A few words on what does and does not constitute an attitude problem.
I’m currently teaching a class one night a week at a local college. There is a broad range of ages, backgrounds and desire to work amongst my 8 5 students (3 have dropped over the semester, I blame the economy and Somalian pirates, not myself). I recently had a chat with one of my brightest students who just so happens to also be my least motivated and least productive student. I asked him what was up with his lack of effort thus far.
He told me not to worry, that it wasn’t my fault, and that he simply had an attitude problem. Really?
In my limited experience, students with sincere attitude problems generally exhibit the same characteristics: rudeness, lack of confidence, inability to understand themselves, etc. And they typically are completely convinced the authority figure in their lives (in this case me) is out to get them.
So it seems to me that if you have enough insight into who you are as a person, and are aware of your so called “attitude problem”, claiming you suffer from an attitude problem is ridiculous. And it seems to me that if you are polite enough to attempt to spare a teacher’s confidence by reassuring him he’s doing a good job, an attitude problem is far from the cause of your lack of productivity. The real problem, simply put, is that you just don’t want to work. In which case, that’s not a problem of attitude, it’s a problem of lazyness. And that’s normal. Attitude problems are difficult to move past. Lazyness problems can be easily overcome; it’s called delegating and it’s how you become an elected official.
Advice:
People with attitude problems are generally dickheads, not polite, amazingly introspective human beings. So don’t falsely claim an attitude problem when lazyness is the real reason you’re sucking it up in class.
And if you really do have an attitude problem, put on your dickhead hat and give it all you’ve got. If there’s one thing a teacher hates, it’s doing something half-assed.
The HA Guy
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