Caring, Sharing, Feeling: teaching in the 21st century

Universities need to stop taking care of students and begin educating them.

We know by now that higher education is in a complete state of disarray. Disarray may be too weak a word. It is in chaos. There are many reasons for it – ideology, increased enrollment (particularly of those students who do not belong in college), deconstruction of the humanities – and here is another: extreme focus on students' well being.

In a recent article, published by Chronicle of Higher Eduction, Catherine Savini claims that we need to pay more attention to students' mental health. She charts her own journey as a writing and composition instructor, who at the beginning was rightfully irritated by students' lack of responsibility, tardiness, not paying attention in class, and similar behaviors. But now, after spending time communicating with students, she found out that they are suffering from a wide array of mental maladies, one of them primarily being anxiety. The anxiety is the grand cause of why, for example, a student may leave the class abruptly, or why he is using earbuds and presumably listening to music during the class. Here are some examples from her article:

If a student is late, we might assume he doesn’t    respect our time, and every time he is late, our judgment is confirmed. But if we gather more data, we might discover that the latecomer has OCD and struggles to get out of the house. Of course, the student could just be inconsiderate or a slacker, but we don’t know unless we seek out more information.

Or this:

 I decided to take the information-seeking route. "So, tell me about the ear      buds," I asked one day, and the story of this 18-year-old’s struggles emerged: He had been in multiple car accidents; he is on pain medication but has trouble sleeping and staying focused; the background noise of the music helps him to concentrate. People with ADHD confirm this: They need something in the background to crystallize their attention on the foreground.

Or this:

As for the student who walked out midclass, I invited her to my office where I learned that she had left because of a panic attack. After a short conversation, I was satisfied that she had the necessary mental- health support, but when I asked about her other courses, she told me she was at risk of failing due to excessive absences. "Easy solution," I said. "Communicate with these professors."

To be sure, there are students who genuinely suffer from mental illness, and they need to be addressed. But is the classroom and is the instructor of writing truly responsible for that? My answer is no.

I teach composition, while I am also receiving my PhD. I absolutely love teaching. As much as I have a deep insight into people's behaviors and nature, I am not hired to be an expert on mental disorders, and therefore I do not think that I should be approaching my students from that perspective.

First and foremost, I am there to teach them how to write, how to become better thinkers, and how to effectively communicate with each other and the rest of the world. Of course, I do not leave my compassionate self at the door the instant I enter into the classroom. I am fully aware of my students' idiosyncrasies, as well each students' academic needs.

I had students talk to me about their personal struggles, and I am more than happy to listen to them, and help in any way I can. Sometimes, just listening is enough for them to not to feel invisible. Speaking as someone who was an extremely anxious student, I can understand the intimidation and fear that manifests itself when we enter new environments. Not being blind to that is one of the tasks of teaching.

However, what I object to is that extreme focus on mental well being (something the students are responsible for themselves) should take precedence over actual material and the purpose of college education. By nature, I am not a cynic, and I tend to believe that, for the most part, people can change and get better. But I am also not a fool. The fact is that students, mostly, will use “disorders” as an excuse to not do the work. If the basics of the classroom decorum and class responsibilities are not met, then there will be no possible way in addressing the expected outcomes of the course.

Why is this happening? Teachers are more and more forcefully “encouraged” to be nurturers in the classroom. Call it feminization of higher education. Everyone feels and yet nobody really knows what emotions are because there is such a thing as “the intelligence of emotions,” as Martha Nussbaum wrote. Many women that are in the field of teaching are either unmarried or perhaps have partners but do not have children. The desire of motherhood is transposed onto the students and the female teacher will want to take care of them. This, in turn, will be quite taxing on the teacher and the only mental disorder that will be born (but will be unnoticeable) is Student Fatigue Syndrome. Something's gotta give.

If the government is the Big Brother, then university is the Big Mother. Education is already in dire straits, and we are getting to the point where the best option is to destroy the currently presiding beast and build a new environment. Being a nurturer who insists on telling students “good job” every single time they complete the simplest of tasks and not an educator invested in helping students achieve their academic goals is not a recipe for success. And the questions are: what are we shaping today's youth into, and what kind of future should we expect?