The Possibilities of Time Travel

I have a student this semester who I realized, too late, was a repeat CI offender. I’ve dealt with difficult students in the past, usually heading off the problem early on with an honest conversation. I’m used to more extreme problems in the classroom—students yelling at other students, etc—so this kid flew under my radar. His problem, I think, is that he cares too much about his academic success and is used to being right about everything. He talks too much, interrupts me, interrupts classmates, questions everything. And on top of that he has a catalogue memory of movie quotations he breaks out when nervous. He’s also prone to extensive sneezing fits. I’m at risk of sounding really evil here, so I should say I don’t think he intentionally sneezes sixty times to interrupt class. But maybe it’s his body’s way of rejecting any voice of authority louder than his own? No, definitely not. But, you know, it can feel that way.

Really, he’s a nice kid, but his absolute ignorance of social cues and his chronic know-it-all-ness has shut down the classroom conversation all semester. Students who were eager to talk early on have become quieter and quieter as this loudmouth dismissed everyone’s opinions but his own, mine included. The point is, I’ve been so trained to see CI as call-campus-security problems that I overlooked his behavior as simply obnoxious and missed the opportunity to shut him down early with a simple conversation. No doubt he would have listened and been more respectful, as I don’t think it’s his intention to be disruptive.

Instead I dealt with his interruptions on a case-by-case basis during class. So if he broke into a page-long quote from The Nightmare Before Christmas (in character), I quietly told him to hold on and redirected the conversation back to the original subject/speaker. I could have saved myself a lot of teeth-gritting and faking nice if I’d just told him in September, “Listen, we all love what you have to say, but you need to let other people get a word in edgewise. And maybe not go off on so many tangents about the possibilities of time travel and the merits of Star Wars over Harry Potter.”

If any of you have this kid in future English classes, you’ll know it’s him, and you can do better than I did. Shut it down early and enjoy the semester without all the interruptions. But I can’t help with the sneezing.