Avoiding giving more than you have to give

Today is boundaries, part 3.  I've previously talked about:

Your problem and my problem, admin style

Your problem and my problem, random students at my uni who are not actually my students style

Today is all about students who are actually my students, by which I mean the ones who are actually in my for-credit classes, like you know the ones that the students actually pay tuition for.  In previous years, I taught mostly freshman English and they will generally do almost anything they possibly can to avoid talking to the foreigner.  However, now that I've moved to the English department, students actually want to talk to me (all the time) and they would suck me dry if they could.  Like until I was literally a pile of bones on the floor, unable to speak or move or think.  I obviously want to avoid this.  Here are my tips:

1. You should give students some of your time and having office hours and meeting with students is actually part of the job of a "professor."  But, try to meet with students only during your set office hours, if at all possible.

2. NEVER make appointments with students in the rushed 3 or 4 minutes before or after class.  Ask them to email you with some possible times.  They usually won't because their urgent request is usually something that is due that evening or early the next morning.  This follows under the category of, "Your last minute problem and stress does not need to become my problem and stress."

3. Have strict due-date deadlines and then a severe penalty for missing it.  Mine is usually: -100%.  Harsh, yes but I plan out my grading times and feel really annoyed about stuff trickling in on student's schedules and not my own.  But, I do give students 2-3 weeks notice of due dates for each assignment so there is no possible last-minute excuse that could work.  And, if submitting stuff via email, I'll usually give students a grace period of 12 hours or so.  Like due at midnight, but I won't enforce a penalty if they submit it to me by the next day when I actually get around to grading it.

4. Grading.  Do NOT get into the habit of re-grading stuff.  I have to grade essays this semester, which can seem quite subjective.  So, when I hand them back, I make a big show of how students can re-submit their essay for grading again, but they could the same score, or higher, or LOWER.  And, I tell them that I won't overlook anything, but will go over it with my red pen looking for every single grammar, vocab and punctuation error that I kindly overlooked the first time.  Number of essays re-submitted for grading this semester:  0/400.

5. Grading: do it quickly.  Like in 2-3 days if at all possible.  Students appreciate it and you won't have it hanging over you causing stress and worried students contacting you all the time.

6. Phone number.  I have given it out in the past, but I haven't this semester.  Students can contact me via email or twitter and I promise to respond within 12 hours.  Phone numbers mean text messages, phone calls and Kakao messages which students expect an instant response to.  There is NEVER an English teaching emergency, hence the lack of need to respond to anything immediately.

7. Take a deep breath.  Your job is actually pretty chill.  So chill out.  

Your problem and my problem

Boundaries.  Strong ones.  This is the key to having a happy, successful and long-lived experience working in education.  There are many areas where you really need boundaries such as saying no sometimes (to people asking for you little favors, or more OT work when you're really busy, etc) or keeping a good balance between work life and home life and not letting a bad class or two get you down.

But today I'm going to talk about "my problem" and "your problem."  I work at my school's Global Zone, where students have to make appointments to meet with me (or others), the native speaker of English.  The slots usually fill up each week and those that try to squeeze in last minute usually won't make it.  And in the 2-3 minutes between appointments, I'll always get 1 or 2 students trying to catch me just to "check something quickly" for them.  Or, when my shift is done and I'm heading to another class, they'll try to stop me.  Or, they'll try to pressure me to end a scheduled appointment early so I can help them for a few minutes.  In these cases, I will always say no.  Their stress does not become my stress.  Why should I rush through a student who made an appointment?  Why should I not get myself a cup of tea and rest my mind for 2 minutes in between appointments?  Why should I be late for my next class?

It's always urgent homework that the student has left to the last minute, which is most definitely the student's problem and  most definitely NOT my problem. Sure, the students get kind of angry but I actually don't really care.  I consider it a life lesson!

My favorite book on this topic:

The Introverted Teacher

Whenever I've done those little tests about personality (Myers-Briggs for example), I've always scored pretty high on the introverted, as opposed the extroverted side of things.  Which means that although I like being around people, large groups of them make me really tired.  Especially large groups of people that I don't know and if I spend time in situations like this, I really just need time alone to recharge and get my energy back.

One of my friends was talking about it in terms of energy credits.  Like you have a certain amount of energy and some people (energy-vampires) or situations suck up large amounts while other times and with other people, it's neutral or very little.  How does this relate to teaching?  Here are a few tips for Introverted Teachers:

1. Relax in class.  You probably cannot be one of those super high-energy teachers like some of your colleagues.  Students don't always need that.  Sometimes they just like to have a chilled-out, relaxed class.  The introverts will certainly appreciate it.

2. Design your class well.  Lots of students interaction time in pairs and groups so you don't have to be "on-stage" all the time.   Limit the lecture time where there's pressure to be funny and entertaining.

3. Think carefully about OT opportunities.  What will suck the life out of you and leave you with nothing and what will be a neutral?  Small groups or 3-4 students are my favorite and what I usually end up doing.  Ditto with things like checking writing, which involve more brain work and less interaction.

4. Boundaries.  Get them and make them strong.  Limit your office hours and even if you're in your office doing work, just lock the door.  If things like "counseling" exhaust you, make it clear that you'll help students with English related stuff, but not other stuff.

5. Life outside of work: schedule in alone time.  Limit social activities during the week.  For example, I know that I will hate my life if I teach 6 hours and then go straight to a dinner with a big group of friends.  I focus my friend energy for the weekend, when I don't teach.

Check out one of my favorite books on this topic:

Boundaries and Teaching and Life

This is kind of a new experience for me since I've started teaching English majors: students who actually want to talk to me outside of class, and come to my office, and go for coffee and be my Facebook friend and work as my TA.  Not that my other students didn't like to talk to me or interact with me, but they were quite often 1st year students who are usually quite shy, and they were also a lot of engineers who often just didn't speak English well enough to have more than a 1-2 minute conversation and the thought of actually coming to my office filled them with horror.

But now.  How to deal with it?  I know that I want to have a life outside of work and actually require it in order to have any semblance of joy and happiness in my life.  But, if I said yes to all requests, I wouldn't and I would quite literally be at work from sun-up to sun-down every single day.  And then that leaves the dilemma.  I actually do want to meet with some students, but how could I say yes to one and not the others without seeming unfair? And if I answered my office door every time someone knocked, I'd truly never be able to get any prep/ grading/ academic publishing (trying to get my Delta paper published in a journal!)/ professional development done.  People knock every 10 minutes or so.  Literally.   And, I actually do teach a significant numbers of hours/week (around 20), with 5 different classes to prepare for each week so my time is not so abundant.

So my solution so far has to be in the Global Zone at my university for 4 hours/week, where the students have to make appointments online to meet with me for a 30 minute slot.  This takes the responsibility for who gets an appointment and who doesn't entirely out of my hands.  And it's very well-defined in terms of time so it's very easy to finish and leave at the end of it.  I like the idea of office hours, but I REALLY don't like the idea of being in my office 1-1 with students.  Stuff like that is dangerous.  Even when leaving the door open.  And, I tell the students that the best way to contact me with any problems or questions is via Twitter or email and that I'll respond within 24 hours. 

Are the students happy?  Not exactly, but I'm kind of okay with not letting my students suck all life out of me.

Check out one of my favorite books about this topic: