Re: Problem Student?

[john hyman <jhyman@american.edu>]

Kelly Lowe wrote:
> 
> I have a developing situation in my writing center that I am unsure of
> how to handle:
> 
> We have a Russian exchange student who is becoming increasingly
> difficult in terms of accepting what help we give him.  If we don't
> drop everything we are doing and immediatly attend to his needs, he
> gets loud and unruly.  If we don't pick through his papers with a
> fine tooth comb, he does the same (indeed, to my face--I told him I
> would look at the first few pages and work with him on some error
> analysis skills (his language ability is excellent) and he told me to
> read and correct the whole thing--I asked him to leave after that).
> 
> The problem is political--we are a small school that worships the
> students--to the point that nearly all "F's" are negotiable--and if I
> were to "ban" this student, or even have the appearence of doing so,
> it would be a week of Dean City for me--something I try to avoid.
> 
> Any comments?
> 
> Kelly Lowe
> Director of Writing Programs
> Mount Union College
> Alliance, OH 44601
> 330/823.3153
> lowekf@muc.edu
> "In a world ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile." --Hunter
> Thompson


Kelly--

This will be more in the spirit of commiseration than suggestion.  Just 
this week an analogous situation came to a head in our Center.  A 
Japanese graduate student came in a half hour late for an appointment and 
then reacted with surprising hostility when the tutor ended the session 
20 minutes later.  The student argued that "you had 30 minutes to rest 
before I came here, so now we can go over the time."  I interceded to 
explain the logic of the scheduling, and I'm afraid I made things worse 
(though I'm still not sure where I misstepped).  Anyway, the client wound 
up storming off in a flurry that would have been comic if it weren't 
genuine.  Then she returned later in the day to rant some more.  
Similar to the situation you describe, the seeds for all of this were 
planted by a continuing tension between her demands that we "fix" her 
papers and our resistance to operate that way.

I know exactly what you mean by wanting to avoid a "week of Dean City."  
Towards that end, I have decided not to bar this student from the Center, 
but I'm going to insist that only I work with her (not the result she was 
probably hoping for).  And I'm going to create an archive of all of this 
stuff in case I'm ever pressed for details.  I know full well that I'm 
taking a path a low resistance, but I'm not sure that anyone's interest 
will be served by joining the fight on this one.  The warm temperatures 
and blooming cherry blossoms remind me, too, that we're down to a handful 
of weeks left in the term.  I'm not sure I'd handle this the same way in, 
say, late September.

Good luck with this one.

John
-- 
John Hyman                              American University
Director, The Writing Center            Department of Literature
jhyman@american.edu                	4400 Massachusetts Ave, NW
202-885-3911                            Washington, D.C.   20016-8047

"Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine."    Bob Zimmerman