Tag: mental health

Miss Manners on College Deadlines

Jonathan Wilson1 Comment

A few days ago, Miss Manners (Judith Martin, Nicholas Martin, and Jacobina Martin) fielded an AITA-style question from a reader who teaches college. It was a doozy.

The reader complained đź•›:

First, the students have been unmotivated, coming to class unprepared (if at all). … What really gets me, however, is their constant stream of emails: ‘I wasn’t feeling it, so I didn’t come to class today, sorry.’ ‘I needed a mental health day so I skipped our discussion.’ ‘I was too hung over, so I slept in this morning instead of coming to class.’

Finally there was this one: ‘I’ve been in a funk all weekend so I didn’t manage to do the assignment on time, but can I still turn it in?’ This email is the subject of my second issue.

This student has known about this short assignment since the first day of class, 14 weeks ago, thanks to the syllabus. She was not doing well in class even before this incident. But when I complained about this email, some of my fellow instructors pushed back and said I should have offered her information about counseling services. (That information is also in the syllabus, and available through many other means around campus.)

I suggested that it was assuming too much on my part, and that a ‘funk’ is not a serious condition—it sounds to me like a pity party being held by a freshman experiencing her first finals week. …

What I found rude was my colleagues’ pushing so hard against me. I’ve spent an entire semester with this student, and I’ve already made many accommodations for her, despite my displeasure at the excuse-making.

Miss Manners was not having it—neither the criticism from the instructor’s colleagues nor the poor email etiquette of the students.

“And what has [your flexibility] taught them?” she asked, rhetorically. “Your concern,” she continued, “should not be whether your students come to class but whether they master the material and fulfill the assignments. Unless they are exhibiting bizarre behavior that should be reported to mental health experts, the rest of their lives are not your business.”

She complained, though, that “sadly, you may not have the support of the university in grading students according to their achievements or failures to perform.”

As you might imagine, I have thoughts.

But my thoughts are complicated.

Continue reading “Miss Manners on College Deadlines” →

Dial 988 for Help

Jonathan Wilson
Blue-and-white logo for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

I’m excited about this development, which (so far) seems to have gotten less publicity than one might expect. Starting today, 988 is a new nationwide telephone number for free mental health crisis support in the United States.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK) has been rebranded as the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can reach your nearest crisis center by calling or texting the new three-digit number, 24 hours a day. You don’t have to be thinking about suicide to use this service, and you can call if you’re trying to help someone else, too.

The lifeline fielded 2.6 million calls in 2021.

Update: Some activists have pointed out that 988 operators may sometimes send emergency services—including police officers—to a caller’s location against their wishes. Perversely, this practice may itself endanger lives, trigger mental health crises, and result in involuntary confinement or criminalization of people seeking help.

From what I can tell, the 988 system, unlike 911, does not yet have access to precise geolocation technology. However, the 988 Lifeline’s FAQ says that “currently, a small percentage of Lifeline calls require activation of the 911 system when there is imminent risk to someone’s life that cannot be reduced during the Lifeline call. In these cases, the crisis counselor shares information with 911 that is crucial to saving the caller’s life. … Currently, fewer than 2% of Lifeline calls require connection to emergency services like 911.”

Sadly, this may be important information for using the 988 Lifeline safely.

The Snowflake Myth

Jonathan Wilson

 

snow-cotton-marywood

Today, Vox published my first-person essay about safe spaces and trigger warnings. There’s a lot more to say—including some things that were actually in the longer draft. But I think what I wrote is a pretty good encapsulation of the reasons that I (and a lot of other American college instructors) find the current public discussion of these topics to be misdirected.

Here’s what I see as the heart of the matter:

None of them asked for a trigger warning. None asked for a safe space. If they had, they would not have been avoiding ideas. All my students have ever requested is a way to keep engaging with the content — all the content — of my courses, in spite of setbacks. In other words, they want to finish the work they started.  …

Whether the debate over trigger warnings involves criticism within the academy or attacks from outside, it has contributed to popular clichés and ideological grudges that have little to do with what most students learn. Its stereotypes about students are mostly slander. Worse still, it promotes cynicism and closes minds.