crazy-magnet

I'm still thinking about the weird interaction of yesterday. And I got to thinking of some other interactions I've had with students.

And I realized, in a blinding flash, something about me:

I am a magnet for Teh Crazy.

Yup, crazy-magnet. That's where a lot of my frustration comes in. I was thinking in particular of one woman - a non-traditional student, with an adopted child who had all kinds of bizarre "issues," who used to come to my office to unload her frustrations both with the state DCFS who was supposed to be getting some form of "intervention" for her child, and also (and worse) her frustrations with the other faculty, whom she perceived (for example, because they did overnight field trips) as having planned things particularly to thwart her and make her life difficult.

Now, one thing about me: I may not always agree with my colleagues but I do not like students coming and telling me how much Dr. X sucks, or how mean Ms. Y is. Or, like she was doing, trying to get me in collusion with her against them.

I don't take sides when I am not directly involved and taking either side means I lose somehow. I think I established that yesterday.

But this student still came and dumped her crazy on me. And she still to this day swears that I'm the only "good" person in the department. Whatever.

I had another student with similar but less extreme issues.

I don't know how I got to be the resident crazy magnet, but I want to stop it. Does it have to do with the fact that I'm a basically sympathetic person and non-confrontational, so that means I'm prone to smiling and nodding at someone when my brain is screaming "I DO NOT WANT TO BE HEARING THIS! Please leave now person! Please go home and take your meds or whatever you need to do to be more functional!"

So anyway: anyone who may read this - suggestions on how I can hang up my spurs as the resident crazy-magnet? I mean, I'm sure I provide an important service as a buffer between my less socially-apt overly-polite peers and the students who have what I politely call "issues," but it's really draining to me and something I so don't want to deal with any more.

I just hope it doesn't include things like handing out quarters and saying stuff like, "now go call someone who cares." I can't quite do out-and-out rude.

*****

Also, if anyone who teaches reads this: have you noticed an uptick in students randomly getting up and leaving in the middle of a class? It's started in my non-majors class in a big way this week and it drives me up the wall.

If you are sick and you really need to come to take a quiz or whatever, okay. But it seems like people just decide they've had enough ("Mr. Osborne, may I be excused? My brain is full."?) or what?

I hate it. On days when I'm feeling fairly normal and okay with myself, I see it as, "I think there are things so much more valuable than getting an education that I do not care to stay, even though it irritates my professor and the people around me that I am crawling over. And I don't want to think about how this may help determine my future as a used-car salesman or Wal-mart checker, because right now I want to go be the first in line for lunch at the cafeteria. And I'm failing class anyway and I have no concept that attendance correlates with grade, so I might as well cut my losses and leave instead of actually trying to improve."

On days when I'm not feeling so okay about myself, the only thing I can see it as is:
"G-d, this person is SO BORING I can't possibly sit here another minute. How did she ever get hired to teach anyway? And why do I have to know about biology and crap? I'm going to be a businessperson/teacher/pro athlete and make tons more money than this jerk up at the front of the class. I'm outta here!" And that feeds into all my feelings of inadequacy about myself because I do my best to make things INTERESTING and RELEVANT and all that jazz, but I refuse to be the movie-showing, content-free, edumacation-lite person that seems to be the sort of popular professor these days. I have standards and I don't want to drop them. But I hate being boring too.