Spheres of Influence

I had an interesting conversation with one of my classmates the other day, about how he's growing to hate our Latin class more and more each day. He has a serious problem with the professor's pedagogical style; she's very blunt, in a way intended to be "funny," and she's offensive in other ways that betray that she hasn't gotten around to thinking of herself as an authority figure. For example, I observed last year that she'll often shoot down people's comments like she was competing with us somehow. And the other day she criticized the class for all of us not participating in the web chat forum. "Did you not have time to do it, or are you so devoid of thought that you don't have anything to say?" My colleague thought that was so unnecessary.

"It like she tries to be our friend, but she's not exactly that, and so she comes off like that friend who always has to be right - which is annoying."

This was very eye-opening for me. Earlier in the week one of my students tried to bond with me by telling me that she had just pledged my sorority (the sorority name is on the tote bag I always carry). I told her I was delighted to hear it, and that I would make more of an effort to get involved with the house this year. Then I read her paper, and realized it was a disaster. I had to tear it apart, because it wouldn't have been fair to everyone else to go easier on her because of this pseudo social connection. Nor, for that matter, would it have been fair to that student if I gave her a good grade this one time and she went through the rest of college turning in shitty papers because no one ever told her how to do it right.

I think she really took it personally. She came into my office hours later in the week to talk to me about her next paper, and she was super-defensive about her method, which I blasted, which I referred to as "psychologizing." She said, "I don't see what's wrong with this so-called psychologizing, because all literature is psychological..."

First of all, NOT TRUE. Only the very purposefully Freudian literature attempts to tell a story on a psychological premise alone. Second of all, even psychology as a discipline relies on certain data beside, "well of course he must have felt this way, therefore..."

So when my colleague used that analogy about the friend who always has to be right, I realized that it was a mistake to blur the spheres of influence. It's not my job to be a friend to my students, it's my job to be professional and get them to where they need to go. By that same analogy, I think it might be a mistake for me to try to become my professors' protegee by friendship; it should be sufficient to do it as a student. That's not to say that people don't try to schmooze their way to the top, because I definitely see more of that than anything. But I realized that there's just too much room for error if you go that route.