Topic: Bang Your Head on Your Desk - the thread of teaching despair!

[fishbrains]

All I am going to say is that if you meet the following criteria

• You are an uncle
• You live in Georgia
• Your niece or nephew is in one my classes

then you are a dead man walking. On a positive note: Grandmothers, and aunts in Alabama, seem to be surviving quite well this semester.

[EdnaMode]

All I am going to say is that if you meet the following criteria

• You are an uncle
• You live in Georgia
• Your niece or nephew is in one my classes

then you are a dead man walking. On a positive note: Grandmothers, and aunts in Alabama, seem to be surviving quite well this semester.

It seems to be spreading north. My first exam killed a grandma, a grandpa, and caused an unspecified "family emergency."

[Aster]

With the U.S. continuing into Stage III of the Demographic Transition, we will be seeing steadily increasing numbers of "old person - linked" student absenteeism/tardiness/non-completion. 

This will not affect individual mortality. A person can only expire once.

[Juvenal]

With the U.S. continuing into Stage III of the Demographic Transition, we will be seeing steadily increasing numbers of "old person - linked" student absenteeism/tardiness/non-completion. 

This will not affect individual mortality. A person can only expire once.

There is, if one looks at death from another perspective  It is possible to "die" twice.

Once, of course, is the traditional death: vigil, wake, flowers, service, burial/cremation, stone or tablet.

Then there's the other: "One is not truly dead until there is no one alive who remembers you."  I sort of go with that.

[mamselle]

The valiant taste of death but once. -S.

M.

[marshwiggle]

"You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face"
-Ian Fleming

(To die twice, you should logically have to live twice first.)

[RatGuy]

If this year is any indication, concussions and best-friend suicides are the new dead grandmothers.

[downer]

If this year is any indication, concussions and best-friend suicides are the new dead grandmothers.

I would probably come down hard on a student if I found they lied about a suicide. It would really bother me.

[Aster]

The sheer number of recent military veterans with mental health problems is staggering. Virtually all of my classes have military veterans in them, and often they are the better students (or at least average). But over the last 3-4 years I am losing quite a few from excessive class absences. Those students are serving as caregivers to other military veterans with severe mental trauma. They literally have to drop everything when their friends are put on suicide watch, get sent into rehab, are hospitalized, etc...

I currently have one student who keeps missing classes because one of his friends recently killed himself, and another of his friends is in hospice care with no family support. He will unfortunately not be completing his courses with me as he is far too behind in his work.

Was it always this bad serving in the U.S. military? Or getting discharged from the U.S. military?

[mamselle]

A friend of mine is a founding chaplain of Wounded Warriors.

It's becoming more possible to be more open about difficult issues as such groups expand their ministry; they may be able to comment on the patterns or levels of difficulty as they have unfolded over time, and whether the experiences have increased, or simply an increased level of reportage has made it more publicly apparent.

They are also available to help those in need of getting services, finding counseling, etc.

   https://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/?utm_expid=.YZjiD6riSxaXpkYaPbpn5A.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

If someone you know needs a direct contact, PM me.

M.

[ciao_yall]

The sheer number of recent military veterans with mental health problems is staggering. Virtually all of my classes have military veterans in them, and often they are the better students (or at least average). But over the last 3-4 years I am losing quite a few from excessive class absences. Those students are serving as caregivers to other military veterans with severe mental trauma. They literally have to drop everything when their friends are put on suicide watch, get sent into rehab, are hospitalized, etc...

I currently have one student who keeps missing classes because one of his friends recently killed himself, and another of his friends is in hospice care with no family support. He will unfortunately not be completing his courses with me as he is far too behind in his work.

Was it always this bad serving in the U.S. military? Or getting discharged from the U.S. military?

Yes but alcoholism and wife-beating were considered socially acceptable outlets for mental trauma caused by war.

[Caracal]

If this year is any indication, concussions and best-friend suicides are the new dead grandmothers.

I would probably come down hard on a student if I found they lied about a suicide. It would really bother me.

I'm always confused about the skepticism. I have uncles. At the moment, they are all fine, as far as I know, but someday, they won't be. And when that happens, I might have to cancel class to go to a funeral. People, unfortunately, do commit suicide, and die of drug overdoses. Some of those people might be close to my students. Students also have concussions, especially if they play sports, and they tend to get diagnosed more now, and taken more seriously.

