Sometimes, nature has a way of teaching us as we work to educate others. Last Wednesday, nature handed me two very different student experiences and my reactions are teaching me a lot about myself. Let me explain.
I woke up Wednesday with nervous excitement because my first doctoral student was going to defend his dissertation later in the day. I’ve been working with this student for almost four years and I’ve seen his dissertation grow and evolve through our interaction. I’ve read countless drafts and provided tons of feedback to help him focus and improve his work. It’s been a time consuming and exhausting process. But it’s also been tremendously rewarding. For those readers who may work outside of an institution of higher education, I would imagine that this is a little like training someone to run a marathon and today was the day of the race. I just needed to stand near the finish line and cheer him on. But, nature had other plans for me first.
As I checked my email that morning, I was confronted by an issue involving another student. Without getting into much detail here, as often happens, an issue had occurred that had ballooned in such a way to involve a few other colleagues. My colleagues and I began emailing and texting each other and trying to figure out our next steps. The afternoon culminated with an impromptu student meeting where I found myself using one of my favorite pieces of advice:
“One ‘Oh, crap!’ can out do the work of a thousand ‘Attaboys!'”
Although I tried to frame my discussion with this student in a positive and supportive manner, he had messed up and I needed to communicate my disappointment and outline a clear path forward for him. After the meeting, I sat in my office and navigated emotions of disappointment, distrust and anger. Despite the fact that the student issue had occurred without my knowledge, I couldn’t help but focus on what I could have done differently. I read (and reread) emails, replayed conversations and reflected on a slew of different interactions. This single student issue totally consumed my energy for the rest of the day.
And that’s the real challenge here. Later in the day, when I attended my doctoral student’s defense, I sadly found myself trying to focus on his presentation. In the back of my head, I kept revisiting the situation with my other student. What should have been a moment of celebration had morphed into a moment of obsessive self-reflection.
As I thought about what I would blog about this week, I came back to these “student bookends.” As teachers, we’re going to be confronted with moments of great joy and times of great stress. In a way, it’s like that Dickens’ quote from A Tale of Two Cities, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The challenge is not letting those “Oh, crap!” moments outweigh those “Attaboys.”
I’ve learned that I still have a ways to go.
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