Empathy/sympathy/compassion for students

[ZeroFucks]

I'm sorry that I'm starting lots of threads this week. I've been in my lecturing job for nearly a year so I'm coming up the review and thinking about how it's going.

One thing I'm struggling with is having empathy/sympathy/compassion for students. I wasn't expecting this part of the job if I'm honest. I've had no training in the pastoral side of my job yet I seem to have students regularly constantly expecting "emotional labour" from me. This week I had a student crying in my office over how hard a year she's had and how this is catching up with her deadlines approaching. Another student came to see me to ask for advice about her friend being sexually assaulted.

A colleague asdivsed me not to internalise their issues but I'm kind of having the opposite problem. Without wishing to sound crass and terrible and unkind, I don't really care and I don't really see it as my job to support the students with their personal and emotional issues.

That sounds crass and I don't mean it to sound that harsh. Of course I want my students to be happy and healthy and I'm happy to point them in the direction of support services but I feel as though it's crossing a line when they start crying and/or telling me their personal issues.

When they're seeking extensions to deadlines, I get why they'd say what's going on for them and this may cause them to get upset (though having said that, they should be going through the Chair of Examiners, not module leaders or individuals). But they're not always seeking extensions, it's as though they just see it as part of my job to be a listening ear for their unloading. But I don't really see this is part of my job.

Does anyone else find this?
How do you deal with this stuff?

I think part of the problem is that I'm very open and friendly with students but I don't know how to change that as that's the kind of person I am and I also find this pedagogically much more effective.

Sorry this is really long and I sound like a total cow!

I've seen a student (not at my current uni) asking if allowances can be made for their anxiety. Just general allowances not anything specific. On a degree with a professional qualification attached where attendance at all sessions is mandatory, set by the governing body, or they can't qualify. So I'm not sure what they wanted... They have to attend everything and they have to pass everything. 🤷‍♀️

I do worry about the lack of resilience some students have and how they will cope with working life if they find uni so stressful.

Thanks for that article @bibliomania

I'm really glad that others are feeling this too. I don't want to be unsympathetic to students but, at the same time, when they come with these very generalised problems I want to say 'Welcome to adulthood' but I fear a complaint would soon follow.

I don’t think that university academics have anywhere near the same pastoral responsibility as a primary teacher. Fundamentally it is not my job and nor do I intend to make it my job to care about their boyfriend problems or suchlike; if they come with issues like that to me which are indeed masking more serious issues I am in no way trained to get to the bottom of what those issues are, and to be perfectly blunt, I don’t care. I am happy to provide tangible adjustments and help with defined goals but I am not a general listening ear or catch all solution provider for any issue just by virtue of being involved in a course they are taking. Those students need to realise that they are on their way to functioning adults and they can no longer expect everyone else to have the sole purpose in life to support them. The whole point of uni is to learn those survival skills; it’s infantilising them to provide hand holding for every common life event.

It is completely different when talking about PhD students or masters students, who I would have a very different relationship with.

And no one more senior really cares because they are also rolling their eyes at some of the stuff students come up with, and wondering whether they should be at uni at all.

And no one more senior really cares because they are also rolling their eyes at some of the stuff students come up with, and wondering whether they should be at uni at all

This is part of a much larger problem that, for me, is two-fold.

Firstly, universities are just constantly interested in increasing student numbers without much regard for who those students actually are and whether or not they are capable (both academically but also emotionally). This year we have a student who was convinced by our admissions office to give up an apprenticeship as an electrician to come on our course. It was thought that his grades were 'too good' for an electrician's apprentice so he got in on an adjusted offer and he is struggling big time. He's not academically-minded, he's not particularly independent and he won't do well. Yet we're taking £9,000 per year from him. Awful.

The second issue is that as teenagers have become softer (sorry, couldn't think of a better word), I just don't think that 18, straight from school/college is the right time for most of them to be at university. It would make much more sense for them to have a few years working to get some life experience, toughen up a bit and be really driven when they get to university rather than just going because it's what all of their friends did and what the school/college expected them to do.

@MoltoAgitato I completely agree with you. I don't mean to sound heartless but if I wanted to be a counsellor I'd have chosen that route.

@ZeroFucks there are students in their 30s crying about deadlines when they've been out on the lash for the past month on my course. They all blame anxiety for the reasons an extension or a counselling session from a tutor is needed. It's not just the straight out of school brigade. They then get the extension and the course leader looking over their work before they turn it in so they have chance to make changes and get a higher grade. It feels so unfair.

We can't even have debates or opposing opinions in my class. It really isn't what I expected from uni. I wanted it to be harder, I wanted to have my brain stretched. Yes I've learnt from my almost finished degree but I haven't enjoyed being spoon fed and babied. If university's were run for students who had the capability to do the work and finish the course instead of a business I think I would have had a much more enjoyable experience.

Fizzypoo sadly you arfe part of a very quite, inceasoingly vanishing breed. The lack of students like you is why I left the profession. I could just about handle the increasingly control, papework etc. whilst I still had independent thinkers in front of me.

