Monday, January 24, 2011

If anyone who teaches reads this...

How do you deal with a student who's not cranky, not demanding, but is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo needy that you feel like your head's going to explode?

I try to be tolerant - I tell myself the guy may have some undiagnosed disability - but we can't go five minutes in lab without him asking me what we're doing next, or asking if he's doing stuff right, or whatever.

It's like everyone in the room relaxes when he finishes up and leaves.

He's a nice guy and all that, and I hate to discourage him but golly, how's he going to function in the work world if he needs to be reassured/instructed this frequently?

I admit I've been on the point of losing my patience with him a couple times. And closing my office door when it's not my office hours and I know he's in the vicinity just so I don't get sucked into one of his convos. (Out of class, he can be a little whiny).

I remind myself that "everyone is carrying a heavy burden" but it's really getting hard to keep a calm demeanor (this is the second class I've had him in)

1 comment:

Heroditus Huxley said...

I tend to sit mine down and tell them that they have no reason to be as insecure as they're acting; if they continue, I start pulling their work and showing them that they're doing fine. If they still continue, I send them to the campus counseling services, because there's other issues there that I'm not qualified to deal with.

(btw, if you need cheered up, I've posted a picture of my pixie.)