Coping with Seven Disruptive Personality Types in the Classroom

merited, do not be stingy. If they are not, do not extend inauthentic compliments for shabbywork; instead, offer heartfelt empathy, encouragement, and hope for something better nexttime.A question that arises from time to time is whether procrastination is alwayspassive-aggressive as opposed to simply being an innate tendency that a certain person has.This topic comes up frequently in counseling and therapy conversations with students. Ifyou closely examine the behavior, the motives, and the attitudes of students who engage inprocrastination, it becomes apparent that it is a form of passive-aggressive behavior. Underinvestigation, we find that it is not just an innate tendency. That is what students wouldprefer for you to believe. Their view is, “Oh, it just happens. I’m just lazy,” and they write thebehavior off.Procrastination is not just laziness. There is an underlying dynamic here. When you look atthese students’ behavior closely, you see that they take the assignment, go home, and atsome point turn away from it. They have an aversion to it, and that leads to a moment ofrebellion. That is the moment of defiance. The feeling is, “I don’t want to do this,” and they donot put it in words. They cannot even articulate it.The student, perhaps subconsciously, thinks, “Look, I’ve had enough of people telling mewhat to do. My parents have done this, and now here comes an instructor giving me anassignment to do. It’s one more thing I don’t like, and I’m not going to do it when thatinstructor wants me to do it. I’m going to do it on my terms—when I want to do it—even if it’sthe night before the exam.” And that is quite clearly an act of defiance andpassive-aggressive behavior.In contrast, what about those students who require accommodations such as extensions onan assignment because of legitimate reasons? Where would an instructor draw the linebetween understanding real need and enabling students to continue to procrastinate? Thiscan be a big issue on campuses that deal with a lot of nontraditional students, many of whomare working full time or are single parents.The fact is that too many instructors assume the burden, the onus, of taking care of otherparts of the student’s life. That is usually a mistake. One can be very empathic andunderstanding and, at the same time, encounter a pitfall when students appeal forextenuation because they had to take care of their kids that night, somebody had strep, orsomething else. The kids were sick. They had to go to the doctor. The boss asked this personto stay on a few extra hours, or they couldn’t get enough sleep, etc., etc. The list goes on andon.20