It happens every semester - you would think I would be used to it by now.
Students irate when I do my job. Specifically, when I inform them via a grade and comments that their assignment wasn’t actually amazing.
“I always get A’s on my papers.” “Your instructions were not good.” “I am an A student.” “My other professors give me A’s on my papers.” Repeat.
It is hard to hear Unflattering Truth.
I so get it. Truly I do.
If “I am a 4.0 student” understands unflattering feedback as truth, how can he maintain his personal narrative — his very identity — about himself as a student?
He can’t.
And that leaves two options:
It is the professor’s fault (WTH does she know?!); OR,
I have things to learn.
One might say that presence at a university assumes one knows there are things to learn, but apparently not.
Therefore, Option #1 is the logical choice (!).
Huh.
Humans are so interesting.
And now, Dear Reader, please make a slight substitution — after all, this is a blog about Life — with Dogs.
When a dog does not provide the feedback that we are an amazingly awesome trainer/handler/person/everything by turning in an A+ performance, we have two options:
It is the dog’s fault; OR,
I have things to learn.
Yep.
The dog’s performance is your grade as a trainer/handler.
Blame the dog and you never get better.
(Important and Relevant Note: Consider bad grades and other human misadventures as evidence that you have not yet died and therefore are still an imperfect human being living on earth with similarly imperfect human beings [and really amazing dogs]. Given that it was just the 36th Anniversary of my mom’s untimely death at age 45 — allow me to say this about that: Lucky Imperfect You!).
There are, of course, other ways to get a desired grade.
A few years back one student decided the way to get a good grade was to buy a paper from an internet site and submit it as her own — in my ETHICS CLASS.
That did not go well.
Sometimes cheating does result in a good grade on an assignment or canine performance. But then you have to live with the knowledge that you are a fraud, an imposter — and basically just a lousy human being.
But change is possible!
Don’t despair!
You — the collective you including me — CAN be a real A+ student or trainer or human (or preferably — all of those).
How?
Just take the C- this time and embrace Option #2.
You will be transformed.
I promise.