Entitled white students

I don't think I've had as many problems with white students as I've had this quarter. The past several weeks have been particularly disappointing for me. I have three white students who carry themselves with an air of entitlement, mixed with affluence, and the self-perception that they are way smarter than I am. Why are these students like this?

The first student, A, comes up to me in lecture and tells me that he's been going to the other TA's sections. He continues with telling me that he feels that shouldn't need to do the assignments in my class because he's been doing work in the other section. I quickly asked if he was a 1st year student and then explained that he was supposed to go to the section that he was enrolled in. (Freshman do this all the time, I explained to him.) I then said, oh, no wonder why I didn't recognize you when you handed me your midterm. He continued staring at me as I said, well, since you haven't been to any discussions and therefore haven't done any work, you should just drop my section and enroll in the other TA's section so you can get credit for the work you're doing there. A says, ok, and then walks off.

The funny thing is that during this entire conversation, the other TA, T, is sitting right next to me. The moment I turned to T, he said, "that student has NOT been coming to my class. I don't recognize him at all." And it became clear to us how stupid this student was also being because he obviously didn't know who the other TA, T, was. Otherwise he would have not told such a boldfaced lie in front of him. A then proceeds to leave lecture after about 5 minutes. On rare occasion he is in lecture, he is talking or making snide remarks from the back row and often leaves early. He never dropped my class and didn't both to show up again until the very last session.

The second entitled white student I've had to deal with this quarter is M. After one section, she comes up to me holding her midterm bluebook. She has an expression that I easily recognize: furrowed brows, unhappy and downturned lips, and her upper body is scrunched up and tense. She is about to complain about her grade. Just as she opens her mouth, she opens her bluebook. She proceeds to complain about how she feels she didn't deserve the score she got on her long essay question. I ask her: okay, so would you like me to read it and explain my comments to you? She nods, so I read.

I look over my comments and by the time I finish, I realize that I should have given that essay a much lower score and not the equivalent of a B. I explain to her that her focus on "in America if you work hard, you should receive rewards" lacks specificity and her assertion are not adequately supported through her analysis. I am trying to tell her that she's taken a position and written an essay that is more suited for something like a debate-team competition and that the question was asking her to reflect on the issue more along the lines of what we've discussed in class.

Clearly upset and dissatisfied by this answer, her eyes begin to water and she turns red. She is crying and sobbing and between her sniffling, she tells me that I make her feel like she has nothing to contribute to this class because I shoot down all her ideas, and that the only way she feels she can get an A in this class is to agree with me all the time and to tell me what I want to hear. I am quiet and give her space to let it all out. She continues by saying that she worked hard on preparing for the midterm, 8 hours of studying and 10 pages of notes to be precise, and she feels she deserves an A.

I go into counselor mode and tell her that she is incredibly intelligent, that she is a wonderful student, contributes well in class, and that the last thing I want is to brainwash everyone to think like me. I reminded her that on the first day of discussion and in my syllabus, I am clear about my role as their TA - to help students learn how to think and write critically and form logical, coherent arguments to back up their criticisms. I make every effort to encourage all different kinds of perspectives in class discussion and to not be too biased in opinion (a little bias is ok).

She stops crying and the she begins to get fidgety. This next usual stage after a student cries is embarrassment and the overwhelming urge to flee. I urge her to come and talk to me about the texts and lecture if she is worried anything. She nods and quickly packs up her things and runs off.

The irony of the situation is that the rationale she uses is the same one she wrote about in her paper: people (she) should be rewarded (get a good grade) when people (she) worked hard. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with this logic, it is ultimately flawed. Relying on a meritocratic rationale for getting good grades is like saying, I ran really hard so I deserve to win the marathon!

The third student, O, is my favorite entitled white student this quarter. This Tuesday was my last discussion section and as all the students were packing up their things to leave, he approaches me in an angry and almost bullying manner. O talked to me the week before about one of his short answers from the midterm. His issue last week was about a point I had taken off because he didn't identify the text the the key term came from. Last week I told him to check the midterm handout because it asked for context, and if he needed more information, that the professor reminded students to indicate where the key term came up and I reinforced it in discussion section. He left last week after I explained all this to him, so I was surprised that he came at me again this Tues.

O pulled out his midterm handout and pointed that it was not specific in asking for where the key term came. He proceeded to throw the sheet down, point at it and say, "so I deserve this point that you took off because it doesn't clearly say it." I remind him that both the professor and I said that the source was necessary. O is unsatisfied, his volume increases and he begins to move closer to me, in a physically intimidating way. O is about an inch or two taller than me and is definitely bigger than me in overall size, so I step back to try to put some safe space between us.

He pushes me more and tells me that his answer shows context and that I'm being unfair about it and that he deserves the point. I tell him that other students didn't have that problem and if he really feels the need, the professor and I can sit down with him to go through his midterm grade. He gets angrier, begins to throw his things together and turns away from me. He barks: "nevermind." I ask him if he is sure, and he angrily says, "yeah" as he stomps away. I am shaking at this point because I've never had a student try to physically bully me in this manner.

I am not naive about all of this. In fact, I am cognizant of how students may perceive me - as a younger, Asian, woman, who is often a TA in a messy and confusing interdisciplinary class. I am not your average TA because I try to speak with honesty, intention, and with purpose. I work really hard to prepare for teaching and I don't try to bullshit the students when I don't know the answer.

So before anyone calls me a racist and a whitey-hater, I willingly admit that though this may seem technically true, in reality I am employing more of a method of what I call proactive self-preservation. In the article, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" feminist theorist Gayatri Spivak refers to "strategic essentalism" as the deployment of particular aspects of stereotypes in self-presentation in order to gain access to particular kinds resources and achieve specific goals. While Spivak has been criticized for the conceptualization of the term to encompass all self-presentation that is essentialist in nature, I take this consciously and intentionally political strategic approach to teaching.

The strategic essentialism comes in when I factor in the possible perceptions that students may have of me. So sometimes, I may pretend to be soft and passive, to coax them to speak up, at other times, I am the bitchy dragon lady, when I don't want to take shit from them. It's all a complex performance that I have to negotiate and prepare for each and every day because I know what some students think when they see me: a weak, young, Asian, female instructor. Unlike white male and most female TAs, respect is something I never immediately get when I walk through the door.

This quarter has been the worst quarter for dealing with entitled white students. After TAing for 8 quarters, and classroom teaching of college students for more than 3 years now, I can safely say that I have only experienced confrontation, arrogance and entitlement exhibited by white students. It is experiences like these that make me question myself and my ability to be a good teacher. It is experiences like these that make me wonder if I can really survive and take all the bullshit in academia. At this moment, I am not very optimistic.