When they vanished - and it seemed to happen over just 2 or 3 years - I could no longer find any joy in the classroom! So, having tried for a year or so too long, I left!

I doubt it will takelong before, as a society, we notice the horrors we have brought upon ourselves.

I can't now remember what I was listengin to but some social commentator said that here in the UK we have engineers with no field experience, no hands on engineering skills managing multi billion pound projects. Enngineers in other countries are still expected to get their hands dirty, solve problems in the field, are paid well to have that knowlegde and experience. It struck a chord as DH is one of the latter and is managed by the former. Though hired because of his decades of specific experience he is overruled by the office based 'engineers' who rely on a computer simulation, he can't apply any fixes in the field as the computer says "I have ever heard of that!" and it costs the company, and us the tax payer, thousands of pounds every time.

He is waiting for retirement... worse, he doesn't bother making suggestions any more. He just nods when they tell him to do something that he knows is impossible, then reports it as a fail when it doesn't work. He chose the work because he is a problem solver...

The current situation is not sustainable at all. My husband works somewhere where students are given individual support plans to pass on to their departments. One of his colleagues has a seminar group where 50% of the students have these ISPs saying that they are too anxious to talk in seminars. Some of them also have needs like having to sit in a particular seat (not because of a physical disability), and the tutor is required to ensure that they get to sit in that seat, but without drawing attention to it. How is anyone supposed to run a discussion-based seminar on this basis?

I actually went on a workshop on student resilience last year. A lot of the theory of it (which, as far as I could tell, was developed by people working with primary school children) involved some sort of traffic light zoning system in which students could be in green, orange or red zones corresponding to their state of comfort or anxiety. The idea seemed to be that students must be kept in the green (comfortable) zone all the time. I pointed out that neither myself nor anyone else in the room would have the jobs that we did if we hadn't put ourselves (at least at one stage) in situations which caused us to be stressed and anxious. I wanted to know how keeping students in the green zone all the time was compatible with the constant pressure to ensure that they end up with well-paid professional jobs that often require long hours, competence in public speaking, etc. Not to mention that the real world and employers would not conspire to ensure that the student would be kept in their "green zone" all the time. Every person on that workshop was at their wits' end with the demands and consumed by sense that we are not doing students any favours at all with this drive to pathologise what is a normal part of life for most people.

@Fizzypoo I know some of the mature students do this too but it's much less common, I find. Generally I think mature students are much more engaged and driven.

I absolutely agree about spoon-feeding. It's not enjoyable for us or for the more engaged students.

I was a post-doc for several years and used to run a module where the assessment was basically 'take something we've discussed in the module and tell me what you think of it'. I'm a social scientist, this was a first year module which introduced students to all sorts of topics in social sciences. So they could write an essay on anything from prisons to IVF. Years ago students used to get really excited about this and we'd have some properly banging work coming in.

While there was always a small number who needed a push/steer, most just got on and did fantastic work. Over the years, more and more students have moaned that this assignment has given them anxiety, more and more have demanded steer/support/direction. At the same time, the scrutiny of the assessment has increased so I've had to pin the assignment down more and more until it's now just basically a list of really dry questions which students have been spoon-fed the answers to in lectures. I just feel like I'm no longer nurturing curiosity or exploration in these students, just coaching them through to a 2:1

I also used to end my lectures with a series of questions for students to go away and think (and read!!) about. The last couple of years of my post-doc, I've had comments in module evaluations saying that they don't like this. But I'm hanging on to it, it's a hill I'm willing to die on!

That's the kind of crap that ruined the job for me! I spent more time working room plans and coping strategies, paperwork that showed I had planned for all of it and making sure I was seen to be doing it by those who wanted to see it whilst it being invisible to everyne and his dog than I did planning my sessions!

There is so very little student resilience... and, as you say, they are kept 'in the green' all the time so never have the option to gain any in a safe space. One of my subjects was psychology.... and still nobody would listen to my questions/observations!

I also used to end my lectures with a series of questions for students to go away and think (and read!!) about. The last couple of years of my post-doc, I've had comments in module evaluations saying that they don't like this. But I'm hanging on to it, it's a hill I'm willing to die on! I lost an aobservation grade because of that! Apparently it is unreasonable of me to expect extra work.... and I should have signposted the information in lecture notes, on the board etc.

I complained... but management thought it was a fair shout!

I am wondering about this perception that students now are more 'snowflaky' than in the past. @ZeroFucks, I'm struck by this you said:

When I did my degree, it seems like all of this stuff was pretty normal and just part of student life but now it seems as though the intention is to shield students as much as possible. I genuinely worry how they'll cope when they finish and are let out into the actual world.

I wonder how much that was you personally (and the people you knew), though? As academics, we represent an atypical minority of former students, don't we? On the whole, we're probably people for whom university was a reasonably good 'fit' - or else we'd be somewhere else doing something else. So we may not be the best placed to reflect on our student experiences and conclude that students in our day were more resilient and less anxious and so on.

