We have to trust students, and there are a lot of advantages that come from trusting them. If we don't trust students, they won't trust us, and if we do trust them, they will often try to live up to that trust. However, there are always those that will take advantage of it. This is why trust is a tricky balancing act. Putting trust in my students has come up far more often than I expected it to. Having no idea what to expect when I started the semester, I came in thinking this would be a fairly simple relationship. I should have known better, having been a student myself, but I was always pretty darn honest with my professors, so having to discern when to trust students and when to call bs wasn't really on my radar.
However, I recently checked my role sheet, found a student's name on it, and didn't see the student anywhere. I hadn't seen him come in at the beginning of class, but he sits at the back, so there was a chance that he had come in, signed it, and left. While the idea of that pissed me off, it was better in my mind at least than the only other alternative I saw, which was that someone else was signing in for him. I scratched his name off the list and sent him a warning email after class. He claimed that no one else was signing in for him, and I warned him not to sign in anymore unless he planned to stick around. And finally, I told him I trusted him not to do it again. That doesn't mean that I wasn't still checking the role sheets, but I truly didn't expect to see any problems anymore.
And I didn't. In fact, while I expected to see neither him nor his name (as his attendance record had been pretty miserable) he actually started showing up to class more regularly after that and started sticking around. Now that the media analysis papers are in, I have a lot of high plagiarism scores, and my ability to walk the fine, slippery line of trust with my students is going to be tested all over again.
However, I recently checked my role sheet, found a student's name on it, and didn't see the student anywhere. I hadn't seen him come in at the beginning of class, but he sits at the back, so there was a chance that he had come in, signed it, and left. While the idea of that pissed me off, it was better in my mind at least than the only other alternative I saw, which was that someone else was signing in for him. I scratched his name off the list and sent him a warning email after class. He claimed that no one else was signing in for him, and I warned him not to sign in anymore unless he planned to stick around. And finally, I told him I trusted him not to do it again. That doesn't mean that I wasn't still checking the role sheets, but I truly didn't expect to see any problems anymore.
And I didn't. In fact, while I expected to see neither him nor his name (as his attendance record had been pretty miserable) he actually started showing up to class more regularly after that and started sticking around. Now that the media analysis papers are in, I have a lot of high plagiarism scores, and my ability to walk the fine, slippery line of trust with my students is going to be tested all over again.
#Highclass 🎩 #Zettelthiswithwords
I have yet to have this problem, but it one that I am anticipating in the future. I also make it a point to learn my students names and refer to them in class that way they know I am talking to and that I know who they are, I want to say that it fear that if they sign a friend in that i would find out. Of course they would be correct but fear is not what I want them to feel. I want them to feel trust in the way that i give trust. Garret, it is only up from here and testing of trust will be all too new next semester!
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