Hans came to my office hours this morning. He is hopelessly behind. We have moved through correlation and regression and are knocking at t-test's door, and he still doesn't know what a variance is. He has stopped turning in homework.
I advised him to drop the class and start fresh next quarter. He told me that he's afraid to drop any classes, for any reason. Why? Because his father has been telling him, non-stop, that Hans will not and cannot succeed in university. Hans is determined to show him that he's wrong, and is afraid that dropping a class will just reinforce his father's poor opinion of him.
Whether or not we believe Hans should be in college at all, this situation just sucks. I want to find this bastard and beat him up.
Monday, February 12, 2007
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13 comments:
Yanno, I took a biophysics class in undergrad, as a first semester freshman, that I just wasn't prepared for. I did have to drop it and I audited it because it was interesting. I got lots of advice, along the lines of "well, what are you going to do if you can't handle biology" and "Don't audit it, take it or don't take it." I ignored them, and did what was right for me. Hans has gotta do what's right for Hans. Maybe the five-year plan (good heavens, it's a State school) maybe some other major. Maybe some tutoring or some kinda behavioural help. Maybe even a community college and transfer. No shame in any of those.
WtC
That really does suck . . . in so many ways.
I can't see why the father's wrong. You said yourself that you have to be completely direct to point of rudeness to get him to change his behavior. Imagine a parent, he'd have to be beyond rude to get any message across. It's the Asperger in Hans that insists on not dropping his classes, not his father. You must be alert to AS faulty reasoning, and how they always shift blame away from themselves for the failure in their lives.
BTW, I'm Faye, the wife of an aspie. I just set up my Blogger account so my display name changed.
Littlefaith and WtC, you might be right. However, I have trouble seeing this as anything but a failure of counseling. While I don't think Hans belongs here at LSU, he is wicked smart, and I think he would thrive in a more intimate environment. Perhaps his reasoning is faulty, but I haven't seen him try to blame anyone else for his troubles -- except maybe his roommate.
It hurts, to think that a parent either (a) feels forced to be so negative about his child's aspirations or (b) believes his child is so defective that he can't possibly succeed.
Asperger's adds a whole new dimension to this, but I generally dislike those parents. Along with the parents of these people:
"I'm majoring in Business because my dad said I had to. I know I'm failing Business 101...but....yeah"
"I can't drop the class even though I'm failing because my parents said they're paying for it."
"I'm fast tracking because my mom said I had to."
I had advisees at ILU who had horror stories about their parents. Many of them were children of immigrants, and their parents had insisted that they major pre-med. I can't tell you the number of freshmen orientations I attended that were dominated by parents, all wanting to know what their little darlings chances of getting into med school were going to be after shelling out the $30K/year for tuition. The students were sullen and quiet.
One of my advisees, in his senior year with a below 2.0 gpa came into my office asking me to tell him only how he could get the hell out. He preferred leaving without a degree to spending another semester at ILU trying to squeeze some med school possibility out of his transcript.
I was on a committee to determine those freshman who would receive a prestigious research scholarship. One young man's application was stellar, demonstrating several years of graduate-level research experience in biochemistry. Unfortunately his parents had already called the admissions office several times to inform them how special their son was and how he was going to be an M.D./Ph.D.. The purpose of the scholarship was to allow students to pursue unique research opportunities outside of their majors. We did not give the amazing young man the scholarship even though he was probably the most outstanding candidate in the pool, knowing that it would be his parents, and not him, who decided how the money would be spent.
I hate both ends of the spectrum. The parents who don't give a shit, and the parents who think they own their children and control their every move.
Wow--I just want my children to be happy. I would hope that other parents would have the same wish . . .
Somehow, Hans will find his way (with or without the support of his parents).
I'd be suspicious of any self-claim to Aspergers. Hans sounds manipulative, cheap and lazy. Maybe he has heard of Aspergers and running with it. He enjoys mucking people around to feed his ego. Now he's feeling sorry for himself (he doesn't look so sharp when he's failing). You are a sympathetic person so he knows he can go whimper to you, despite having abused your goodwill.
This needn't be a sad ending. Forget Dad. Hans could drop out and do what he really wants to do when he's ready.
I have a really sad ending about a failed M.A. thesis. I mean, Student was not working and I gave him a U last semester. I then discovered that, unbeknownst to me, he had taken two courses from the faculty member who in fact should have been directing the thesis, for reasons of field, all along. 2 courses = 6 credit hours, therefore, he can graduate on the non-thesis option, and by golly, I think he should. And said so. He is Upset because not doing the thesis means losing the opportunity to "define his identity" (sic).
I wrote a one-page point by point narrative of events surrounding this thesis, how I came to be director and how the topic turned out to be what it was - all of it silliness - for my own satisfaction. Nobody needs to see this narrative for any official reason, nobody is worried, the DGS asks no questions and just says, do as you see fit, we know with whom you are dealing. However it was an utterly frustating SAGA and I would love to post my narrative to my blog, it is very funny, but even on an anonymous blog, I deem it a Bad Idea.
This is why it is therapeutic to read your blog.
msprint - Hans has never told me he has Asperger's. That information came from his counselor, although I didn't need confirmation. I have some training in this area.
G - I sent him back to his counselor. Hopefully he'll hear what he needs to hear. I was at the opera this past weekend and a father with Asperger's and his daughter sat behind us. It was terribly annoying and disruptive, and very sad. They finally moved to other seats, leaving us to enjoy the (fine) production.
Wait, how did you know the stranger sitting behind you at the opera had Asperger's?
anonymous - just a guess. I can't be sure, of course.
Perhaps the blame for Hans' problems rest with his father, rather than with Asperger Syndrome.
With that sort of parental reinforcement, an individual would not need another reason to have behavioral problems.
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