I have a student who seems to present me with more trouble than the rest combined. You know. That one. I entered class one day and he’s up at the whiteboard. “Teaching.” I stood there. I stared. Things were awkward and I was angry. I said nothing and he sat down and as I walked past he had the nerve to say “Can we just agree I’m basically the teacher’s assistant?” in front of everyone? “No.” I made no eye contact and my posture was rigid as I went up to the front. And I thought my tone made it clear that this wasn’t okay. That I found it incredibly disrespectful, even ignorant, of my walk uphill in the sand both ways. Even knowing it was that I felt slightly threatened and insulted because my position as a GTA is very, very new it played on repeat in my head. I’m still not sure if there’s a best way to react.
When he called himself the TA next time I shut it down. I told him that it was disrespectful and didn’t let him try to talk his way out of it in front of the rest of the class, nor after when he came to apologize. I gave my “you haven’t walked uphill in the snow both ways” bit. I don’t know what I should have said. The problem went away after that. He chilled out a bit after that, though I catch him parroting and wonder if saying anything about it would be reasonable or just me shutting him up because he’s annoying. And even trying to get him to just listen and relax is a struggle. He’s professed horrible ADHD and I know he’s on some sort of post-Vyvanse recovery ride; he was prescribed it but stopped taking it because of how it affected him and I empathize with him. And he wants to argue and talk and espouse common knowledge and I don’t want to tell him he isn’t saying anything anyone in the room hasn’t heard before, that the majority of the class wishes he’d shut it.
So? The interim fix? When he’s really there, really in class and having a good day, I’ll happily engage. I’ll guide not problematize his ideas–not that I see this as . I’ll answer truthfully when he asks if he can write something and say whether or not it’s an accomplishable goal in the parameters of the semester, even though I hate telling people to walk before they run and to run before they jump.