Not quite so reciprocal respect

All kinds of people probably don't think much of me and I honestly don't give them any thought. I generally don't think much of them if they have poor enough taste to dislike me. When I was younger I wasn't always the greatest judge of character and would sometimes like someone who didn't really like me. Either they made fun of me of just generally didn't care about me. When you're little, you want to be everyone's friend and not everyone wants to be friends back. But it's been years since I made that mistake. Really it's been a long time. I'm generally quite a good judge of character. I can only think of one or two instances like this one in the past 5 years. But I think I'm being misleading about this, or possibly coming at it from the wrong tact. I don't know that this has to do so much with me being a bad judge of character, as it does me judging someone to be worthy of respect and that person thinking very little of me. Now that is an instance that has not happened in a long while. Probably not since high school. My teachers didn't really care for me. I was pretty arrogant and probably pretty annoying. But I did like them and respect them, and it was a bit of a blow when I realized they didn't particularly like me. All throughout college a similar situation did not arise. All the professors I respected respected me back. The ones I thought little of I didn't interact with much. I guess I feel extra bad right now because I respect this professor so much, more than any of my other professors. She is the most professional and accomplished person I have ever met. She's exceptionally competent and is able to handle more than most people I've met (such as teaching a class as she deals with a newborn, and managing to teach it better than any other teacher I've had). She's as strong as steel, and I'm beginning to think she's about as compassionate. Last semester, I was offended when Alan gave me an A-, but as soon as Norma gave me an A-, not only did I accept her grade, but his as well. I figured that if she felt that was the grade I earned, then so be it. I took it to mean that I truly was not quite up to par. It didn't upset me much. Actually, I found it relieving since I no longer felt that Alan had something against me. And receiving an A- was fine by me. The grade was only a point of pride and nothing more.

So I ended last semester continuing to hold Norma in high esteem. I believe that perhaps I still do, but as I continue to write, my opinion of her lowers. Thus I shall continue to write. It will make me feel better to find fault in her so that someone I respect doesn't think I'm scum. I don't think I can change her opinion of me, but changing my opinion of her will rectify the situation just as easily.

So I might as well get to the actual situation that's made me so upset. I went to a colloquium today that Norma moderates. The talk was posted to go until 530. I had house meeting at 6, so that gave me plenty of time to walk home, prepare a few notes, and be in the dinner line by 550. There wasn't a lot of wiggle room, but there was enough. The talk was kinda dull. Not terrible, but not great either. It was about museum tours and how they are in some respects lacking. So when 530 hit and the speaker was still in the middle of her q&a session, I felt no guilt about leaving. It was time and I did have somewhere to be. Yes, I could have stuck around another few minutes, but a few minutes was all. So when I saw other people leaving, I left too. Norma, superwoman that she is, made a note of each person who left early and just sent us all an email chastising us for leaving early. That made me unhappy because I didn't want to disappoint her, but it didn't really make me upset until I realized she had cc-ed all my advisors. Her chastising us was understandable. As moderator, it is her job to ensure that the speaker is shown proper respect. Naturally she was displeased by people leaving early and tried to nip that in the bud early by indicating that that would not be tolerated. Perhaps she only cc-ed our advisors in an attempt to coerce us to stay until the speaker was done, thinking that an email to us alone wouldn't do the trick. Or was it just that she wanted our advisors to know exactly what we had done and exactly what she thought of us. Honestly I don't care that my advisor Dan knows. He probably doesn't even care, though I imagine he'd frown upon me if it happened too often. So many people in the MACSMEs openly joke about all the class they ditch in front of him and he just sorta smiles. He's pretty laid back, so her action probably didn't have the effect she intended/hoped for. It's just the fact of what she tried to accomplish that hurts so much. This goes beyond trying to accomplish her goal. She could have accomplished her goal just by sending me an email. That's all it would have taken to ensure I never left early again. I respect her a lot and her sounding even a little angry would be enough for me to fall all over myself trying to make sure she wasn't angry again. But perhaps she didn't realize that. I don't know. Whether she realized it or not, I find it hard to believe that she wasn't trying to punish us. Yes, she cared about getting us to respect the speaker, but she wanted to punish us as well. For me, accomplishing my goal is enough. She had accomplished her goal, but she took it farther. I have never had a teacher call home about me. A principal, yes. A teacher, no. A principal you don't debate with. A principal you don't know on a personal level. I suppose that makes this a good experience, since it probably feels like calling home might to a high school student and gives me some first hand experience. Calling home is a big deal. It should be a last resort, only used if no other methods can convince a child to behave.