Perhaps, it helps that I'm always flexible about due dates and have an attendance policy that doesn't distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. It leaves me free to believe what my students tell me, which seems like a better way to go through life.

[ciao_yall]

If this year is any indication, concussions and best-friend suicides are the new dead grandmothers.

I would probably come down hard on a student if I found they lied about a suicide. It would really bother me.

I'm always confused about the skepticism. I have uncles. At the moment, they are all fine, as far as I know, but someday, they won't be. And when that happens, I might have to cancel class to go to a funeral. People, unfortunately, do commit suicide, and die of drug overdoses. Some of those people might be close to my students. Students also have concussions, especially if they play sports, and they tend to get diagnosed more now, and taken more seriously.

Perhaps, it helps that I'm always flexible about due dates and have an attendance policy that doesn't distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. It leaves me free to believe what my students tell me, which seems like a better way to go through life.

So I don't have any rules about absences or attendance. Just do the work and if you can't make it to class one day, that's your business. However, they do choose let me know what's going on if there is something big in their lives.

One day I noticed that it was my low-income students of color who tended to have aunts, uncles, and parents die. Statistically it makes sense as demographically that group has lower life expectancy so a 20 year-old student is more likely to have a 40-50-something parent.

[RatGuy]

If this year is any indication, concussions and best-friend suicides are the new dead grandmothers.

I would probably come down hard on a student if I found they lied about a suicide. It would really bother me.

I'm always confused about the skepticism. I have uncles. At the moment, they are all fine, as far as I know, but someday, they won't be. And when that happens, I might have to cancel class to go to a funeral. People, unfortunately, do commit suicide, and die of drug overdoses. Some of those people might be close to my students. Students also have concussions, especially if they play sports, and they tend to get diagnosed more now, and taken more seriously.

Perhaps, it helps that I'm always flexible about due dates and have an attendance policy that doesn't distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. It leaves me free to believe what my students tell me, which seems like a better way to go through life.

I'm not saying that I'm always skeptical when students give me such excuses. I do think that low-performing students with a history of spotty attendance and shoddy work tend to fall back on "excuses" that have the strong emotional component: death in the family, debilitating injury, etc. Those students used to use "dead grandma" as an excuse. Now, I think it's concussions. So the student who didn't turn in Scaffolding Assignment 1 because they had to rush their friend to the hospital, and didn't take Midterm Exam because of their childhood best friend killed themselves (requiring a flight home), now wants a three-week extension on Major Writing Project because of a concussion. It's usually at this point that I tell them a medical or hardship withdrawal might be appropriate, given that they've turned in zero major work in 8 weeks.

[Caracal]

If this year is any indication, concussions and best-friend suicides are the new dead grandmothers.

I would probably come down hard on a student if I found they lied about a suicide. It would really bother me.

I'm always confused about the skepticism. I have uncles. At the moment, they are all fine, as far as I know, but someday, they won't be. And when that happens, I might have to cancel class to go to a funeral. People, unfortunately, do commit suicide, and die of drug overdoses. Some of those people might be close to my students. Students also have concussions, especially if they play sports, and they tend to get diagnosed more now, and taken more seriously.

Perhaps, it helps that I'm always flexible about due dates and have an attendance policy that doesn't distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. It leaves me free to believe what my students tell me, which seems like a better way to go through life.

I'm not saying that I'm always skeptical when students give me such excuses. I do think that low-performing students with a history of spotty attendance and shoddy work tend to fall back on "excuses" that have the strong emotional component: death in the family, debilitating injury, etc. Those students used to use "dead grandma" as an excuse. Now, I think it's concussions. So the student who didn't turn in Scaffolding Assignment 1 because they had to rush their friend to the hospital, and didn't take Midterm Exam because of their childhood best friend killed themselves (requiring a flight home), now wants a three-week extension on Major Writing Project because of a concussion. It's usually at this point that I tell them a medical or hardship withdrawal might be appropriate, given that they've turned in zero major work in 8 weeks.

Yeah, I've obviously had those students too. Most of the time I doubt that they are actually lying. It is just that they are easily derailed and I suspect they are making excuses to themselves as well as me. Sometimes this is about attitude. Other times, it might have more to do with the structure around them.