One of my students just had a breakdown. Not an "I'm so spoiled and unhappy with this B" breakdown, but a genuine, "I can't handle life anymore" breakdown.
Not in my class, but it easily could have been.
He's been a little...off...all semester. And getting progressively more frustrated, more agitated, more angry...leading to more frequent outbursts that disrupt class...but only momentarily. He has cried several times out of anger and frustration at the start of the daily quizzes because he wasn't as prepared as he knew he needed to be.
This is the first time I've encountered this situation and it is disturbing. I care about this student, so I called counseling services when the behavior started and after-class conversations contained phrases like "ready to throw my desk across the room" and "I'm on the edge" and "I don't want to do this anymore." The counselor advised me to suggest to this student that he visit the counseling center for a chance to vent and talk to someone privately who can help with coping skills and just be a kind ear. But if the student's behavior escalates, well, the counselor said...professors have been known to walk students over to the Center.
Tuesday in class, this student was more disruptive than he'd been before. Physically slamming his books, marching across the room in front of me to loudly and angrily sharpen his pencil, making gestures and facial expressions that were angry and agitated. Interrupting other students, making conversational asides that didn't make sense, and contributing almost nonsensical comments to the conversation, causing his classmates to smirk or look at him in confusion.
I didn't know what to do. Should I have dismissed class and walked him to the counseling center? The outburst lasted only ten minutes total and I have 25 other students to consider. I chose to ignore the outburst as best I could and once he calmed down, then I did call on him during the in-class discussion portion. As usual, his offerings were just a bit...off. Not quite on target. But I accepted his contribution and other students picked up the threads and continued discussion.
Moments ago, one of his other English professors came into my office. He had a breakdown in her class this morning. She drove him to the counseling center. We discussed granting him extensions for his work, which I am going to do. We also discussed this strange phenomenon that seems more acute this semester - students under extreme stress and in over their heads. She's seeing it more this semester than ever before (she's been teaching for two decades). I'm noticing it more as well, even being relatively new to this side of the desk.
It is easy for us to dismiss these students as privileged, entitled, lazy, and incapable-by-choice. But my student who finally broke down is not lazy, or privileged, or incapable - he strives for perfection, he has a job and is taking a full and strenuous course load as a senior in order to set himself up to hopefully get a good job post-graduation. He has family problems, one of which is the extraordinary pressure that he perceives his family is putting on him about finishing college. He worries about everything. His performance in class. What his professors think of him. Whether his level of engagement and participation is enough. Whether he is making the right choices.
Perhaps my student is the exception and not the rule. But another of my students in the same class is having severe family issues that is causing her undue distress and is distracting her from her work - and she is most decidedly an A student. And she failed the last quiz outright. Zero questions answered.
I'm beginning to wonder if the economic realities and conditions in our society are increasing the stress on these capable young people. They want so badly to do well and succeed, but they see an untenable future before them, even as they push themselves to work harder, faster, better in order to compete.
I don't know what the root cause is...or if there are multiple causes working simultaneously, but I just can't dismiss this idea that our current economic situation and social attitudes are having a negative effect on our youth.
1 comment:
It's an interesting theory, to be sure. I am having a difficult time distinguishing between a particularly dreadful economic downshift and what might otherwise be "business as usual." Teaching at the community college level, and on one rural campus, has led me to a different series of experiences than I had when teaching at a research university. I have an increased number of non-traditional students who feel compelled to obtain degrees (at this particular college, they can either earn an Associate's or transfer to a four-year institution for their Bachelor's). Some of them are after this education for the age-old reason: they want to improve their employment status and (with that) their income. Others are empty-nesters who finally feel that the timing is right to pursue their own education after having taken care of their children for so long.
Because this is my first semester at this level, I can't say whether or not the impetus for their education is related to the economy.
But in terms of stress? I would absolutely say that you propose a fairly arguable theory. I have a large number of students in all three of my classes who also work full-time (or for extended part-time). Again, I don't know if this is considered the norm at the community college level or if this is a result of the economy, but at the very least I do see pressures of attempting to juggle work and academic schedules and responsibilities negatively affecting my students' performance. I ask no more of these students than I have asked of students in the past. I understand that some of them come from less educated or less privileged backgrounds than my previous students. But in terms of the work I ask my students to accomplish (to read so many pages or to write on such-and-such a topic), my expectations are the same. I do see my students struggling. One of my students approached me in class last week asking if she could write her essay (which she is supposed to write in class, in my presence) over the weekend because that is the only time she feels she has to think away from her two young children. I told her that no, she had to write her essay in class, but that she was welcome to gather notes and research materials over the weekend. I reminded her that her children were not in this class, so she could take that 75-minute opportunity to get a great deal of work accomplished.
As we approach the mid-semester here, I have observed the worry lines deepening in my students' faces. Not yet to the extent that you're describing in this post, but they're there nonetheless. I wonder if, in addition to economic pressures, they're feeling specific social pressures. Now more than ever it means something very real to have a degree, and it is not difficult to fail out of a program and lose the opportunity to obtain that degree. Maybe some of our students have attempted to find jobs without the assistance of a college-level education and are coming to realize that, for many salaried jobs with benefits, a Bachelor's is now the normal minimum. And for some careers, it is a Master's. I would say that is pressure enough in itself.
I hope your student receives the help he needs. I was glad to read that his other professor was able to respond to his meltdown with a trip to the counseling center. You both might have unknowingly saved that young man's life.
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