But her deciding to punish us unnecessarily isn't really what's bothering me, though it certainly adds to the whole situation. I guess it's her disdain. Was I that unreasonable to leave early? I wasn't even leaving early. The talk went over. I've had a long history of teachers who get very upset over what seems to me to be a trivial offense. It took me a while to figure out that my teachers in high school didn't particularly like me. They weren't going to gloss over something I did if they felt they could nail me on it. Some students got away with a lot. They were just more likely to let things slide for some people. The inequity is also upsetting, but that's not what's really getting to me either. I think part of it is how violently she reacts to anything less than perfection. She's not understanding of shortcomings. More than that, she's incredibly disdainful of them. I can't imagine that many people seriously live up to her standards. Honestly, my offense was a minor one. All my offenses have been minor ones. There was one time that I was supposed to lead the class in a discussion last semester when she wasn't there. The speaker stayed more than a half hour longer than she was supposed to and left me with almost no time to do as Norma had asked. I tried to get something started, but people didn't really listen and most of them left early. When she demanded results about a month later in the semester, I confessed that I had nothing to give her. I explained the situation and apologized. There was nothing harsh in the tone of her email, nor did she treat me any differently in class, but I couldn't help but feel that I'd failed in some way and didn't live up to expectations. That's how I feel today and I feel it with a vengeance. Not only did I fail to meet the expectations of someone I respect, but I made her angry, angry enough to lash out and inform my advisors.

Though I really have to step back and evaluate exactly what I did wrong. I don't think I did something so wrong to merit such a reaction. She clearly does. I have gotten in the habit of deferring to her since she's so competent and together, but I think this is a situation where I should not. Aside from the fact that it hurts a lot to think she was justified, I have to trust in my own opinion and judge for myself if I think that what I did was wrong.

