On Over-attachment and Over-reaction

One of my students complained about his grade, quite rudely in fact. He cut the line of students waiting to speak to me, slammed his paper on the desk in front me, and told me my comments “made no sense” because his ideas were “implied” and he shouldn’t have to “clearly write them out for me to understand them.” Did I bristle? Um yes. What I did do was tell the student to take 24 hours to look over his paper and then come talk to me during my office hours. What I shouldn’t have done was snap back “look at they syllabus” when he asked me when my office hours were. However, by the time we met again we were both much more calm. Not only did I figure out how this student communicated, but also how to approach him, and now he’s taking all his papers to the writing center before he turns them in to me. I think there is a lot to what Boice says about telling a student that it’s best not to discuss things when upset. Though, I’m not sure if I’m comfortable telling the student they are upsetting me and therefore I can’t talk to them. Maybe that’s a bit of my over attachment to my pride and wanting to think I can be professional enough to deal with a student no matter how upsetting I find their behavior. One thing I’ve taken to putting into practice is requiring my students take 48 hours with their returned papers before coming to speak with me about them. I’ve found this helps the student approach the paper/grade discussion with a less of a tendency for an emotional outburst, which allows me to calmly address their concerns and create an environment where the student and I work together, instead of becoming combative.