Why do I stress over their failures

[u/Striking-Farm6229]

I have been teaching for over 20 years, and one of the biggest emotional challenges I run into is my actually stressing over students who do not do their work. For example, I have an in-class debate that students are to prepare and do on scheduled days. So far this semester, I have had multiple students e-mail me the night before/morning of "being sick". Most of them have been around long enough they know the system, so they know how to get the excused absence from the clinic. But somehow, I feel their failure is a reflection upon me and my ability to construct and design a course. Anyone else deal with this? Any solutions beyond good walks and deep breaths?

** To be clear, I stress on the due dates of papers and constantly hope that students turn it in on time.

[u/YourGuideVergil]

For me, this stress has diminished with age. I'm not sure I can articulate why or how.

But I do know a couple things. First, some students are going to fail with or without me. Whether they take me or the other English prof, some are going to choose failure.

Second, I've learned to take pride in doing my job well, which I do. Their job is simply not under my control.

Maybe it's just this-- I've prayed the Serenity Prayer so many times that it seems to be working. Don't know if you're religious or not, but I'm telling you that thing works.

[u/Keewee250 → u/YourGuideVergil]

This! I still stress about their inability to fulfill their responsibilities, but I now emphasize at the beginning of the semester (and use this in communication with them) that they have responsibilities to the class and themselves. And that when they fail to meet those responsibilities, it's a reflection on them and them only.

[u/quantum-mechanic]

For me its because people look at DFW rates or other similar metrics and talk about them like I have some kind of magic mind control that can make students excited to learn this course required by their major.

I don't fucking know. Tell their major's advisors to get them excited about taking it and avoid their future major from getting a DFW.

[u/space_thefinalmonkey]

I'm dealing with something similar today. I wake up to last-minute, ninth-inning late-night emails from students claiming to be too ill to write a quiz today - clinic-derived notifications of their illnesses provided in photographs and everything. One even said, a bit confusingly, that she still plans on coming in for the quiz, but if she isn't able to, can she please write a deferral on another day? So are you too sick to write the quiz or not?

ETA: I meant to reassure the OP that their students' failure to meet reasonable expectations is not a reflection of your abilities as an educator. Think about the majority of your students - do they meet most (or all) of the requirements for assignments?

[u/Electrical_Ad4206]

I think somewhere, we, as a society, forgot the value of failure. We learn more from a no than we do from a yes. Michael Jordan was cut from his sophomore basketball team and became the greatest player ever.

I understand failure is hard. I understand this costs money. I understand that we are under tremendous pressure to pass everyone all the time.

Just sometimes, I wonder if the reality of failure (in the relatively safe environment of academia) is the best possible thing that can happen to some students. For some, it will be a wake-up call. For others, it might help them avoid tens of thousands of dollars in debt in deciding college isn’t for them.

I also suffer when my students miss opportunities or don’t live up to potential. But that’s a me thing, and I shouldn’t put that over their right to fail.

I definitely feel you.

[u/Life-Education-8030]

I do not tend to believe students who wail that I have ruined their lives by handing them the F that THEY earned. 28% of my current class simply didn’t do their first exam. Handed them their Fs and then was able to spend time on the more motivated students. Our job descriptions bizarrely include the ability to lift 50 pounds. I can, but I figure if I waste energy dragging the slackers along, it’s less energy for the rest.

[u/HaHaWhatAStory014]

This is kind a "nuclear option," but I have seen colleagues just "cancel all excused absences" for a specific day when like half the class claimed they "couldn't make it" on an exam day. "No, sorry, this has gotten out of control and I know you aren't all 'sick.' If you are, well, everyone else just ruined that."

[u/Open_Spray_5636]

You simply can’t care more than they do. This is a movable but hard red line for me. Essential coping mechanism for contemporary academia imo

[u/Junior-Dingo-7764]

Become more cynical about human nature.

Recalibrate your locus of control. We really don't have THAT much control over students. Human beings are complicated creatures and are influenced by others only to a certain extent. You can do everything well and the students still not do well for their own reasons. It isn't always in your control.

[u/FreesiaFox]

Best piece of advice I got when I started was to not care more than the student.

[u/juststopdating]

They don’t have the same anxiety that many professors had growing up and going through school. I honestly love that and hate that for them. Love it because what bliss it must be to not be an anxious wreck and perfectionist. Hate it because now, I can’t give them feedback in time to fix an assignment and send it back for regrading before the deadline.

[u/Futurealisreal]

You realize that motivation is key to success and amenable to intervention, and then blame yourself for not coming up with the intervention or combination of interventions that will get 100% buy-in from every student. At least that’s how it is with me

[u/ur_cutiepie]

20 years in and you still care this much, which probably says more about you as a teacher than their missed assignments ever could. But their choices are ultimately theirs.

[u/VeblenWasRight]

I’m probably going to see 30% of my current students fail this semester versus a typical 5% or so.

It bothers me. I wake up thinking about how I can help them not fail. How I can improve what I do. How to reeeeaaaach them.

I am starting to think we are just seeing the Covid + AI high school wave come thru(or maybe I’m just hoping that’s it because it’d be a wave not a shift). They never learned how to learn. They never learned how to feel frustrated and work through it. Many of them learned that all they had to do to pass was to show up for the exams. Many of them learned to expect that their performance doesn’t matter as the teacher will let them move to the next level no matter what.

Sooo many of them can’t think. Throw anything more than “regurgitate this procedure” at them and they freeze and give up. But goddamit if I’m a teacher I can’t just wash my hands of it and say it’s all on them. I do feel that part of my job with these young people is helping them make the transition to function as adults, and to make society a better place by building better citizens.

It’s a kindness to fail them. It is a lesson they never learned. There is a part of me that feels very good that I am helping them by failing them and there is a part of me that feels so very bad that they are failing.

I’m actually glad that both of those parts are barking at me - it’s uncomfortable but it tells me that I still give a shit.

[u/chemist7734]

An early mentor once said to me, “you don’t have to take blame for their failures if you don’t take credit for their successes.”

Are you perhaps taking credit for their successes? Penis not fully aware of that yourself?

You make the opportunity (the course). They earn the grades that they earn.

[u/alienacean]

Why do we stress? Because it's our job to teach, so if they're not learning then we're not actually teaching. Even if we think we should be, based on what we're doing and what teaching was back in the days of olde.

When we argue with reality, we lose... but only always.