Yes, I was rude. A professor visiting from out of the country was here talking about what has been her focus for years of her life. She was speaking as a favor to Norma. I am sure she could have imagined better things to do with that portion of her life. Seeing so many people leave at the first possible instant was probably insulting and Norma was understandably upset by it. It was a reflection on her if nothing else. At this point I'm just guessing, but I imagine she worked as hard earning her PhD as she does now that she has it. She worked her fingers to the bone and noticed her peers not working nearly as hard around her. I can tell who the superstars of the school of education are as early as their first year. I'm sure she was one of them. She worked hard because she was driven and she was strong. And she was smart enough to realize that her peers weren't working nearly as hard as her. She has gone on to do great things. She got her PhD and found a position at Berkeley, not an easy school to become a professor at. There are far more PhD students than there are positions for them, so she probably saw many of her peers who hadn't worked as hard wind up in mediocre universities or fail to find work in academia altogether. She may have been friends with some of them, but I doubt she had a great deal of respect for them. She saw how they cut corners, left their work until the last minute, and scraped by. This is not to say they weren't very talented, qualified individuals. To get into a PhD program, you have to be. But they weren't up to her standards. I have to admit, I felt the same way at first. I worked hard to get into Berkeley and my peers didn't strike me as terribly impressive at first. I was almost not let in because I didn't have enough of a math background, so I expected to see peers as good at math as the people I had taken abstract algebra with over the summer. It turned out that I was one of the more accomplished in terms of math. It is a little embittering to know I have to take real analysis this summer when some of my peers haven't even taken that class. Perhaps now I am reading too much into things, but maybe Norma had to struggle to gain admittance to her program where she excelled far beyond her peers. I was slightly resentful of my peers before, though I am not anymore. They're all nice, competent people. They know enough for what they need to do and they have a fair amount of teaching skills. They're nice people and they'll do just fine as teachers. Some of them may even be excellent teachers, but it's too early to tell now when they're only student teachers who haven't had a taste of their own classroom. But now back to the leap I made before about Norma struggling to gain admittance. I have no reason to believe that. Really none. But I do imagine that her life has been hard. She every so often mentions certain things she has overcome which seem incredibly difficult to me. Her 5 month old son hit his head a few months ago and needed to be hospitalized. If he had had such an injury when he was older, he'd have some pretty severe brain damage. Since he's still an infant and his brain is very plastic, he should have no lasting side effects. Norma missed one day of class when this happened. She hasn't been able to chew properly for years due to issues with her wisdom teeth which she's finally gotten out and she turned down most medications since she's still breast feeding and any painkillers would get into her baby's system. She's raising a baby and maintaining her career. Many career oriented women are not able to sustain both. And moreover, she didn't have to be the one to get pregnant to have a kid. She's in a same sex relationship (which illustrates another challenge she's faced since it's not easy being gay), so presumably either could have gotten pregnant. Norma has had to face far more challenges than most of her peers (I imagine) and yet she still excels beyond most of them. If I worked that hard, I might not be very tolerant of laziness, which is exactly what leaving early must have looked like to her. We were not even able to stay the extra five or ten minutes to show this woman the respect she deserved. We reflected poorly on her because of it. She got angry and responded in a vindictive way. It was too much. Excellence often has its price, and sometimes that price is perspective. Considering how hard she works and how much she's overcome, I could believe she doesn't have much tolerance for the majority of the world, the people who don't work as hard as her. I doubt she intended to cause as much turmoil with me as she did. She probably didn't even realize her words and actions could have such an effect. But she's been too busy achieving. When you value one thing so much (as you must to really succeed at your research), you lose track of a lot of other things. Sigh. I have a tendency to glorify teachers. I don't see them as real people sometimes. I don't notice the ways in which they can be petty or small minded. I guess teachers have a potential to upset me more than just about anybody else because I don't see their flaws and when those come to light, I get blindsided. It will be nice when I am no longer in school and I can be a teacher myself. I hope I'm more cautious about those sorts of things. I may have made this same exact mistake with Rosh'janae (I mentioned her in another blog- the girl who got upset when I said she had energy). It doesn't take much for someone with faith in teachers to get disillusioned. Teachers really aren't so special. Many of them are just people who love to be right. There's a reason so many people dislike junior high. They're old enough to question you, but not old enough to be smart and civil about it. The third grade teacher I helped out last year was definitely sure of herself. She spoke with an air of certainty. Once I had a bit of a brain fart when helping one of the students and I misspelled "their." I switched the i and the e. And the kid who had originally spelled it right and I had just "corrected" just changed it. He didn't question it at all. It felt like she had cowed them. She had her routine down all right. It helps of course that they were third graders instead of older students. I fear a lot of teachers go into elementary school because they don't want to be contradicted. I was very lucky. I had remarkably few of those sorts of teachers. The principal of my grade school had a knack for noticing teachers who really loved their work. It was a terrible shame when she started going senile. Her newest hires just got worse and worse and my last few years at the school under some of the new guard were not terribly great.

But I'm getting pretty sleepy now. It's time to wrap up the rambling and conclude. Yes, I made a mistake, but Norma was out of line. She may be a compassionate person; she may not. But her standards are extremely high and her tolerance for people who do not meet those standards is frighteningly low. When a few students didn't even meet her lowest standards (staying until the end), it stands to reason that she'd overreact. And she did overreact. I don't feel as bad now as I did. It helps to understand things a little better. Of course, I'm just guessing, but I have a hunch that I'm right about at least a portion of it. Now it's 2:40 and I have to wake up in less than 6 hours, so I'm going to sleep.