Can endless dealing with very bad students cause mental issues to professors?

[hamburger]

Hi, I have taught over 10 classes in my CC over the past two years. I found that the majority of the students in my school are from developing countries who have no interest in learning but use the school as a stepping stone to stay in North America. Very often I had to repeat the same things 15-20 times and there were students who did not listen. These people made me angry as they are not stupid as individuals but they don't seem to care academically. One student mentioned that he had not used toilet paper nor a toilet in his country. Family member has been telling me the past few months that I became absent-minded, pre-occupied and got a bad temper. I started noticing that I am getting stupid, lost confident, indecisive and behave somewhat like my students. Could it be that I am getting old? Could it be that after dealing with so many bad students and reading comments from those who changed the stories and posted nasty comments about me on RMP, I am breaking down mentally?

Any faculty member has experienced what I am experiencing?

[Hegemony]

I think this is a sign that teaching is not the right job for you. And that you probably should not have a job that involves responsibility for people from different backgrounds.

I find the idea that some people have grown up without toilets or toilet paper fascinating. I'd want to know: what was their first response? How have they adapted? What other fundamental things are different?  What can we learn from them?

I remember a student from Africa who described accepting an invitation from some Americans to go hunting. On the way to go hunting, they stopped for something to eat. He said, "If you can afford buy something to eat, why are you going hunting?"  In his home village, there was so little food that the boys and girls ate on alternate days. I learned far more from that student than he learned from me.

OP, I hope you will get some help and support for your emotional difficulties, and find a profession that is more suited to your strengths.

[hamburger]

Thanks. Sometimes I feel that my mind became empty. I hope that I am not having a mental issue.

In general, at top universities, I had no problem teaching the students. They knew how to study and followed rules. However, I had to deal with bullying from senior professors. In this CC, I don't have problem with higher up in general. They just don't respect people with a PhD. I have good relationships with students not from my courses. In my courses, there were people who think customer is always right and if I did not meet their demands every single time, they posted nasty and insulting comments with their version of the stories on RMP and gave me bad evaluations. I have also heard that some students took colleagues to the court. They like to accuse faculty members of violation of human rights.

If I recall correctly, that student came from Africa. He said that he likes the toilets here very much.

[Parasaurolophus]

I'm in a similar situation, insofar as my university is a former community college that's very dependent on international enrollment from a very large developing economy. Most of the students are in it for the work permit, which creates a path to permanent residency.

There isn't anything wrong with that (except insofar as my university systematically screws them over). But it does mean that they have very different priorities and expectations. Adjusting to those is hard and, I confess, not very satisfying. It's a hard student population to teach, and it seems to me that the usual rewards of teaching are fewer and farther between (especially when you're stuck teaching the same boring intro classes over and over and over eight-plus times a year).

So: you have to find your rewards where you can. Maybe that's in publishing, or remaining active in your research/subfield communities. Maybe it's by developing hobbies, especially those with satisfying outcomes, or going to the cinema regularly (when the current crisis permits). Or maybe it's some kind of volunteer work. Or, hell, maybe it's by switching your syllabi up so that you're covering material that's of interest to you. But you really should find something you can regularly engage in and which will give you regular pats on the back. And give yourself breaks; take weekends and evenings off, and don't do any work.

Otherwise, yes, your job could be a cause of stress or mental illness. In fact, it might act as a significant contributing factor to depression. I've been teaching here for the last year without a break (I've taught ten courses in the last year, and will teach another two before I finally get two months off). It's a lot. It's a lot of teaching on its own, but it's just a lot of very difficult work given these students' expectations, preparedness, and problems. It's absolutely draining, and not very rewarding. And, to be honest, I was starting to get pretty down about it all back in January, although plugging in material I was interested in helped a little. Then some good publication news buoyed me up for a couple months, and then the present crisis hit and although working from home has been all kinds of unpleasant and very alienating, it's also been a really refreshing break.

If you can't find your own rewards or find ways to give yourself a break, then yeah, Hegemony is right: this kind of teaching (maybe teaching period) probably isn't the job for you.

One student mentioned that he had not used toilet paper nor a toilet in his country.

And? Not relevant.

[downer]

Whatever the cause of your current issues, you have them.

Seeking out psychotherapy would be a good choice.

Probably a change of scene would also help.

[polly_mer]

How's that job search going?

This adjunct position is a bad match for you.  Go do something else for less stress and more money.

[Ruralguy]

You are obviously burnt out from your job. It can lead to stress, depression, anxiety, etc

Regardless of whether you might have some teaching promise somewhere, you really have nothing but a very immediate sort of future at your current place, and given the stress, it hardly seems worth it.

We've been suggesting other avenues for what seems like years now. If you have none due to personal constraints then you either have to adapt to tolerating the sort of student you have (yes, even if...), or find work doing almost anything else, especially if it's moderately high for cognitive skills and low to medium in social interaction. Or maybe literally anything else regardless of details.

[hamburger]

As far as I know, maybe about 85% of the students are international students from developing countries. Going to school makes people feel like they were in another part of the world. There seems to be some resentments from local students and these internaitonal students as they have been posting nasty comments about each other on the internet.

Cultural differences and expectations might be involved.

