An Uncomfortable CIP
What Happened?
Students were delivering their final exam (a 2-3 minute individual speech), when one student gave hers. It was a story of how we (her and I) would spend our honeymoon and it was overtly and explicitly sexual towards me. Her body language confirmed that this was not only in jest. I was speechless for a moment, gave her a score and proceeded to move on as quickly as possible.
Why Did it Happen?
I wish I could blame it on my irresistible looks, however that is not the case.
The class I was teaching was a mandatory language class at my university. Meaning the students who are in the class are students who have not studied English much more than the classes they are exposed to throughout elementary, middle and high school. They had a very limited set of English skills. I often looked at my job as "edu-tainment" since they weren't going to have significant improvement in their English from this class (once a week for 3 hours for about 12 weeks). I spent a great deal of class joking around with the students.
A simple answer could be since almost all of them were 18 or 19 year old first year students, some of this playful teaching could get misinterpreted. But, almost all of my class examples revolved around me as the butt of jokes. It was not uncommon to hear "Austen smells like trash, because he lives in the subway." and other such sentences. The result of this, I fear, was the blurring of the line between teacher/authority figure and another friend in class.
As for my reaction (or rather non-reaction), I was so shocked at that moment, I could not think of what was the proper thing to do. I could have given her an F. I could have gone into a private area and explained how that was inappropriate. I could have asked if she was serious. However, I did none of these. I quickly convinced myself it was inconsequential of what the subject of her speech was, marked it- based on the content and the vocabulary covered, and moved on, like any other student.
What Might it Mean?
It's very likely that my entertainment level of class has come at the price of some respect. The separation between student and teacher was not clearly illustrated to the students.
As for my response to the 'incident', I am not great in uncomfortable situations. I try to avoid them all the time. Perhaps I should be more focused on dealing with them, than avoiding them.
What Are the Implications for My Practice?
I am thinking about how to keep my entertainment level of class without losing the respect that an instructor should have to teach effectively. I may not be a great enough teacher to do that perfectly, so I may have to sacrifice being the "fun teacher" a little bit and try to be a little more of "professional teacher".
Aside from that, teaching is also a job that requires one to think on their feet quickly, and my 'freeze up' means that I was not fully prepared for that situation. I have to respond more directly to situations that come up (awkward or not).
What Happened?
Students were delivering their final exam (a 2-3 minute individual speech), when one student gave hers. It was a story of how we (her and I) would spend our honeymoon and it was overtly and explicitly sexual towards me. Her body language confirmed that this was not only in jest. I was speechless for a moment, gave her a score and proceeded to move on as quickly as possible.
Why Did it Happen?
I wish I could blame it on my irresistible looks, however that is not the case.
The class I was teaching was a mandatory language class at my university. Meaning the students who are in the class are students who have not studied English much more than the classes they are exposed to throughout elementary, middle and high school. They had a very limited set of English skills. I often looked at my job as "edu-tainment" since they weren't going to have significant improvement in their English from this class (once a week for 3 hours for about 12 weeks). I spent a great deal of class joking around with the students.
A simple answer could be since almost all of them were 18 or 19 year old first year students, some of this playful teaching could get misinterpreted. But, almost all of my class examples revolved around me as the butt of jokes. It was not uncommon to hear "Austen smells like trash, because he lives in the subway." and other such sentences. The result of this, I fear, was the blurring of the line between teacher/authority figure and another friend in class.
As for my reaction (or rather non-reaction), I was so shocked at that moment, I could not think of what was the proper thing to do. I could have given her an F. I could have gone into a private area and explained how that was inappropriate. I could have asked if she was serious. However, I did none of these. I quickly convinced myself it was inconsequential of what the subject of her speech was, marked it- based on the content and the vocabulary covered, and moved on, like any other student.
What Might it Mean?
It's very likely that my entertainment level of class has come at the price of some respect. The separation between student and teacher was not clearly illustrated to the students.
As for my response to the 'incident', I am not great in uncomfortable situations. I try to avoid them all the time. Perhaps I should be more focused on dealing with them, than avoiding them.
What Are the Implications for My Practice?
I am thinking about how to keep my entertainment level of class without losing the respect that an instructor should have to teach effectively. I may not be a great enough teacher to do that perfectly, so I may have to sacrifice being the "fun teacher" a little bit and try to be a little more of "professional teacher".
Aside from that, teaching is also a job that requires one to think on their feet quickly, and my 'freeze up' means that I was not fully prepared for that situation. I have to respond more directly to situations that come up (awkward or not).
Yikes! I'm not sure what I would have done had I ever been in this situation. . . I'm probably lucky (although most days it doesn't feel like it) that I'm older and have developed a teaching persona that is 'friendly' but will never be confused with 'I'm your friend'.
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