"Don't care about their success more than the students do" -- getting overused

[downer]

When a professor is agonizing about how to deal with apathetic students it can be useful to give them the old agage "you can't care about their success more than they do."

But I'm also finding that it can be just a lazy out for professors who don't want to care or don't know how to motivate students.

We don't know how much they care. Often they want to be praised, but also want to be aloof and don't want to seem over eager.

They may also mess up repeatedly and ask for ridiculous exceptions to rules because they haven't really been held accountable by previous teachers, or they find it is worth seeing what they can get away with.

Some professors have unrealistic expectations. They want their students to care about their topic as much as they do. But that is not going to happen most of the time. Students have plenty going on in their lives and college work is often not their top priority. But they still want to do OK and they are open to learning something.

While maybe some professors (myself included) are not primarily motivated by wanting to get the students to share their enthusiasms and do well, and that's ok, others are. Some professors do care deeply about their students and their success. Occasionally I find it surprising when a professor really cares, but it remains admirable.

OK, I had to write that down to get the thought out of my system. Thanks for indulging me.

[Ruralguy]

Its overused.  People may have a bored look or nod off in class. It doesn't mean they don't care, at least it doesn't necessarily mean that. Some care, some don't . Some are just tired. Its not that hard to try to involve students more or just make things slightly more interesting. So, on that end, I think we sometimes get lazy.

In terms of going out on a limb to help someone who ultimately self destructs: Just have reasonable policies with some built in flexibility. If you intend on going past them anyway, then do that for everybody equally. But if after a reasonable amount of time and effort, you are still faced with apathy, then just walk away, or refer it to someone else who might be more helpful (an academic counselor, a psychologist, etc.)  .

[Puget]

To me it's just a reminder that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, and it does no good spend my mental energy worrying about it not drinking. I build in lots of opportunities for success and second chances, and I reach out a few times to students who are struggling offering to meet with them. But if they choose not to use the tools I'm offering or don't respond, I fill out the unsatisfactory midterm report and leave them to the advising staff. That is, I focus on having a good process for student success, but have learned not to be emotionally invested in the product.

[lightning]

The phrase is a half-empty/half-full test.

Inherent in the phrase is that the students that do care a lot about their own success, will also get the equivalent care from their professors.

[the_geneticist]

I offer what I hope is a clear pathway towards success (e.g. all assignments & due dates in the syllabus, accept all late work with a small penalty, lots of points on formative assessments, no surprise quizzes, etc.). 
Some students need help that I can't offer & I try to direct them to the appropriate person/office. 
I no longer fret about "why did the student not do their pre-lab?" or "I offered you a make-up assignment, why didn't you complete it?".  Like Puget, I offer the process, but the product is on the student.  My version is "I'll make the pathway to success clear, but I'm not dragging anyone kicking and screaming towards success".

[AmLitHist]

For me, the cutoff comes when "caring more about their success" turns into "doing way more work than they are."  I catch myself in that second situation sometimes, and immediately shut it down.  No, I cannot unscrew the top of your head and pour in some English/grammar/critical thinking/give a damn.  Your turn, students.

[artalot]

Fair warning: I am finding myself to be extremely burnt out, due (IMHO) to over-caring during the pandemic.
I reserve this phrase for students who ghost - either some coming to class or stop submitting work - despite multiple attempts on my part and on the part of the student success people to reach out to them. I don't take it personally, but I do need to start directing my attention to the students who show up and do the work. I just don't have the bandwidth to keep up with all the requests for extensions, extra credit, pester them to come to class, etc. It may not be that they don't care, which I realize. But I also don't think they realize how much extra work it is to help a student who has ghosted. So, I leave it to them. I'm here if they want to come see me, but if they ghost an appointment, I don't follow up to reschedule, and if they continually ghost class/assignments I report it to the student success team and move on. This really would not have been my approach prior to the pandemic, but I do feel as if students have come to expect a lot of handholding without any self-awareness of what that entails.

[mythbuster]

      Both The Geneticist and artalot have summed up my feeling on this. If the student is clearly trying and putting in real effort, then I will gladly meet with them at every office hour and put in extra effort as is needed. But I can't learn the material for them or magically make it so just memorizing a stack of flash cards will earn you an A.
   We recently had a department visit form our Provost, who gave us the usual party line about helping students and the need to improve retention. One of our senior faculty asked her point blank how much effort he should put into a student who (for example) refuses to come to class- he pushed her on at what point he could move on to those students who deserved his attention. She actually admitted at one point that yes, there was a point at which it was best to just move on. No statement on where that line was though. But it was nice to have acknowledgement that it might be ok to set a limit.

[fishbrains]

There is an element of triage to the job. I am a finite resource.

[Caracal]

Fair warning: I am finding myself to be extremely burnt out, due (IMHO) to over-caring during the pandemic.
I reserve this phrase for students who ghost - either some coming to class or stop submitting work - despite multiple attempts on my part and on the part of the student success people to reach out to them. I don't take it personally, but I do need to start directing my attention to the students who show up and do the work. I just don't have the bandwidth to keep up with all the requests for extensions, extra credit, pester them to come to class, etc. It may not be that they don't care, which I realize. But I also don't think they realize how much extra work it is to help a student who has ghosted. So, I leave it to them. I'm here if they want to come see me, but if they ghost an appointment, I don't follow up to reschedule, and if they continually ghost class/assignments I report it to the student success team and move on. This really would not have been my approach prior to the pandemic, but I do feel as if students have come to expect a lot of handholding without any self-awareness of what that entails.

I actually think this is sometimes a good way to be a pleasant, nice, caring instructor. If students want to meet with me, I'll meet with them. If they want to bring drafts, I'll look at them. If they want an extension, they can have it unless there's a specific reason it won't work. If they miss class and want to get notes and ask me questions about it, that's fine. Come to me with some specific request and I'll be as helpful as I can be. If you go chasing students around and worrying about them not doing well when they don't come to you, you end up getting grouchy and irritable.

[Wahoo Redux]

When a professor is agonizing about how to deal with apathetic students it can be useful to give them the old agage "you can't care about their success more than they do."

Overused, yes, but also a truism. 

I tried for a long time to care more than they and get them to care...and finally acknowledged that a certain percentage of my students just don't care and I do not have superpowers.

"Meet them where they are" is also overused, but also another essential truism.  Meeting them where they are often means accepting those students who care less than I do.

[Mobius]

Overused term, but applicable to many of all of our struggling students who don't seem to do the work.

As an aside, we keep getting told there is money for retention. Of course we never get details on what that money can be used for, and get told there isn't money available to help increase student engagement with the department outside of class time.

[lightning]

"Meeting them where they are"

=

"Meeting them where they are so we can have more students to generate more tuition revenue and we'll put the onus on the faculty to remediate and retain them, and blame the faculty for being un-caring teachers when the warm body who has a 6th grade reading comprehension, 4th grade writing skills and 2nd grade math skills doesn't show up or do any work."

[downer]

"Meeting them where they are"

=

"Meeting them where they are so we can have more students to generate more tuition revenue and we'll put the onus on the faculty to remediate and retain them, and blame the faculty for being un-caring teachers when the warm body who has a 6th grade reading comprehension, 4th grade writing skills and 2nd grade math skills doesn't show up or do any work."

The one person I know who did use that phrase was a faculty member. I don't know for sure, but I got the impression that it served to justify lower standards. I guess it could mean more to do with pedagogy rather than grades but I was skeptical.