Last year, I taught the second half of a course. I followed the syllabus closely as usual. Two students from Iran did poorly in a group project. They claimed that my colleague did not teach them how to use the software to print out a report. I told them to use google or join the forum for the software to ask questions as finding answers from the internet on their own should be part of the training. (The department head disagreed with that!) They said that they paid and I had to google for them. Another group did very well and even they did not learn how to print out a report from the software, they took screenshots. This group got an almost perfect score. The two students then complained to the department that I "discriminated" them. After the final, they threatened to file a formal complaint. They also asked to see the rubrics and how I marked their papers. One of them "lectured" me and a senior professor for about 1.5 hours. During this time, I and the senior professor took turns to take breaks.  This student criticized the rubrics and how the marks were distributed. He then said that in Iran, students are not allowed to see how the papers are marked. Moreover, students cannot complain their professors. He then told us that he loves Western countries because students have the rights. His friend just pretended to cry and accused me of discriminating them. During this time, I tried to defense for myself but the senior professor stopped me. At the end, he told me that there was no need to "argue" with the students.

Last semester, a student from Pakistan just passed the midterm. He asked me to allow him to do something else to make up the poor scores as he wanted to get a perfect score. I discussed with the coordinator and he said no. At the end, the student got over 90%. After he got the report, I asked him to fill in an evaluation for my reference. Knowing that I would read the evaluation, he gave me 1/5. He got over 90% in my course. What else did he want? I did not grant his request and he gave me 1/5!

There are also students who had been using the same software or tool for the entire semester and they did not know the name correctly even I had asked the same question before! How could this happen?

Sometimes I feel like I were teaching in a mental hospital.

[hamburger]

How's that job search going?

This adjunct position is a bad match for you.  Go do something else for less stress and more money.

I failed to get any interview for faculty positions in universities. I heard that not having any publication for the past few years was the main reason. Applications for jobs in companies also failed.

[Aster]

If you are asking if teaching "burnout" is a thing, then yes.

I see this all the time at Big Urban College. We are open enrollment, and so we have the typical open enrollment challenges with many of our students. Too many students being not college-ready. Too many students not having the desire to make themselves college ready. Administrative pressure to pass students anyway. Far too many adjunct faculty paid almost nothing and given very little infrastructural support. Massive grade inflation. Easy-peasy courses. Rampant cheating. Offering way too much curriculum online without adequate security/assessment planning.

This semester is a particularly bad time to be an educator, but hopefully things will get "back to normal" in coming months. I am so looking forward to getting back into the classroom. Judging from many of my current students, they are itching to get back into a classroom environment also. Remote sucks.

[Hegemony]

What I have noticed is that the OP seems to have a pretty solid contempt for foreigners.  Bias like this is exactly what we do not want in education. It also strikes me as ironic, as the OP him/herself appears to be a non-native-English speaker.

[Anselm]

I work with a biology teacher who is very good and has a very strong will.   She seems well balanced and likes her job.   She lays down strict rules for her nursing students who have a history of trying to walk all over her.  One student  in particular was very problematic, basically offering a long list of excuses to get exceptions to the rules while she was taking advantage of various forms of financial aid.  Two years later I mentioned the problem student in a joking manner and my colleague flatly told me to not bring her name up again since the stress she caused her was so great.

[polly_mer]

How's that job search going?

This adjunct position is a bad match for you.  Go do something else for less stress and more money.

I failed to get any interview for faculty positions in universities. I heard that not having any publication for the past few years was the main reason. Applications for jobs in companies also failed.

What actions have you taken that will put you in a better position as you continue to apply for jobs?

Have you contacted your academic colleagues inquiring about a soft money position so you can get back into research and peer-reviewed publishing while being employed in a relevant position?

Have you participated in some of the open activities to bring your relevant computer/AI/software skills up to current as well as starting the new professional network of people who are looking for those skills?  Having relevant examples of recent professional research activities that aren't peer-reviewed papers will help with the transition to certain industry jobs.

Have you done local networking with social groups so that people who know you can recommend you for jobs that you don't even know exist?  Remember, the suggestion was to join groups with the activities you enjoy so you make genuine acquaintances who think fondly of you, not just running in and immediately asking about jobs.

[hamburger]

What I have noticed is that the OP seems to have a pretty solid contempt for foreigners.  Bias like this is exactly what we do not want in education. It also strikes me as ironic, as the OP him/herself appears to be a non-native-English speaker.

This is completely wrong. I am a foreigner myself and I made friends with many foreign students. I am not against foreign students but I do not like students (even they are locals) who don't listen, who don't follow rules and ask for exceptions all the time. Their excuse is so stupid that you can tell right away that they are fake. One student told me that he got robbed but the police was too busy to visit his home. Thye would see him on the next day when there was a test. Another student told me that she forgot to bring her purse and had no money to take a bus to school to take a test. Last semester, in one test alone, I got over 10 requests for exceptions. My colleagues told me that some of his students had grandfather/dog dying multiple times and they had to attend funerals instead of going to school to take the test.

I also don't like those who do not study but like to complain to the department head to get higher marks than they deserve. It is a culture in this school. I do not like students telling me that they have paid for my salary and I have grant their endless requests. I do not like students who abuse the use of "human rights".  I also dislike those who made up their version of the stories and posted nasty insulting comments about me on RMP to ruin my reputation. Unfortunately, there are many such students in my CC.

[hamburger]

I work with a biology teacher who is very good and has a very strong will.   She seems well balanced and likes her job.   She lays down strict rules for her nursing students who have a history of trying to walk all over her.  One student  in particular was very problematic, basically offering a long list of excuses to get exceptions to the rules while she was taking advantage of various forms of financial aid.  Two years later I mentioned the problem student in a joking manner and my colleague flatly told me to not bring her name up again since the stress she caused her was so great.

Every semester I get endless requests to change the rules. That is one of the major stress factors. In one class, we gave an exception to two students due to sickness. Then, the majority of the class had health issues throughout the semester and asked for exceptions. In another class, one student had IT issue. Then, the majority of the class had IT issues and asked for exceptions. Colleagues have been telling me that students always try to push around to test how far they can go with their professors at the beginning of the semester. Then, they behave accordingly.