...to Wonder Why My College Students Aren't Trying to Impress Me

On the first day of my freshman writing class, we all share things we think distinguish us from other people. I start the ball rolling by showing them the pebbles I swiped from Bruce Springsteen’s driveway 25 years ago (sorry, Bruce!), and by the time we get around the room, we have learned that one student was born with an extra thumb on each hand, another can curl his tongue into a four-leaf clover (he demonstrates proudly), and another can touch his elbow with his tongue (he demonstrates as well). When I read their first writing assignment, a memoir, I learn about a student’s first drunken night of debauchery, another’s experience of a car accident caused by her friend’s reckless driving, and yet another sensitive soul’s first night of intimacy with a new lover. I don’t mind. After teaching English for 12 years, I know that my job more closely resembles tending bar at the neighbor tavern than most people would think. 



All of this sharing early in the semester helps to establish rapport and relationships among the students. I’d like to think my classroom feels comfortable and welcoming to students. I call on students by name; I draw attention to mistakes I make lest they think I think I’m omniscient (like many professors I have suffered through), which helps me to get a laugh almost every class period; and I never suggest a revision of a student’s writing without publicly praising something about it first.



The mood turns decidedly sullen when I ask them to demonstrate their intellectual abilities. A request to summarize a short reading assignment may elicit one or two reluctant volunteers, as the rest of the class sighs in relief that they will not have to fulfill this apparently daunting task. An opportunity to share their revisions of a sentence based on a newly learned writing technique brings only downcast eyes, shrugs, and maybe a cricket chirp or two. More often than I care to tally, in response to a request to share an assigned writing task, a student will unabashedly say, "I don't have any ideas for that," or simply "No."

No?! I didn't even think that was an option.

Based on their early semester participation in our rapport-building activities, I know these students do not suffer from shyness. Many of their essays indicate that they are neither slow nor dim-witted. On the contrary, they are ambitious and earnest in their belief that if they earn good grades they will land plum jobs in their fields and be secure for the rest of their lives. They proudly admit that they feel lucky to be members of this university’s class of 2015 because they have dreamt of being here since they were small children.



The Italian Mama wonders about this puzzling contradiction: my students feel no compunction about demonstrating odd physical contortions or writing a memoir about the first time they got dangerously drunk on a camping trip, but when I give them the opportunity to demonstrate how smart they are, they punt.



The Italian Mama labors under no delusions that her students sit in rapt attention, hanging on her every word of sage advice, eager to practice a new writing technique. The fact remains, however, that no matter what they think about me or the class, I will be assigning their grades at the end of the semester. Given their ambitions for those made-to-order jobs, the Italian Mama would think that students would bribe me to call on them during class so they could impress me (and their classmates) with their earnest efforts, their humor, even their boldness in offering an unorthodox approach to an assignment. So often, what impresses me is an unmitigated apathy that is hard to ignore when it comes time to hand out final grades.

Why are my students not trying to impress me?