Personally, I was a hot mess as a student, and a lot of my students seem much more resilient than I was, so I have some sympathy with them. The problem is, if you're a student who's struggling, you're often isolating yourself from peers, so you may not be very obvious to other students.

I'm sure that's not the whole story, of course, but I think it is part of it. Anyway, back to the topic - I am probably junior to you so take this with a big pinch of salt, but I find responding with something like 'this sounds difficult/sad/upsetting for you' and then 'I am going to tell you what I'm equipped to help you with, and what help you'll be able to get elsewhere'. I think it's useful in setting the tone that this isn't all my responsibility, and it's not because I don't care/am a big meanie, but because I'm just not equipped.

Especially when it's something serious like potential suicide, I think it really matters to keep repeating that you do not have training and you are conscious that untrained advice is dangerous.

@SarahAndQuack Those are really good points, thanks. I take the point that there absolutely probably were students who were struggling but not in the same kind of numbers of we see now. I would say half my current first year module (100 people) has some kind of additional needs, anxiety, reason they can't present or attend or talk in seminars etc. I don't think half the students in my first year had this.

There certainly wasn't the same amount of wrap-around support and spoon-feeding. There were support services around and we were made aware of them but no-one that I knew (and I wasn't just hanging out with the very academically-minded people) would dream of going to a lecturer with personal issues. Moreover, we weren't spoon-fed, we were expected to read widely, engage with uncomfortable material, decipher essay questions alone. There was no virtual learning environment, no electronic slides, no online timetable. We were treated like adults - all the information was available (physically if not electronically!), we had to be mature and organised and make sure we found it. The administrators would help you if you were really stuck but it wasn't rocket science; I can't imagine how today's undergraduates would cope with that!

My experience was different (and maybe more recent; I was at university 2003-7). We had a huge amount of pastoral support - but it was very inefficient and awful! So I think that shapes my perspective a lot. Maybe too much.

But glad if anything I said was useful!

I've been teaching undergraduates for twenty years, and the change has been seismic in terms of their levels of anxiety, lack of resilience, what we can expect from them in terms of seminar preparation, participation, etc.

We had a huge amount of pastoral support - but it was very inefficient and awful! Sadly I suspect much of it is, and always will be. It doesn't seem to be set up for what is actually needed, but was is perceived to be needed.

Which is why academic staff bemoan the increase of 'snowflakes' in their classes. For decades there has been a shift in how the education system supports kids to learn. DSis is at the other end, EYFS, and she is nigh on hysterical at some of the new support structures she has had to put in place over the years. More and more supprt, fewer and fewer stressors.

Every horticulturist will tell you that stressors make plants grow more strongly. All psychologists except educational psychologists (generalisation alert) will tell you the same about people... we need stressors to grow as individuals. We are harming our children at all ages by protecting them from an ever increasing number of stressors.

What I'm really concerned about is how all of this is used to increase our workload, without little or no opposition.

These days for example I'm seeing a lot of Union types on Twitter speaking up against the unreasonable demands that universities impose on us with respect to publications, grant-capture, bureaucracy, etc. Which of course I agree with. But then I see the same types boasting about how they're always available to students, how they provide support above and beyond what's expected of them, how they spent their weekend helping a student with a PG application, etc. Very often, if you dare suggesting that there are issues with this (in terms of inflating expectations, or spoon-feeding - which doesn't make students independent learners does it) you're accused of not caring about students (at best) or being ableist (at worst), etc.

I cannot say it's this bad in my own department but I've seen worrying signs. All in all we're pretty good at not e-mailing on weekends or evenings, not expecting almost immediate replies to e-mail, etc. There's also what I regard as a healthy sceptic attitude towards most aspects of university bureaucracy - like, ok, we need to put together a REF submission but let's not get too caught up in this and let's navigate the process as healthily as we can. This is not at all the case when it comes to even the mildest discomfort about students. Everything has to be taken seriously and at face value, and dealt with immediately. I once posted an assignment brief to the course portal then went for lunch. When I came back (less than 45 minutes later) I had an e-mail from my head of department, that a student complaint had been received that there wasn't enough time to complete the assignment before the due date (this bearing in mind that a calendar had been posted at the beginning of the semester with all relevant dates; in fact, I posted the assignment brief a few days before I had to, so if anything students were advantaged).

So I feel we're moving away from the stereotype of the committed academic (almost always male) who spends 80 hours per week in the lab or archive, to the stereotype of the commited academic (almost always female funnily enough) who spends 80 hours per week making life easier for her students, providing emotional support and responding to their every whim... I don't think this is good.

the change has been seismic Good way of describing it...

My workload is unreal at the moment. Got to my desk for 6.45 am today, same as yesterday and won't leave until after 6pm. Currently snatching a 10 min break b4 afternoon teaching. I've had 16 emails from different students within the space of 10 mins this morning. Had to put out a BB announcement telling them to stop and pointed out they're seeing me this afternoon and we will be discussing the issue.