DisruptEDU

HOW RUDE!

Hi there. Welcome to my first attempt at blogging. If you’re already rolling your eyes – bye, Felicia. This isn’t the place for you. We’re kind here.

I swore that I wasn’t going to do this for SO many reasons. The main two being that I have NO IDEA what I’m doing, and I have precious spare time.

And yet…

The topic of disruptive behavior is near and dear to most educators, no matter what they are calling it. It’s the villain of education; ravaging our relationships with students and each other; sucking every last drop of joy from the workday; stealing our passion; hurting our minds, bodies, and hearts; and driving many right out of the workforce.

Still with me? I didn’t promise this was going to be pretty. I promised to be kind, and being honest about an ugly problem won’t be – I’m not a lipstick-on-a-pig type of person. So, if you’re easily offended by honest discussion, you’ve been warned.

Those who know me best also know that while I get easily frustrated with rambling, I also like to tell a good story. Especially about teachable moments. Which brings me back to why I’m here.

I said I had no free time, didn’t I? Well, precious little. “Same diff” as those of a certain generation used to say. When you are an educator, your free time is valuable. When you are an educator AND a student, it’s practically a unicorn. Or a UFO. Whatever floats your boat. My point is, you’ve got a better chance of winning the lottery after a close brush with a meteorite than finding eight hours to set aside for anything other than homework.

Now, imagine you’re said teacher/student. Your weekends are usually devoted to homework (yes, yes, you have ALL the fun!), but you’re also the advisor of a student organization, and you’ve set aside this said precious time to attend an event on a Saturday. As you have less than two weeks left to prepare your capstone presentation (and of course the final paper for the other class), this is a bit of a stretch. But you’ve planned, and you’ve committed, so you get up early and drive through nasty fog and rain for 40 minutes to be there (there’s a point, stay with me).

And here it is: 21 students registered for this event in advance. Three have reached out to say they can’t make it. Only one bothers to provide a reason. But still, 18 is a decent turnout. And yet…

ONLY THREE STUDENTS SHOW UP. Well, technically four. One shows up 30 minutes before the event is over and makes sure to rush around the room to enter all the raffles and get the good swag from the vendors. *Sigh.*

And there I am. Sitting at the table, with the people from the state organization who busted their asses to put this event together. Cringing when they do roll call and students from all the other schools cheer and yell, and they call out our school’s name and…crickets. Did I want to crawl under the table? Leave? Cry? Immediately compose a scathing e-mail? Yes. All of the above, and then some. What did I do? I sat there, apologized, clenched my jaw, and supported the students that DID show. Including the last-minute-Larry, who, as it turned out, had overcommitted and hauled her butt to the event after volunteering at another. Because you know what? She showed up.

What was the first word that came to mind for you when you read this? The one that I thought of and heard from the kind folk that sponsored the event, was “rude.”

HOW RUDE! Right? Did they not understand the time and money spent organizing this event? That they wasted resources? That they wasted food – breakfast and lunch for 15 people, at a time when so many people are struggling to buy groceries? That they should have at least had the common decency to SHOW UP for something they committed to, or at least not completely ghosted their advisor?

Once I came home, after unloading the whole miserable scenario on my husband (wine at the ready, not his first rodeo), I thought about it. Should they? Yes. Do they? Maybe not. And stop yelling at your device, I’m not making excuses – trust me.

“Rude” is the first word that pops up in the video to describe disruptive behavior. Being the nerd that I am, I visited my friends at Merriam Webster to check out the definition:

• Being in a rough or unfinished state (synonyms: primitive, undeveloped)
• Lacking refinement or delicacy (synonyms: ignorant, unlearned, discourteous, uncivilized, savage)
• Marked by or suggestive of lack of training or skill: inexperienced.

While I can’t begin to describe my love of the word “savage” to describe rude behavior, there’s a theme here. Yes, of course “uncivil” makes an appearance. But that’s not my point. There’s a lot of other “un” words in there to unpack: Undeveloped, unrefined, unknowing, untrained, unexperienced.

While my first instinct was to send them an email that would make a Howler look like a love note (sorry, Muggles), I had to remind myself that they may have NO IDEA how rude their behavior was. That because it’s not tied to a grade, it’s not “important.” That, for most, their frontal lobes aren’t even fully formed yet. True story, but this is a blog, I’m not adding references – look it up if you don’t believe me. They’re not fully cooked until at least 25.

What’s a completely annoyed educator to do? What we do best.

Will sending a scathing email with the sole intent to make them feel bad about themselves be worth it? For me, maybe. For a hot second. But what will it accomplish? Will they see the error of their ways and change their behavior? HAHAHA. Nope. If they really don’t understand why their behavior was so upsetting, all this will do is make them embarrassed, confused, or angry. I can practically hear “wow, Professor Adams is a bit#$” from here. And they wouldn’t be wrong.

I will still send the email. But I’ll use it as a teachable moment. About honoring commitments. About communication. About not letting people down. I will ask them to put themselves in my shoes for a moment. And I will hope that it gets across.

Because that’s how we SHOULD be doing it. Meeting them were they are and leading by example.

~Jaymi