Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

I am going through a phase where I am absolutely hating my job. Hating, hating, hating. I got to this point in the usual manner: a series of little things building up over the course of a week or so, and then one really stupid little thing pushing me over the edge. It started with a student cheating on my exam, in a very calculated and elaborately planned way, and the stress of dealing with that; then, a very blah week during which, despite all my efforts to be interesting, my students were clearly Not Interested; then, grading, grading, grading; then, that sinking feeling when I realize that despite all my delusions of being an adequate teacher, my students don't know shit; then, my desperate straight-A student; then... I got this ridiculous e-mail from a student two nights ago that really pushed me into full-blown depression.

I put a practice test online for my students before each exam. They can take it as many times as they want and it doesn't count toward their grade. I suggest that they study and then use the practice exam to see what areas they need to study more. Of course, they don't. They take the exam over and over and try to memorize the answers to all of the questions, and in some cases, take pictures of all the questions, which they then store on their cell phones and try to access during the exam. But that's a different story.

Obviously I can't control how they use the practice exam and quite frankly, I don't really care. It's honestly one of those things I do to cover my own ass, so that at the very least, students can't complain that they studied all the wrong things for the exam.

At any rate, in one of my classes, students told me that when they finished taking the practice exam, it wouldn't give them a score, and asked if I could fix this. I eventually figured out that Blackboard would not give them a score because I had hidden the results of the practice exam from the online grade book, since it didn't count toward the grade. Unfortunately, this meant they couldn't get a score when they were done, and it also meant they couldn't review past attempts at the exam. So I fixed the problem by making the practice exam results appear in the grade book, even though they still didn't count toward their grade. Of course, when the practice exam appears in the grade book, it makes it look as if the practice exam is a graded activity, and I think this is the reason I had it hidden in the first place.

After I made this change, I immediately got an e-mail from a panicked student who thought that his attempts at the practice test were giving him a D- in the class, when in reality the D- was because he hadn't completed much of the required work thus far. LOL. I assured him the practice test was not being calculated into the grade, and he thanked me for my prompt response, and that was that. However, on Saturday night, I received the following e-mail:

hello mrs Moon

class  bio 1000 tues thurs

I have a concern. when you told us about the practice test for unit one you never made it clear it was an assignment that would be graded at 70 points. i informed you i was making a copy of it to study for final exam and did all of the work on a hard copy i printed and used it at a study tool. this item was not on our grade sheet as worth any points. also the sylibus indicates nothing about practice tests on line being given at all and i feel like it is not fair that we were not made aware it was worth points and at that such a large number of points. had i known this i would have done it on line and not on a hard copy i printed. it is no longer available and i have a completed hard copy that would be impossible for me to print off and do it after the fact. i wish you will take this under advisement as im sure im not the only student with this issue. on the syllibus it mentions 70 points for all homework and miscellaneous activities total. please take my concern under advisement as i do not believe this is fair

thank you

psychotic student with terrible english

Like I said, this is a really, really little thing, but after a week of non-stop bullshit, it really rubbed me the wrong way. While I do understand the panic, wouldn't you take the time to do the math before sending an e-mail like this to an instructor? Or, at least just send an e-mail of inquiry first, before unleashing? Or... what if I accidentally did have it set up to count toward the grade (it has happened before)? In that case, it would be appropriate to inform me of such. An example of an appropriate way to inform me would be something like, "I was under the impression that the practice test didn't count toward our grade, yet it appears that it is. Can you please check on this?"

Furthermore, wouldn't you capitalize "i" and try to spell syllabus correctly? Perhaps it's unfair of me to hold this against this particular student, but she is a non-traditional student in her mid-40s who is a nurse and now wants to be a doctor, and she makes a super huge deal about this every day in class. IMO, this means that she should have some sense of what it means to correspond in a professional manner. Would she ever send her supervisor such a rambling and incoherent message with absolutely no basis behind her complaints? And even amongst my non-professional, traditional-aged students, it's rare that I get such an extensively rambling, poorly constructed, and poorly thought-out e-mail. Obviously there's just zero respect here.

Add to this that the practice exam is really an extra I provide to students to try to help them, yet all it seems to result in is bitching, bitching, and more bitching, whether it be due to technical issues or because the actual exam isn't exactly the same as the practice exam. I've actually had students complain because I change the questions slightly on the actual exam. As one student explained to me: "Students feel betrayed by slight variations in your questions." Betrayed. It's a strong word.

I just can't win.

And I think that's the worst feeling of all: that feeling of there's nothing you can do. No matter what you do, you're going to lose.

I've been making a concerted effort to not let the little stuff get to me. Even after I had to deal with a cheating student, I had a good talk with a colleague, who told me to let it go. No matter what, students are going to cheat, and while it is infuriating, you can't let it get to you. You can try to prevent it, and you can punish cheaters, but in the end, there will still be cheaters, and you just have to accept it. No matter what you do there will be cheaters. No matter what you do, there will be complainers. No matter what you do there will X, Y, and Z.

I realize that no matter what profession you are in, there will be Stuff Like This, and if you are a person who lets Small Stuff get to you, you are in trouble, because there is Small Stuff everywhere, in every corner of life. I am not naïve; I know that a change of career does not mean less bullshit to deal with. My husband is constantly reminding of this; in fact, he recently told me he was extremely worried about how I might deal with potentially difficult patients considering how much I let difficult students get under my skin. It's a valid concern, and one that merits an entry of its own. In the mean time, I will work on not sweating the small stuff, and consider it a skill I need to improve no matter what my future holds. And, perhaps I should look into veterinary school instead.