[I wrote this in an email yesterday.]

So I lost it and started sobbing in class yesterday, in front of all my students, and today I’m getting very solicitous treatment, which is something about which I’m ambivalent. I know that when students are “bad” on purpose it’s a mistake to let them see that it gets to me, but my students almost never torture me intentionally; they’re usually just utterly clueless about how immature they’re being. When that’s the case, as long as I keep my composure, they remain ignorant of the effects of their behavior, even (or especially) if I try to explain to them in measured words what is happening. Sometimes a very graphic illustration of the harm they are doing–i.e., a usually-calm teacher breaking down in tears (not anger; that’s not productive, I know)–is necessary to shock them into awareness. But the idea of a woman using tears to get what she wants is loathsome to me, even if the tears are genuine, even if they are unstoppable. A (male) friend of mine last year, another then-student-teacher, observed to me that his (female) mentor teacher seemed to exaggerate her feminine fickleness and vulnerability in order to manipulate her students: cried once a month or so like clockwork, said “I’m in a bad mood today, so be nice to me” and such things all the time, and just generally performed her emotions more than necessary. My friend asked me what I thought of that as a woman, and it seemed abhorrent to me, but I also understood, and continue to understand, the temptation of it. It’s difficult to tell when to respond to things as a teacher and when to respond as a person, I suppose.