Coping with Seven Disruptive Personality Types in the Classroom

play equally escapist video games. In short, they will do virtually anything rather thanplunge into the drudgery of the assignment. Often, this form of escapism continues for daysor weeks until the reality of the deadline approaches and the student is in a virtual panic,cramming o meet it.When therapists have pointed out to such students the ways in which their procrastinatingseem to represent unconscious feelings of rebellion and defiance against the unpleasantacademic demands made by their instructors, their first reactions are usually defensive andskeptical. Upon closer examination of the sequence of choices and decisions that underminetheir ability to work on their assignments, however, these students often grasp how theirdefiance tripped them up, and they find ways to resist their rebellious pleasure seeking andeven come to view their difficult assignments in a more positive light.Part of this process often involves shedding light on how much they resented, as children,their parents’ sometimes-authoritarian demands that they carry out unpleasant tasks like,yes, carrying out the garbage. If it has not occurred to you as of yet, consider now the factthat instructors, like therapists, are often targeted with many of the same intense feelings,both negative and positive, that students have long harbored toward their parents. Thepsychoanalytic term for this is, of course, “transference.” Therefore, instructors can onlyhope that they will have only students who were raised in happy, nurturing families! Most ofus will have to deal with students who were raised in less-than-perfect households and whoexhibit behaviors learned in those settings.Now that we have a more dynamic understanding of the nature of passive-aggressiveprocrastination, what can instructors do about it? First, discussing the subject with yourstudents might lead to some interesting insights on how to motivate some of them toovercome their pattern of procrastination. At the same time, instructors might mention thatthe counseling or psychological service on campus is an excellent resource for dealing withsuch problems.Some instructors who are aware of the prevalence of procrastination let their students knowthat they will periodically but without notice give unscheduled quizzes, adding a cautionarystatement that the students should keep up on their readings in order to be prepared forthese assessments. Even if this does not solve the problem, it will at least hold the offendingstudents accountable for their behavior.A friendlier tack would be to compliment and show consistent interest in the progressstudents make in submitting their assignments and keeping abreast of their reading. Ofcourse, students need to know that you are not only interested in the punctuality of the workbut, even more important, also in the quality of their scholarship. If compliments are19