End of Week 3

At this time every year, at the end of three weeks, I feel the weight of being back in the classroom. I have spent about three weeks with students in classes and in the college. I have been struck, overwhelmed sometimes and depressed sometimes by the behaviours of students. As is normal for human beings, I often extrapolate from behaviours to attitudes. That is not necessarily fair, but it is what happens, especially when I am low in energy.

The behaviours I have seen that I do not like include what seems like adisregard for normal courtesy between students and between students and faculty.

• "Hey" as an address to faculty, in person and in e-mail


• Please and Thank you do not seem to exist


• Foul language accepted as part of normal conversation


• Using both sides of hall or stairway, blocking others' movements

When I see and hear students in the hallways and the cafeteria they are usually quite animated. When I seem them in classrooms (mine or other faculty) they look listless, inattentive, sometimes asleep. Their faces change from open and reactive to closed and non-reactive. There are very few who show any desire to learn or even to take notes in most classrooms. I don't know if this is the result of their previous academic experiences. Since I teach mostly first year students I think it must be. Perhaps no one has ever expected them to be active learners, pursuing knowledge instead of just absorbing information.
I wonder if it is a fruitless task to expect to get most of them to participate in their own education. I wonder if their behaviours do reflect an essentially self-centred attitude: "prove right away this will be of benefit to me, otherwise I am going to be mentally absent". Other than marks I know I cannot prove what I teach will be of any benefit to any of them.
What to do, how to deal with this situation?