I told you before about my sole recalcitrant graduate student who has been making my life unnecessarily difficult. Now, the student has failed a written assignment. There is nothing subjective about her failing, since she simply left the answer boxes completely empty. Do you want to guess how many extremely long and aggressive e-mails I got from her explaining why (yet again) I'm to blame for her failing the assignment? Five. In every single response, I explained to her the options she has to remedy the situation but the e-mail assault on my patience continues. Do people who do such things somehow believe that they are making a good impression in this way? Do they believe that antagonizing the professor will eventually work in their favor?
I shared this story with some people, and they agree that the student is writing to me so much in order to provoke me into saying some things that she will be able to use to mount a grievance procedure against me. I still have absolutely no idea what made her so contrary in this particular course and why she refuses to use the opportunities I'm giving her to make things better. This situation baffles me so much because in all my years of teaching there have, of course, been all kinds of issues and conflicts with students. Still, I have never experienced such a single-minded rejection of every single thing that happens in the course from any student.
Today, I came home with a firm intention to spend the first three days of my Thanksgiving break lying in bed and reading my Kindle. But the nasty student spoiled all that by her incessant angry e-mails.
Sorry for the rant, dear readers, but this has become so annoying that I needed to share this. There are only two more classes where I have to see that student, after which I hope never to find myself in her presence again.
7 comments:
start cc-ing department chair or whoever is an appropriate figure of authority on your e-mail interactions with that student. Photocopy the assignment in question. And the previous, plagiarized one. Calmly inform the student you are doing that.
Thank you, V. I can see you have experience with this type of thing. :-)
As I've noted before, it sounds to me as though this student is trying to get thrown out of school. She's not mature enough to leave under her own power, so she's acting out in order to put the decision in someone else's hands. If her work merits it, I think you should flunk her and make her happy. :-)
Flunk her. And please do not write anything that may turn against you.
Very definitely forward the e-mails to your chair or dean. I had a situation with my assistantship supervisor in graduate school where it was necessary to forward her e-mails to her superior; it was immensely helpful when she tried to pursue disciplinary action against me for the matter in question.
OK. It sounds to me even more like this student has some mental health issues (and/ or maybe a personal crisis).
It doesn't make her behaviour OK, but it does explain it.
Can I suggest you ask her to come in to discuss her concerns in person since e-mails are clearly getting nowhere - find a sympathetic colleague to sit in (in case she does take any action, and to help you). You can then gently raise the question with her.
I think what you are saying, butterflywings, makes a lot of sense. I'm scheduled to talk to her supervisor, and we'll see if she can offer some insights into the situation.
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