and so it begins...

I don't have TB, by the way.

I do have a problem child. I have that kid. The theory goes that every class has one -- and, if the instructor is lucky, no more than one. I've dealt with that kids before, but only as a TA. I've never really had to handle one head-on. But I'm pretty sure that kid, in his/her various forms, will be a constant feature of my teaching career, so I had better get used to facing the problem.

Figuring out how to respond to that kid with something that cuts between the Scylla and Charibdis of too much intimacy, on the one hand, and too much smack-down, on the other, is difficult. That kid is not a bad kid. He or she is usually confused. That kid's problems often have little or nothing to do with class material and everything to do with that tangled snarl of questions that connects Does mommy really love me? to What is the nature of the universe? and tries to work Durkheim's theory of totemism into the bargain. That kid can't write the essay because six pages on Durkheim feels insurmountable. This has nothing to do, I think, with that kid's actual grasp of Durkheim. And at the end of the day, it's really not a problem best addressed to the instructor. That kid needs a referral.

I think many of us can point to some painful and awkward communiqué we once launched at an instructor that seemed like a good (if not exactly appropriate) idea at the time. I'm fairly sure I did, though I don't really remember an instance and I have no record to prove it. Perhaps it's better that way...