Elsien's Traveblogue

Teacher's Rant

Teaching can be the most rewarding and the most depressing job.One of the things that makes my current job depressing is the fact that my Psychology students should be he brightest of the bunch, but are only just about average and this is probably flattering them.

This would still not matter, if they were enthusiastic, hardworking and motivated. This they are not, although they seem to think themselves that they are: they are always telling me that they really enjoy the subject. Some of them even want to go and study it in more depth, either at University or doing a Counselling qualification.

Their protestations are very unconvincing, as far as I am concerned: they miss lots of classes, arrive invariably late for classes that are not even starting that early: 11am on Tuesdays and 2pm on Wednesdays. Their assignments are never in on time, if at all, and they don't seem to do any reading up on notes or in their textbook either before or after classes. They do not bother to bring the textbook to classes, if they have a textbook at all. Get the picture? Yet, they unbelievably seem to think that they will pass their exams with a good grade??? They didn't pass any exams last year with a good grade – most of them have to resit all or most of last year's Psychology exams as they barely got a recordable grade for them.

The most depressing thing of all this is that I cannot even be brutaly honest about this: I'd probably lose my job if I told them they are an ill-motivated bunch of no-hopers. The best of the lot are OK compared to the worst of them, but in any class more representative of the total spectrum of students, would barely score above average.

This perception problem between what they think they are doing or can do and what I think they are doing seems to also exist in my tutor groups. According to what they produced last year in their GCSE's at Secondary School, they are only just about average. Again, this wouldn't matter if they started to work, revise, take notes, do homework, revision, preparation etc., but they are not. Moreover, they condemn any lecturer who states that their attendance, achievement, even punctuality is below average as mistaken, misguided: the lecturer must have confused me with someone else. Where does all this come from? Are we giving our children an abundance of cocky over-confidence or is this a case of over-compensation by the students for a lifetime of semi-failure?

posted by Elsien Gale  # 1:06 AM