer goldenrod are in misty gold bloom (the goldenrod I planted elsewhere having vanished long ago). I keep wanting to dig in the garden, but arrive home at the wrong time, or too tired.

Odd class day. There is one student (such students are always female in my experience) who has taken it upon herself a tone of imperious disrespect, like a judgmental older sister tired of my missing the mark all the time. If only you would do THIS we might learn something. . . if only you would explain the assignment in THIS way we might understand. A few days ago it was her literally shrieking at me, red-faced, at the end of class, “Grammar is subjective! Grammar is subjective!” I had told them that the grammar of a poem would reveal its meaning. Yesterday it was. . . I’m not sure what. . . the fact that we had a paper due on Monday, and that I had thought assigning the paper and giving the topic and putting it on the syllabus was enough. My program of underexplaining is quite deliberate, giving the student greatest leeway to exercise personal inspiration and individual slant, though I do therein admittedly neglect the student 1) too lazy to think for herself, 2) too frightened of doing it “wrong” to dare any personal commitment, 3) who has somewhere obtain a sense of entitlement whereby she comes away with a sense of grievance of things are not directed specifically to her expectations.  I also resent time spent in class talking about the conduct of the class. Just listen, and all will be well; I know from the testimony of generations that this is right. This student is unusually snotty about it all. After class Wednesday a crowd of my students followed me down the hall, and they did so to praise the class and my handling of it, to say it was their favorite, to say that they loved my lectures and were put off when missy redirected discussion to her anxieties, and what could be done about that? Two young women in the lobby said, “We can’t believe the disrespect she’s showing you.” I had interpreted the student’s attitude to grade-panic and perhaps mishandled humor; the class saw disrespect, and now I do too. We’ll see what onslaught comes today. I suggested that they could say things to her that I could not.